Lisa Murkowski goes rogue

[Geee]

Politico:


Lisa Murkowski isn’t gunning down caribou on national TV like that other famous Alaskan, but the Republican lawmaker is going rogue in the Senate just weeks after staging the most stunning back-from-the-dead political win of the 2010 cycle.

Murkowski is already showing a fierce independent streak, becoming the only Republican to cast votes for all four items on President Barack Obama’s wish list: a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a tax cut compromise, the START treaty and cloture for the DREAM Act.


The lame duck votes capped a strange political odyssey for the Alaska Republican — one that started Aug. 31 when she conceded the GOP primary to tea party-backed Joe Miller, continued when she resigned her leadership job in September and ended when she waged Alaska’s first successful statewide write-in bid to retain her seat.

Now, she heads back to the Senate with a fresh six-year term without owing much to either her home state party establishment or her Washington leadership.