Alaska Republican nominee for Senate Joe Miller really, really doesn’t want to answer questions

At a town hall rally at a public school, Alaska Dispatch blogger Tony Hopfinger tried to chase down Senate candidate Joe Miller to ask him about his time at the Fairbanks Northstar Borough, where Miller is accused of using borough equipment in a 2008 leadership contest. However, instead of answering questions, Miller’s security handcuffed and detained Hopfinger.

From the Dispatch:

Hopfinger was reportedly pressing Miller on whether the candidate had ever been reprimanded for politicking while working at the Fairbanks North Star Borough in 2008. Alaska Dispatch and other media have sued for the release of records related Miller’s time at the borough. Various accounts of what happened next generally agree on this course of events:

• Two or three bodyguards told Hopfinger to stop asking questions and to leave the building.
• Hopfinger continued to ask questions while apparently videotaping the candidate.
• Bodyguards told him that if he persisted they would arrest him for trespassing, but refused to identify themselves to Hopfinger.
• Hopfinger asked why he was trespassing, as the event was at a public school. Seconds later, he was then put in arm-bar and later handcuffed and sequestered at one end of a hallway for at least 30 minutes. He was told, “You’re under arrest.”
• Anchorage Police arrived on the scene shortly after.

Hopfinger was released by the police with no charges. Hopfinger told the Huffington Post:

“Getting handcuffed by somebody you don’t know at a public school, no one had said it was a private event or cast it that way, I mean intimidated, yeah [I was]. But I guess I was more pissed off. Miller, I felt, was going to answer my question on the reprimand part,” said Hopfinger.

“I think, just like in other parts of the country, the media is finding itself having a hard time doing its job in this political cycle because, whenever we ask questions, there are certain candidates out there who decry ‘lamestream media’ or whatever. Mr. Miller has had plenty of time to answer questions. He has been given plenty of opportunities. He somehow believes he shouldn’t be questioned about his background and yet he wants a job in six years, to a post where there are only 100 in the entire country, and we are not supposed to ask questions about anything of his past. There is a little bit of shoot the messenger. It is happening up here, and other parts of the country. There are certain candidates who just want to turn this around and act like it’s the media causing the problem. That has always been there, that element. It is just more ramped up this political cycle.”

I’ll go ahead and let Andrew take this one:

This would be a relatively small kerfuffle in my view if it didn’t reflect the core of the Palin model of politics: bypass the non-Republican media entirely, refuse to answer questions or be accountable for factual errors, always sequester candidates in docile, friendly crowds, and, if necessary, restrain, hold back or even physically assault journalists doing their job. It scares me.

Related posts:

1. Veteran Nevada Republican lawmaker really, really hates Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle
2. Alaska Republican candidate for Senate Joe Miller compares Senator Murkowski to a prostitute
3. Alaska candidate for Senate Joe Miller thinks unemployment benefits are not “constitutionally authorized”