Dan Rather's Lisa Murkowski story

Dan Rather's Lisa Murkowski story: Wow, this line from Dan Rather's Huffington Post article on Lisa Murkowski just blew me away:

As for Joe Miller, Murkowski told us she might not have challenged him at all had he been more gracious during her concession call.

Wow. Of course we don't know if that's true or not, but if so, had Joe Miller just been a little nicer, Ms. Murkowski may not have run her now-famous write-in campaign for Alaska Senator.

Big money against Murkowski

What's also amazing is the big money Ms. Murkowski ran against -- coming from her own Republican party. Here's another quote:

In a lengthy interview with me last week, Murkowski did not pull her punches at her disappointment that Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas and the Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, spent nearly $500,000 in campaign ads against her. "Did I expect more? I guess I did, I guess I did," Murkowski told me.

She reserved most of her anger though, for Senator Jim DeMint, the Tea Party standard bearer from South Carolina, who attempted to strip her of her senior position on the Senate Energy Committee when she decided to mount a write-in challenge to Joe Miller.

What strikes me is that after going through all this, Ms. Murkowski is now like the character Evy in the movie V for Vendetta: She has nothing to fear any more, especially from her own Republican party. If the Republican party ever "owned" her before, they certainly don't now. Which I think is pretty cool, because I like it when Senators are free to vote their own minds.

Here's the link to Dan Rather's article.