Murkowski being welcomed back to Alaska. https://t.co/cXYawEtZW5 pic.twitter.com/9WcfwfeLYP
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 30, 2017
If there's anything Alaskans don't like, it's having Alaska threatened by Washington, D.C. That's why Sen. Lisa Murkowski came out of this historic political week with unique new stature and why Sen. Dan Sullivan hurt himself badly.
On Wednesday, Sullivan told an Alaska Dispatch News reporter that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had delivered a threat against Alaska energy development if Murkowski wouldn't reverse her opposition to the Republicans' repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Sullivan was the third link in a chain of incredible political ineptitude leading from President Donald Trump through Zinke.
Sullivan not only revealed the threat — really dumb — but seemed to take it seriously and, if media reports are accurate, pushed Murkowski to capitulate.
I have no doubt Murkowski was as furious as has been reported. But she didn't blab. She simply froze Interior nominations at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee she chairs — the committee that oversees Zinke's department.
Murkowski came out looking like a steel-spined hero, bucking Washington threats against Alaska to do what was right. I suspect even her conservative Alaska critics got a tingle from the spectacle, if they aren't Republican Central Committee members.
Sullivan came out looking like a pipsqueak.
This is how one Republican consultant described the idea of attacking Lisa Murkowski and the people of Alaska:
“Let me tell you what little bit I know about Alaska and Lisa. When you go to attack those people, you better take two sandwiches because she’ll eat the first one for lunch and maybe give you the second one back.”
That is essentially what I said right after Trump's Interior Secretary delivered his ham handed threat:
If Donald Trump thinks that he can make Alaskans turn on one of their own by threatening our economy he has another think coming.
We may not all agree with each other politically, but if an out of stater attacks one of our own, they are going to witness a circling of the wagons like they have never seen before.
We live in one of the harshest climates on the planet, and are constantly surrounded by predators that will kill us just as soon as look at us, so if that corpulent orange POS thinks that Alaskans cave to threats than he knows nothing about us as a people.
I stand by that.
All that Trump has done is ensure that Lisa Murkowski remains a Senator for Alaska until she, on her own, decides that she no longer wants the job.
Back in 2010 when Murkowski won a write in vote and defeated both the Republican and Democratic candidates I said that she would be almost impossible to defeat in the next election cycle.
The only thing I would change about that statement is to remove the word "almost."
The one characteristic that Alaskans prize above all others is toughness.
Lisa Murkowski stood up against virtually the entire Republican party and a president who is well know for bullying and abusing women.
That is the kind of powerful image that you cannot buy, and the kind of image that intimidates political challengers and energizes voters.
On the other hand, when it comes to Dan Sullivan I do believe I smell blood in the water.
