Joe Miller has been having a rough go of it. The Republican Senate nominee in Alaska has been the subject of media scrutiny first for an incident involving his private security guards, and now for ethics violations that have come to light.
When Miller's guards handcuffed an Alaska reporter at a town hall, they claimed it was because the reporter was "stalking" Miller. The reporter had indeed been asking Miller questions after the event, which was open to the public, specifically about accusations of ethics violations while Miller was working as an attorney at the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The Alaska media was locked in a legal battle with Miller over the release of Miller's personnel record from the borough; with the media seeking release of the record, Miller claimed that releasing it would violate his right to privacy, and the journalists claimed he'd ceded that right when he chose to run for office.
Miller already had a rocky history with the Alaska media, having vowed that he would not answer questions about his personal background. That stance made him look foolish in light of a string of revelations about how Miller and his family had benefited from the very federal largesse (farm subsidies, unemployment benefits) that he's spent his campaign condemning.
