Enjoy Palin and McCain biggest winners in US primaries

Palin and McCain biggest winners in US primaries

LARA MARLOWE in Washington

SARAH PALIN and John McCain, who headed the Republican ticket in the 2008 presidential election, were the biggest winners in Tuesday’s primaries, 70 days before all-important mid-term elections that will renew the entire US house of representatives and one-third of the senate.

Their relative influence has been reversed, with Palin playing kingmaker in contests from Florida to Alaska, and McCain indebted to his former vice-presidential running mate for her support in fending off a challenger from the far right, populist Tea Party movement.

By the time ballots were counted yesterday morning, Palin could revel in confirmed victories for four candidates who she endorsed in Arizona and Florida, with an apparent fifth victory in her native Alaska.

Palin and the California-based Tea Party Express may have unseated Lisa Murkowski, one of the most powerful Senate Republicans, in the Republican primary in Alaska.

The Tea Party earlier triumphed in Nevada and Kentucky on a platform opposing taxation and government spending.

In league with Palin, the Tea Party propelled Joe Miller, a virtually unknown lawyer from Fairbanks who attended West Point and Yale and won a Bronze star in the 1991 Gulf War, to a surprise 1,960-vote lead over Murkowski, the scion of an Alaskan political family who have repeatedly clashed with Palin.

Definitive results will not be known for two weeks, when all absentee ballots have been counted.

Murkowski enjoyed a seemingly unassailable 37-point lead in an opinion poll last month, and far outspent Miller. Buoyed up by $600,000 (€473,000) in advertising money from the Tea Party, Miller portrayed Murkowski as the heir to a dynasty, and a pro-abortion liberal.

Palin made pre-recorded, automated “robocalls” on Miller’s behalf. “I am absolutely certain that [Palin’s support] was pivotal,” Miller told the Anchorage Daily News .

Murkowski blamed Palin for her probable defeat, saying, “I think she’s out for her own self-interest. I don’t think she’s out for Alaska’s interest.”

In Arizona, Palin played the opposite role, supporting McCain, the establishment Republican incumbent, over his Tea Party challenger.
coppied by http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0826/1224277610078.html