From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage -

Scott McAdams told a supportive crowd last night to have faith that he can win the U.S. Senate race over Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski.

"That group of folks that are in the Miller camp, they have got a faith in him that defies reason. I need for the people in this room to not look for reasons to lose faith in themselves, and their own beliefs, and in this campaign," McAdams said.

McAdams, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, drew an enthusiastically friendly audience of more than 150 people to his crowded "Town Hall" at the Spenard Recreation Center in Anchorage. McAdams has a similar event set up for Fairbanks tonight and one in Palmer on Thursday.

McAdams and his supporters are trying to keep Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents from voting for write-in Republican candidate Murkowski in an attempt to keep Tea Party-backed Republican nominee Miller from winning the race. McAdams is running well behind Miller and Murkowski in the polls, although it's problematic to accurately poll a write-in.

McAdams ended his town hall by urging the crowd to "vote your values, not your fears. Tell your friends to vote their values, not their fears. We can win this race, we will win this race."

McAdams said that if "we do as well as the average losing Democrat in a two way race, in this election we win by a landslide." He said the most recent poll showed him gaining ground at a pace that puts him on a course to win. (He was talking about a poll by the Public Policy Polling group for the liberal website Daily Kos in which 35 percent said they'd vote Miller, 26 percent McAdams and 35 percent "someone else" - when asked most of those said Murkowski.) Polling from late last month put McAdams' support down in the teens to low 20 percent range.

McAdams, at his town hall last night, said on development he believes that:

"Alaskan resource extraction is the progressive choice in a global marketplace." He said if the oil doesn't come from Alaska then it will come from another nation that doesn't have the same environmental safeguards and workers rights.

"Every time we take a plane trip to Seattle, every time I buy a pair of shoes with petroleum in its sole I export a little bit of environmental degradation to a place in the developing world," he said.

McAdams said he supports mining but not the proposed Pebble mine, calling it the "wrong mine in the wrong place in the wrong era of history" that would endanger the Bristol Bay red salmon fishery.

He said he "would be a strong supporter of a woman's right to choose."

McAdams' campaign has been overshadowed by the brawling campaigns of Republicans Murkowski and Miller. One person asked McAdams last night what he thought of Miller's vow not to answer any more questions about his background.

"Regarding Joe Miller's personal problems, I guess I don't have a whole lot of commentary. I think what people have such a problem with and struggle with is that he has come out with such strong policy positions in one regard but he has lived a very different lifestyle that's inconsistent with his perspectives and his ideology…If I had my way, if I had my wish, both the conversation in rooms like this and especially the dialogue in our state's media would be focused on the issues as opposed to this train wreck nobody can take their eyes off of in the form of a family feud between Sarah (Palin's) endorsed candidate and the senator," he said.



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