Most moderate non-New England Senate Republican

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Murkowski, followed by Lugar and Kirk not necessarily in that order. The rest aren't 'moderate', they're just 'in more-or-less full possession of their mental faculties in some or many situations', which is much the same thing in the modern party.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Murkowski, and this last election seems to have increased the number of times she bucks the party line. And if that's because she wants to throw some occasional middle fingers to the Republican leadership, you can't blame her, really.

Sure you can, she did a crappy enough job to lose in the primary.

Would you say the same about Mike Castle, out of curiosity?

~~~

Relative to his state's proclivities, Cochran is actually a definite possibility.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Murkowski, and this last election seems to have increased the number of times she bucks the party line. And if that's because she wants to throw some occasional middle fingers to the Republican leadership, you can't blame her, really.

Sure you can, she did a crappy enough job to lose in the primary.

Would you say the same about Mike Castle, out of curiosity?

~~~

Relative to his state's proclivities, Cochran is actually a definite possibility.

Castle was not an incumbent Senator.

He was arguably the most prominent and certainly the most senior political figure in his state other than the incumbent Vice President of the United States. Castle and Murkowski lost their primaries in the same national political environment and in similar situations relative to expectations.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yeah, that's exactly why I don't think Murkowski losing her primary was evidence of incompetence on her part exactly (many things, but not incompetence per se) if Castle's wasn't.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Or, try this: do you think Castle would have lost a primary for his House seat if he had ran for reelection? I highly doubt that would have happened.

I think it would have been less likely but I wouldn't really have been notably more surprised than I was in the Senate race.

It was, though (or maybe just not caring enough - it's a bit like he lost interest in the race once he understood he'd have to work for it). Probably more so than Murkowski's, who couldn't do anything about the albatross of her nepotist appointment as that's how most people first heard of her.

Come to think of it, the 2004 Senate race was closer than is/was considered usual for Alaska as well, wasn't it?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Come to think of it, the 2004 Senate race was closer than is/was considered usual for Alaska as well, wasn't it?

Of course. There's a reason the Dems ran Tony Knowles again - it was considered a possible pickup. Especially as daddy was going down in flames by then.

I'm not certain I really want to know very much about Frank Murkowski considering that Sarah Palin was able to beat him in a primary.

Then again, one could easily say the same thing about Alaska in general.