Feud With Palin in Background of Alaska Upset

Ms. Murkowski, who trailed Joe Miller, her Republican primary opponent, by 1,668 votes, gave her concession speech Tuesday.

From The New York Times:

It took Sarah Palin just four years to help dismantle the political empire the Murkowski family took three decades to build.

In 2006, she ousted Gov. Frank H. Murkowski from the governor’s office, embarrassing him by 30 points in a Republican primary. But the strange tango of tension between Ms. Palin and Ms. Murkowski, two very different women who proved unable to share the small stage that is Alaskan politics, predated even that defeat.