CNN "State Of The Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript
Interview
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CROWLEY: Joining me now, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Senator, thank you so much for being here at such an early hour out there, I know. Let me first ask you --
MURKOWSKI: Thank you.
CROWLEY: -- when you decided to become a write-in candidate Friday, Senator Jim DeMint, who, as you know, has been a supporter of Tea Party candidates, as your opponent is a Tea Party candidate, he called in response to what you did, he called you a big-tent hypocrite, saying these people all talk about how they want people in the Republican Party, and then the minute they lose, they go on out and run as independents and they leave the party. Can I get your response to that?
MURKOWSKI: Well, let me tell you, Jim DeMint or the Tea Party Express coming out of California, far be it for them to determine whether or not the senator representing the people of Alaska is conservative enough for them.
What I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to do is represent the people of my state. So, you know, maybe -- maybe from Jim DeMint's perspective, you know, I'm not conservative enough for him. But the question is, do I represent the values of the people of the state that I represent? Do I stand for what they value? And that's what we're doing here. That's what this write-in campaign is all about. It's giving the people of Alaska an opportunity to weigh in and to have a choice in an election where you had Joe Miller, with 11.9 percent of the electorate, and a Democrat that took 3.4 percent of the electorate, and where is everybody else in the middle?
And this is something that I hope Alaskans get engaged in and they say, wait a minute, we want to have a voice in this electoral process. That's kind of our constitutional right here. So Jim can say what he's going to say. That's fine. I'm going to listen to what the people of Alaska have to say and who they feel best represents the future of our state and the values of our state. This is about Alaska.
CROWLEY: But with all due respect, Senator DeMint and the Tea Party people from California didn't vote in the Alaska primary. Alaskan Republicans voted in them, and they voted you out. So what happened? And since they voted you out, doesn't it look like sore loser to now launch this write-in campaign?
MURKOWSKI: Let me respond to that, because that's a perfectly legitimate question. There is a process there.
But what happened in my particular race, you had the Tea Party Express, this California-based group, come in at the last minute in a campaign, run a mudslinging, smear -- just a terrible, terrible campaign, with lies and fabrications and mischaracterization. They came in, they dumped $600,000 into a small market here in Alaska, and they absolutely clearly influenced the outcome of that election.
But, again, keep in mind, keep in mind, you have a process here where so many Alaskans did not have an opportunity to speak up and vote for the person that they wanted to, which--
CROWLEY: But isn't that the process? They could have come and voted, were they Republicans -- isn't that how the process works? And isn't there a point that you're now kind of undermining the Republican Party?
MURKOWSKI: It's not about undermining the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. It's about representing the people of your state, of my state, the state of Alaska. And if the people of the state of Alaska are going to stand up and say, Lisa, you've got to stay in this, you've got to give us an opportunity to participate, to show you, to show everyone who we want to represent us, give us a choice.
After the election results came in, what happened was unprecedented in terms of the volume of calls, the e-mails, the faxes, the Facebook pages that popped up. The number of people that said, you have got to give Alaskan voters a chance.
And so a write-in process is absolutely a part of that electoral process. I am listening to my constituents. That's what it's all about. It's not trying to make the Republican Party happy. It's not trying to make Jim DeMint happy. It's trying to respond to the people of the state of Alaska.
I'm going to give them a choice. And if the people on November 2nd say, well, we don't like her, that's fine. But that's part of what we're doing here. That's part of the process as well.
CROWLEY: Well, what do you think of Senator DeMint and his efforts this year to back Tea Party candidates, including your opponent?
MURKOWSKI: It's absolutely his right, it is his prerogative. I mean, anybody can step up and say, I want to see more people that are more of my ilk, my mind-set. That's fine. They can help them with that. I don't think that it's particularly helpful to undercut fellow Republicans, but as I say, it's his prerogative.
CROWLEY: But your opponent's a Republican, so he's not really undercutting Republicans. He's kind of opting for nonestablishment Republicans.
MURKOWSKI: And again, he certainly has that right, to help whatever members he may want. If he wants to bring in insurgents --
CROWLEY: Do you think he's started a civil war inside the Republican Party?
MURKOWSKI: You know, is it a civil war? I don't know. I think that he has made people uncomfortable. I think that he has kind of rattled the cages. Whether it advances to a full-on civil war, I don't know. My -- what I'm looking at right now is what's going on in my state. I'm responding to that. And quite honestly, what's happening within the conference is -- I'm not focused on that. I'm focused on what's going on here back home.
CROWLEY: And what is, in your opinion, wrong with your opponent, insofar as the Republican Party is concerned?
MURKOWSKI: I'm not -- I'm not going to define people by labels, who's a real Republican, who's not a real Republican.
What I look at is, do you represent the values of the state of Alaska? Do you represent the people here in terms of what it is that they need, they hope for, what they hope for their future? And Joe Miller simply does not represent that. He is suggesting to us, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many, many Alaskans, some pretty radical things. You know, we dump Social Security. No more Medicare. Let's get rid of the Department of Education. Elimination of all earmarks.
You know, he is -- he has taken an approach that is just, plain and simple, more radical than where the people of the state of Alaska are. Now, they all want to make sure that we're reducing our spending, that we're being responsible. I want to do that too. I want to work on that as well. But I'm also very cognizant of the fact that we live in a state where we're not connected to anybody's transportation grid. We're not connected to an energy grid that allows us to have lower energy costs.
So what I've been working to do, is instead of eliminating agencies and say these fast and easy answers, I've been working to make sure that we've got adequate transportation. I've been working to make sure that we can afford energy within our villages and in our communities.
These simplistic answers, these glib answers that basically offer no positive solutions, I don't think are what the people of Alaska are hoping for. And they have said that to me. They've said, don't leave us with that option. CROWLEY: And, finally, Senator, you took over a week to make this decision about running as a write-in against the now-nominated Republican senator -- or the Republican candidate. So let me ask you, I'm assuming you polled in the field, I'm assuming you talked to your colleagues in the U.S. Senate. There have not been, as far as we can tell, except for one senator, any kind of successful write-in campaign for the U.S. Senate. What makes you think you can win this?
MURKOWSKI: Because Alaskans believe that we can win this. Because we believe that doing the right--
CROWLEY: Did you poll?
MURKOWSKI: -- thing for our state makes this winnable.
You know, there have been a lot of polls that are out there, but I'll be the first one to tell you, Candy: This is a tough hurdle. Winning a write-in campaign is going to be tough. But don't you tell Alaskans that we can't do tough things. You don't think we can fill in an oval and learn to spell Lisa Murkowski? We can figure this out. Our state's future is on the line, and we're going to listen to what Alaskans have to say. We're not going to be listening to the pundits back in Washington, D.C. We're not going to be listening to the naysayers. We're going to be listening to those people who live and work and raise their families and are worried about their jobs, their economy. This is what we're focused on right now.
CROWLEY: Senator Lisa Murkowski, I will tell you this, you sure know how to make a race interesting. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you along the way.
MURKOWSKI: Oh, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
MURKOWSKI: Thank you.
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