Northern Lights

When noted lumberjack impersonator Joe Miller won the Republican nomination for Alaska's Class 3 United States Senate seat - the one currently held by Lisa Murkowski - a Miller victory was pretty much expected in November. Then Murkowski announced a write-in campaign when it became apparent to anyone with a brain that Alaska would lose a lot of necessary government subsidies and that support for the man Keith Olbermann calls the Five O'clock Shadow was soft. Now the Democrat in the race - Scott McAdams - is benefiting from the Miller-Murkowski feud. A few polls - including one commissioned by noted financial fascists Club For Growth - show the race tightening between the two Republicans with McAdams gaining at their expense.

As the mayor of Sitka, the 40-year-old McAdams has a good deal of political experience but also plenty of real-life experiences with voters; he's been both a commercial fisherman and a football coach. He is a strong supporter of public education, having served as chairman of the Sitka school board, and he supports more infrastructure projects to connect Alaska communities more efficiently and advocates a modernization of the Alaska Marine Highway, and important water route in the state. A good deal of McAdams's stands on such issues can certainly resonate with voters, and he how has a unique opportunity to promote his views to an electorate whose votes are easily up for grabs in a three-way race with a lower threshold than a traditional two-party contest. (For more on his campaign, go to his Web site.)

It's still too early to tell whether McAdams can pull off a victory, but it's obvious that Miller - who has put himself on record as opposing the minimum wage because it's unconstitutional - has seen his chances for victory diminish faster than glaciers during global warming. Back in August, Miller and his three-day growth shone like the Northern Lights in the Alaska sky. You might say Miller even had that . . . rainbow feel.

But the rainbow has a beard. :-D