Faux Rebellion

As of this writing, it appears that Lisa Murkowski is leading in her attempt to keep the Alaska senate seat to which she was appointed by her father. Murkowski is running as a write-in candidate, and if she wins she will be the first write-in senator in more than 50 years. Her main opponent is Joe Miller, who defeated her in the Republican primary running as a Tea Party-backed insurgent. And Miller does, in fact, hold some rather radical views; among other things he supports repeal of the 17th amendment (direct election of senators) and gigantic tax cuts.

In this anti-establishment year, how did the establishment candidate Murkowski hold off Miller's outside challenge? By turning the act of writing her name on the ballot into a rebellious bit of defiance. Her advertising in the last month of the campaign was mostly about how to spell her name. She convinced thousands of Alaskans that ignoring the names printed on the ballot and writing in hers was a blow to the system, a rejection of the choices forced on them by the powers that be and an endorsement of some sort of empowering outsiderism. To me this perfectly encapsulates the mood of many American voters. They are unhappy with the existing power structure but not sure what they would prefer, so given the choice they opted for a purely symbolic attack on the power structure over a candidate who really offered different policies.