Too-close-to-call Alaska Senate race highlights longstanding Murkowski-Palin drama

Murkowski race highlights drama with Palin

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a surprise, too-close-to-call primary race with a self-styled “constitutional conservative” backed by Sarah Palin.

Murkowski’s race with Joe Miller represents the latest chapter in the long-running political saga that began when Murkowski’s father, Frank, picked his daughter — not political up-and-comer Palin — to replace him in the Senate when he was elected governor in 2002.

Four years later, Palin trounced Frank Murkowski in the GOP gubernatorial primary, the race that launched her start in national politics. And since then, the women have occassionally clashed, on the issue of health care reform and Palin’s decision to resign as governor last summer.

Both have denied any bad blood but that didn’t stop the potshots in this latest race.