Family ties inflame Senate race in Alaska
FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- She wants to be known simply as Lisa. A smart, direct, down-to-earth neighbor who happens to be a US senator.
Lisa is running for a second term in this land of the midnight sun, and at the moment is on the campaign trail. The aides shuttling her from event to event wear buttons that display her first name in bold capital letters. Her last name, Murkowski, is reduced almost to fine print. The same is true of her lawn signs and posters all over the state.
It's part of the strategy: to distinguish and distance herself from the other, better-known member of the family -- her father, Governor Frank H. Murkowski -- who, according to some polls, has become the least-liked governor in Alaska's history.
His descent began when, after being elected governor in 2002, the Republican stalwart vacated the Senate seat he held for 22 years and appointed his Republican daughter to finish his fourth term.
Alaskans were indignant. Cries of "nepotistic monarchy" hounded father and daughter, and now, as Lisa Murkowski fights to keep her office, the issue has become all-important, both in Alaska and in Washington, D.C. The outcome of the race could decide which party controls the US Senate.
Political analysts say there's little difference between Lisa Murkowski and her Democratic challenger, former governor Tony Knowles, on the issues that matter most to Alaskans: the economy and the development of natural resources.
The Republican-dominated state consistently has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. In July, Alaska posted a jobless rate of 7.2 percent, compared with the national average of 5.5 percent.
Murkowski and Knowles are in lock step with voters who overwhelmingly support oil drilling in the Arctic coastal plain, construction of a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope, and logging in roadless areas of national forests -- all of which, it is believed, would create jobs and generate revenue.
Statewide polls show Knowles holding a slight lead, but both sides consider the race a statistical dead heat. Inevitably, the political discourse comes back to how Murkowski got her job.
"It's certainly been made an issue by my opponents who want to continue to fan that flame," said Murkowski during a car ride to North Pole, a small town outside Fairbanks.
"I haven't asked anybody to like it. What I'm asking is that people judge me on my performance," she said.
Her most vocal opponents have been three Democratic state legislators who succeeded, despite legal challenges, in placing an initiative on the November ballot that would repeal the governor's ability to fill Senate vacancies.
The initiative is widely seen as a partisan castigation.
But censure also has come from Republicans. Murkowski's chief opponent in the Aug. 24 GOP primary, Mike Miller, whom she defeated handily, repeatedly called her appointment "a scandal."
Murkowski, 47, a lawyer, was a relatively obscure two-term state legislator with a reputation as a thoughtful and independent politician who was unafraid to go against her party. She supported tax increases, backed limited gun control and, on the abortion debate, proclaimed herself in favor of abortion rights "with qualifications."
As a US senator, she has put in long hours. Three times a month, she traveled home to Anchorage to meet with constituents and spend time with her husband, a small-business owner, and two young sons.
"She's worked hard," said Gerald A. McBeath, political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But he said that in her 20 months in office, "She hasn't delivered any huge victory for Alaska. Not yet."
She has steered some social-service and healthcare dollars to her state, but she hasn't made any progress in opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, or in getting the natural gas pipeline approved.
