Politico speculates that the committee might be wary of mentioning her lest it inadvertently raise awareness of her write-in candidacy. Uh huh. Is that why they also refused to strip her of her seniority on the Energy committee — because it might raise her name recognition?

Please. They’re doing this for two reasons. One: If Miller beats her, they don’t want her so angry at the party that she’ll vote with Democrats in the lame-duck session out of spite. And two: Increasingly, it looks like they may well be stuck with her for another six years. The latest from Time/CNN has it … 37/37.

The poll, which was conducted between Oct. 15 and 19, found that Murkowski, a write-in candidate, was locked in a dead heat with Republican nominee Joe Miller, a Tea Party favorite who upset her in the Aug. 24 primary. Each of them drew 37% of likely voters, with the Democrat Scott McAdams trailing by double digits with 23%.

But upon further questioning, only 80% of Murkowski’s supporters ruled out the possibility of voting for another candidate if they found “the procedure for casting a write-in vote is different or more complicated” than expected. Ten percent of Murkowski’s supporters said they were either somewhat or very likely to vote for another candidate if they found the procedures more complicated, while another 8% of Murkowski supporters felt that it was “not too likely” that they would vote for another candidate.

It would take a true moron not to be able to master “fill in the oval and write in the name” after watching ads about it for a month. But then, true morons do exist, don’t they?

The other reason they don’t want to attack Murkowski here, I suppose, is that there’s a slim chance the two Republicans will destroy each other, thus positioning the Democrat McAdams to pull the upset. That seems unlikely under these numbers, but I suppose the safe play is to leave Murkowski positioned for victory if Miller fades. Or … is it? At this point, at least among the righty base, disgust with Murky is such that I assume you guys would rather see the Democrat win than the RINO. Exit quotation from an unnamed Republican operative: “[Miller] is taking little counsel from the NRSC, or others, and is running his general election much the same … as his primary. He believes that if it won him the primary, it will work in two weeks. The NRSC is frustrated.”

Update: The NRSC may be holding back but DeMint’s PAC isn’t. Two spots here, one for TV and the other for radio, both dealing with abortion.