Get ready, Alaska. You're about to hear a lot more Joe Miller on the radio.

The Tea Party Express, a California-based group that has said it will spend "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to out U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, announced Wednesday morning that it's buying $100,000 worth of radio ads to support Joe Miller.

"We're kind of lighting the fuse here with some radio ads that will transition to television ads, and then eventually having the Tea Party Express actually coming up to Alaska," said Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell, who works in California but grew up in Anchorage.

The ad starts off with a list of the U.S.' problems, including bailouts and government-run healthcare. "The country is in crisis," a concerned voice intones. "We need leaders that will stand for ‘We the People,' and in the race for U.S. Senate, that candidate is conservative Republican Joe Miller."

Asked about when Lower 48 Tea Partiers might start showing up in Alaska, Russell said they were still working that out (though in a recent conversation a Dispatch writer had with a Tea Party employee, the employee asked about the feasibility of putting a tour bus on one of the ferries that run from Washington state to Alaska.)

"We've been talking for awhile about how to hit the Southeast as well as the Interior, but we're going to keep that under our hats until we get it figured out," Russell said.

In a meeting over coffee last week, Murkowski said she was disappointed with the tenor of the race so far. "I have yet to hear from my opponent why he feels he can best represent the state of Alaska," she said.

Answering a question about why Miller has struck such a chord with the Tea Partiers, Russell mentioned Miller's strong support of constitutional principles. "It's a combination of Murkowski being an entrenched Republican that we feel has moved a long ways off from the principals of the party," he said.

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.