Joe Miller's Lawyers Hit the Road

Either there’s a free buffet at the bar association or Joe Miller’s candidacy is effectively over. Lawyers involved in the ballot-counting process in Alaska’s drawn-out Senate race have started leaving the state. Miller, who trails by around 11,000 votes, hoped to challenge enough ballots won by incumbent write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, on the basis of misspellings and smudges, to close the gap and pull out a win. But the state has already determined, after a three-day-long ballot count, that Murkowski won the vast majority of write-in votes. Miller, however, has vowed to carry on the fight, even calling on supporters to contribute to a legal fund. Miller’s most high-profile supporter, Sarah Palin, reportedly just donated $5,000.