Murkowski Trashes Tea Party, Thanks Democrats
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“…in a year when numerous Republicans were cast aside by an angry party base, Murkowski will be the lone lawmaker who lost to a tea party- and Palin-backed challenger in a primary — but is returning to Washington anyway.
And like any good action-movie character mistakenly left for dead, Murkowski’s coming back with a vengeance, picking fights with Palin and the party’s activist wing. (Read: Tea Party)
She tore into Palin in an interview with CBS News last week, telling Katie Couric: “I just do not think that she has those leadership qualities, that intellectual curiosity that allows for building good and great policies.”
Her next target was South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the tea party favorite whose PAC spent generously to support Miller in the general election. “I think some of the Republicans in the Congress feel pretty strongly that he and his actions potentially cost us the majority,” she told POLITICO during a visit to Washington.
Murkowski even told MSNBC that she was heartened by “good, strong showings of support, not only from my Republican colleagues but from my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle”
Nationally, Murkowski’s confrontational attitude toward Palin has won her fans among the likes of New York Times columnist Gail Collins. “The first thing you will want to know,” Collins wrote of Murkowski’s win, “is that this will make Sarah Palin miserable.”
Republican consultant Rick Wilson warned that Murkowski risks looking like something of a “sore winner” if she keeps up this act, noting: “It’s obvious that Lisa Murkowski is one of these folks that is not constrained by a lot of team-play instincts.”
Murkowski’s hostility toward Palin is nothing new: Palin defeated Murkowski’s father, former Gov. Frank Murkowski, in a 2006 primary…”
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