There were three Republican Senators who voted against the so-called ““skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare in July 2017. One was John McCain of Arizona, who made a dramatic return to DC that week after a diagnosis of brain cancer. The other two were women who had been bucking their party all that week, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. All, it could be argued, put principle before party.
The female senators were on receiving end of insults from male officials. “They were told that they… deserve a physical reprimand for their decisions not to support Republican health-care proposals.”
Senator Murkowski is particularly interesting to me because she has won three full terms to the Senate, yet has never won a majority of the vote. “Murkowski was appointed to the U.S. Senate by her father, Frank Murkowski, who resigned his seat in December 2002 to become the Governor of Alaska. She completed her father’s unexpired term, which ended in January 2005. She ran for and won a full term in 2004,” with 48.5% of the vote.
“She ran for a second term in 2010. She lost the Republican Party nomination to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller. She then ran as a write-in candidate and defeated both Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the General Election,” with 39.5% of the vote, “making her the first U.S. Senator to be elected by write-in vote since Strom Thurmond [of South Carolina] in 1954.”
In fact, I predicted that victory in this very blog on 2 November 2010:
“But I will go out on a limb to say that I think Lisa Murkowski will barely retain her Senate seat in Alaska. Three-way polling is much less reliable than that done for a two person race.
“Good news: her name will appear on a list of potential write-in candidates. Bad news: there are about 100 people on the list. Good news: she has great name recognition in the state. Bad news: she’s been around a long time, and her father before her. Good news: it is established that a vote for a write-in candidate must be counted, if the intent is clear.”
So someone drawing the three pictures on this page could be seen as voting for Murkowski, like so:
“The French word for sea is MER + COW + SKI = Murkowski.”
In 2016, she won again, with 44% of the vote. The political threats have not fazed her, maybe because she doesn’t have to run for office again until 2022.
For ABC Wednesday
We need a better healthcare.
My ABC WEDNESDAY
Sounds like an interesting and determined lady..
i wish more write in candidates could win. the parties give us such losers.
Healthcare…. a problematic issue everywhre I guess… People say, It is to expensive but I think that the cause of that is mostly due to the high salaries the top-managers receive…
One can not be ‘sick’ in any way or one is in deep trouble… although quit different from where you are living.. overhere are lots of people sicker than they should be due to lack of money
How wonderful, what a great idea… you make me thinking, I think I go shopping later on today and make one of those for myself
Have a ♥-warming ABC-Wesnes-day / -week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-w-team)
http://melodymusic.nl/21-m/
“Physical reprimand”? Now that sounds alarming.
Great post but one I would just like to forget ~ thanks,
A Shutterbug Explores ~ aka (A Creative Harbor)
Good when someone votes with their conscience.
For someone still kind of new (and weary of this strange system at the same time), I am not able to bring any beneficial opinion to the table.
Like your comment about a boat being a handy thing to have with all these recent floods!
She and Collins are all the GOP has for keeping that party from being pure evil. McCain and Graham are wishy-washy. They make a move to stand up to the devils, but most often, if not always, in the end, they sit down with them.
Ever since this human joke of Trump was elected I gave up to try to understand American politics.
The American political system is too confusing to understand.
It is good she won on her own rights the second time round.
Lovely post
Thanks for sharing
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