An Open Letter to Lisa Murkowski
Note: The following letter is from a neighbor whose social media/online presence is basically restricted to Facebook. She told me she wanted to post an open letter to Senator Lisa Murkowski as Anchorage Daily News refused to publish it but didn’t know how. After reading it, I told her I’d be proud to have her letter as my first Medium post.
Dear Senator Murkowski,
I am a life-long Republican voter who proudly voted for you in 2004 and 2016 and even prouder to have written your name down in 2010 as we made history. That was truly a remarkable achievement. I’m delighted that we Alaskan women, Republicans and Democrats, made it happen.
I belong to several Republican women’s groups. I’ve raised money for you. We’ve even met several times, although it was under my former married name.
I won’t be voting for you in 2022.
Your abdication of your Constitutional duties as a US Senator is absolutely heartbreaking. I believed in you. I was proud to call you my senator. That pride no longer exists.
Your complicity and allegiance to Donald Trump is troubling. Your silence of children being kidnapped with some even being sexually assaulted disqualifies you as a US senator. It even disqualifies you as a human being.
Your complicity and silence of Trump’s trade war while Alaska’s seafood industry suffers indicates that you are not the person we thought you were. The Lisa Murkowski I voted for would have fought like hell for Alaska’s industries. The Lisa Murkowski I knew echoed Uncle Ted’s motto, “To hell with politics — do what’s right for Alaska”.
However, you’re not doing what’s right for Alaska. You’re doing what’s right for Trump and McConnell.
I don’t even want to begin discussing the danger Trump puts America in by revoking security clearances from those with the expertise and knowledge to help this clown show called the Trump presidency. This White House is so incompetent they can’t even be in the Situation Room — the most secure room in the world — without being recorded!
Finally, your support for Kavanaugh disqualifies you as a supporter of women.
My inner circle has been talking to Democratic women. It’s been agreed that many women — Republican and Democrat — will update their voter registration as Nonpartisan or Undeclared for the 2022 primary and vote for any one of your opponents. That’s the great thing about Alaskan Republican politics — there’s never a shortage of people who want to be elected to higher office.
I know for a fact that your 2010 primary loss was a personal humiliation. Your 2022 primary loss will be an even bigger humiliation.
If you somehow survive the primary, you have no viable path to win a general election. With your allegiance to Trump, you have alienated a great deal of Alaskan women. Many of us have even left the Republican Party in horror and disgust. You may want to remember you owe your senate career to women. Not even Russian hackers can save your seat.
The demographics you are pursuing, the alt-right, doesn’t exist in large numbers in Alaska to sustain a victory for you. Your 2010 victory should have told you that. Plus, in addition to their racism and anti-Semitism, the alt-right voters you are pursuing are also misogynistic. Unless you have plans on attaching a penis, you will not be receiving their votes.
Many of us have joked that you will probably take that route as you seem to be desperate to be part of “McConnell’s Boys Club”.
Without women, you won’t win another election in Alaska.
Opposing Kavanaugh is something that both Republican and Democratic women have gotten behind.
If you want to know how we women — and voters in general — feel about you, hold a town hall.
However, I know you won’t. Cowardice seems to be a Murkowski trait handed down from generation to generation.
In closing, just know this: Women swept you into office, Women will kick you out of office.
That’s a guarantee.
Linda