For those of you speaking nicely of Lisa "Arrogant So-and-So" Murkowski, read this.

[joeybee12]

it ain't over, and a lot of those votes are gonna get thrown out...she should have stayed out...Miller is toxic...we would have gotten this seat...I hate her.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013340139_elexalaska04.html

ANCHORAGE — Even as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski appeared to be ahead by a commanding margin as a write-in candidate for re-election, her leading opponent said he was optimistic he ultimately would win. Amid the mixed signals, elections officials said they would begin manually verifying write-in votes next week, sooner than initially planned.

By Wednesday, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, the "Write-in Votes" category had 41 percent of the vote, compared with 34 percent for Joe Miller, the Republican nominee and tea-party favorite who had been endorsed by former Gov. Sarah Palin. Democrat Scott McAdams had 24 percent.

"Our goal was 40 percent and up, 10,000 votes," said Steve Wackowski, a spokesman for the Murkowski campaign. "We are at 41 percent, and we're up 13,500 votes, so we're feeling very good."

The senator, however, stopped short of declaring victory. In addition to the pending write-in count, as many as 30,000 absentee ballots remained to be counted.

[arbusto_baboso]

1. Murkowski has the same extreme views as Miller.

She's just smart enough to not trumpet them loudly in the media.

I have family in Alaska; I know the skeletons in her closet.

[joeybee12]

2. If we had a 50-state strategy like we did in 2006, then we would have

challenged more, would have probably gotten those skeletons out.

[madinmaryland]

3. WRONG: If either Murkowski or Miller had run without the other one in the race,

they would have won handily. McAdams only had lukewarm support from the State Dem's until late in the year. The only dem who could have had a shot at winning against either was for McAdams to get out of the race and for Tony Knowles to jump into the race as the Democratic nominee. But Tony Knowles had no desire to get into the race.

[joeybee12]

6. WRONG! Miller was toxic by the end...his 34% would have been all

he'd gotten.

[MattyGroves]

19. Republicans would have voted for Miller in the end.

Murkowski gave people an option to vote Republican (which is what Murkowski will vote as) w/out having to support Miller.

If Murkowski hadn't been in the race I see no evidence that indicates that enough Republicans would have stayed home to swing the vote to McAdams.

McAdams only hope from the beginning was to have the R vote split enough that he could slip ahead.

[madinmaryland]

24. You are right Matty. McAdams had no chance other than for Murkowski and Miller

to perfectly split their vote in the low 30's and then miraculously pick up all the democratic vote and pick off a few independents. Considering the Alaska Dems were lukewarm to him, he really had no chance.

[madinmaryland]

22. No quite, joey. Miller would have had is 34% and would have pulled at least half of

Murkowski's votes. McAdams would still have been lucky to pull 35-40%. Alaska is only about 25% democratic. The balance are republicans and right leaning libertarians. Only a few Dem's have been able to overcome that.

[Renew Deal]

4. It ain't over, but it looks good for her.

A very small number of those write ins will be for other candidates and I mean less than .5%.

[joeybee12]

5. But note that the trend is to throw out about 6% of write-ins...nt.

[gkhouston]

8. That's 6% of 40%, not 6% of 100%. I don't think it would be enough to matter. n/t

[joeybee12]

10. She's at 41%, bringing her down to 35, and he's at 34...

depending on the actual numbers, he could challenge a lot of what were considered valid write-ins.

[Renew Deal]

13. You're saying that 14% of write in votes will be thrown out?

[joeybee12]

17. What i'm saying is I bet every single one will be challenged by Miller...

I doubt she'll get sworn in until before June.

[Renew Deal]

18. They think they it will be done within a couple weeks.

[tkmorris]

21. It's 6% OF HER 41%

In other words, about 2.5% of the total votes, bringing her down to 38.5%.

[Renew Deal]

9. What trend?

In this type of election or all elections?

[joeybee12]

11. In past elections, they said, usually 6% get thrown out...n/t

[gkhouston]

15. 6% of all votes or 6% of write-ins? n/t

[Renew Deal]

16. That sounds like 6% of 41%. Not 6% of the total vote (100%)

[gkhouston]

20. So she'd only come down to 37.6%, I'm thinking. n/t

[Gaedel]

7. Problem is

The machines can count 41,000 write-in votes, but the votes have to be manually counted to see how many wrote in Lisa M. and how many wrote in someone else. They also have to write her name in properly. Look for a lot of lawyers at the hand count.

[gkhouston]

12. It was decided a couple of weeks back, though, that "clear voter intent" would

be enough. "Lisa M" or a mangled version of "Murkowski" would suffice. I'm not saying she'll definitely win, but it's not the hurdle many write-in candidates face.

[Gaedel]

23. The operative word is "clear" nt

[joeybee12]

14. That's the thing...it ain't over...it will drag on forever, even if she eventually wins...nt

[madinmaryland]

25. Our only hope is that Miller pulls a "Norm Coleman" and drags this out endlessly

for months.