Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski doesn’t seem to be terribly afraid of primary threats. She did, after all, win reelection with a rare write-in campaign after losing a 2010 primary to right-wing candidate Joe Miller, who was supported by the state’s celebrity former governor, Sarah Palin. So when Donald Trump made a menacing gesture earlier this year, after Murkowski wouldn’t commit to voting for his reelection, she probably didn’t visibly tremble:
Similarly, when Murkowski was mulling her vote on Brett Kavanaugh (as Trump notes, she eventually voted “no”), Palin came out of forced political retirement to hint that she might attempt a comeback in 2022, as USA Today reported at the time:
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a crucial Republican swing vote in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, received a playful prodding from the former governor of Alaska on Twitter.
“I can see 2022 from my house,” Sarah Palin tweeted on Friday afternoon, mentioning Murkowski. The tweet was widely viewed as a thinly veiled threat to challenge Murkowski in her 2022 reelection campaign to the Senate.
“From my house” references a 2008 Saturday Night Live sketch mocking Palin, then John McCain’s running mate. To this day, many Americans believe it was Palin that said, “I can see Russia from my house,” when in fact the line was delivered by Tina Fey.
Even in 2018, people had to be reminded of the catchphrases Palin used or inspired and then appropriated. But now that Murkowski is back in the news again for vacillating on a Trump Supreme Court nominee, Palin is back as well, this time with a rather peculiar homemade video that she put up on Instagram. It’s very much worth the two-and-a-half-minute viewing time:
I don’t know if this means Palin has been taking some sort of community-college filmmaking course or has developed a previously obscured artsy touch. I do think it’s likely Murkowski may welcome a Palin 2022 challenge as one that would dry up more credible opposition by attracting national wing-nut money to Mama Bear’s cause. It is clear Palin will do just about anything to stay in the public eye, as illustrated by her performance of “Baby Got Back” on The Masked Singer earlier this year:
As for the content of the new video (aside from the overelaborate setup of the punch line via Palin’s constant professions of love for her house), her absence from politics has not improved Palin’s grasp of current events: She twice insists that Murkowski supporting a quick vote on Amy Coney Barrett would accord with the wishes of a majority of Americans (not true at all). Perhaps the former governor and the current senator are actually buddies, and the latter put the former up to this stunt as a joke or a secret handshake.
