In what's shaping up to be the most stunning upset of the 2010 primary season, incumbent GOP senator Lisa Murkowski is trailing political newcomer Joe Miller by 1,960 votes (45,909 to 43,949), with 98 percent of precincts reporting. If Miller can hold on to his lead, as about 8,000 absentee ballots are counted in the next week or two, he'll be in prime position to win the general election and become Alaska's next U.S. senator. So who is Joe Miller? And how did he do it?
Situational Awareness.
For starters, the 43 year-old Fairbanks lawyer, a father of eight and non-denominational Christian, has a sterling résumé. After graduating from West Point, Miller earned a Bronze Star fighting in the first Gulf War. He later earned his law degree from Yale and a master's degree in economics from the University of Alaska. Miller went on to serve as both a state magistrate and then a U.S. magistrate judge before stepping down from the bench to run, unsuccessfully, for state representative in 2004.
Based on merit alone, Miller was easily the superior candidate to Murkowski--whose 2002 appointment to the Senate by her father, then-governor Frank Murkowski, was met with cries of nepotism. Murkowski won her first general election to the Senate in 2004 with only 49 percent of the vote. 
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