Great news: Incumbent sore loser to launch desperate bid to keep power

Hey now, ingrates. She’s doing this for you.

“Believe you me, the easier path would be to pack it all up and go do something different,” she said. “If I had not heard this call from Alaskans, I would not be deliberating as I am.”…

“It is people from all walks of life, every corner of the state, who are concerned about Alaska’s future and concerned enough to take action on it,” she said. “I’m a public servant. My job by definition is to listen to my constituents. And there was a process in place — a primary election — that’s certainly one way that you listen to your constituents.”

She added: “When you think about the outcome of that, in a closed Republican primary, how many Alaskans were actually able to weigh in? So what is the will of the constituency? When you hear this outpouring of support and concern — concern about the future of the state of Alaska and our representation here in the Senate — you do feel a responsibility.”

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A “well-placed source” told NRO earlier that the official word will come tonight. Sure sounds like it: Apparently, her supporters are promising a “campaign kickoff” at 5 p.m. Alaska time, which means 9 p.m. ET, which means Murkowski’s team is really stupid. Who’s going to care at 9 p.m. on a Friday evening? This should have been done within a day or two of conceding to Miller. As it is, not only have they given him some time alone in the spotlight and risked annoying voters with the will-she-or-won’t-she drama, but by pulling this hot on the heels of O’Donnell’s win in Delaware, they look astoundingly tone-deaf. The big narrative this week has been tea-party upstarts slaying the entrenched establishment dragons. And now Lisa Murkowski’s going to cap that off with a big rally dedicated to … keeping the dragons entrenched? How tin-eared do you have to be to make Mike Castle look good to grassroots conservatives by comparison?

That’s not to say she can’t win — the Murkowski brand is well known in Alaska, and she can promise with some justification that she’ll bring home more pork than her rivals — but even so, looong odds. Presumably there’s not a single prominent Republican incumbent in America who’ll campaign for her, but if you see even a timid endorsement from Snowe or Collins or Scott Brown, well, then we’ll know that the fateful hour is close at hand. Exit question: Can we all agree that sore-loser Republicans who try write-in campaigns after flaming out in a primary should no longer be welcome in the party? Oh wait — whoops!

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