The Alaska mess

It could be weeks, maybe even months, before we even find out as to who won the Alaska race for the United States Senate.

With 432 of 438 precincts reporting, 41 percent of the voters had filled in the write-in oval on their ballot. Most of those likely wrote in incumbent Sen. Murkowski, who spent over $1 million telling voters to "fill it in, write in" after she lost to Miller in the Aug. 24 Republican primary.

But it won't be clear for weeks at least how many of the voters wrote in Murkowski's name, and how many did it properly enough to be counted. Republican nominee Miller, who ran on a tea party platform with the backing of former Gov. Sarah Palin, was pulling in 34 percent of the vote. Miller was followed by Democratic nominee Scott McAdams, who had about 24 percent of the vote.

No one has been elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954. That's also the last time the Giants, known as the New York Giants in those days, won the World Series. The now-San Francisco Giants took the title Monday night. But it's going to be a long wait to see if Murkowski was victorious as well.