Below The Beltway

Sarah Palin became Governor of Alaska due in part to the fact that she challenged and defeated the incumbent Republican Governor, Frank Murkowski, who just happened to be the most powerful politician in the state.

Now, Murkowski’s daughter seems concerned that Palin may be poised to go after her in 2010:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has some Republican-to-Republican advice for Gov. Sarah Palin: If you want to make a run at the White House, keep your hands off my Senate seat.

Murkowski, up for reelection in 2010, is nervously awaiting word on whether John McCain’s former running mate will run against her in the GOP primary. But she says Palin is the one who should be nervous.

“I can guarantee it would be a very tough election,” Murkowski said in an interview.

Palin is also up for reelection in 2010. She could run for a second term as governor, but the Senate holds some obvious attractions: a national platform, and with it the chance to beef up a thin résumé and rebuild damaged credibility on foreign policy and other issues.

But Murkowski says a run against her would be fraught with risk. If Palin lost, her stock would drop just ahead of a potential 2012 presidential run. And if she won, she’d be a backbencher in a chamber that is dominated by seniority — and would have to begin her presidential campaign as soon as she took office.

“If she wants to be president, I don’t think the way to the presidency is a short stop in the United States Senate,” Murkowski said.

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“One thing that Alaskans clearly appreciate is seniority,” said Murkowski, who was appointed to the Senate in 2002 by her father, who had just won the governor’s race. “If she were to kind of move me over, if you will, to run for national office again at the expense at this seniority that’s been built, I don’t know if Alaskans would look too favorably on that.

“I think they view the job that we have here in the Senate as a very, very critical one in a state like Alaska, where we always are battling the feds,” Murkowski said. “You need to have this position being filled full time. And I think that’s what Alaskans will be looking to.”

It’s not clear that running for the Senate in 2010 would be the best move for Palin, assuming that is that she plans on running for President in 2012. For one thing, it would mean that she’d have to spend a good year or so campaigning in Alaska rather than building up the organization that’s needed to mount a real Presidential campaign — while guys like Romney, Huckabee, and Jindal are spending time in Iowa and New Hampshire, she’d be doing a greet-and-grab outside a store in Ketchikan. It would be smarter for her to stay in Juneau, run for what looks to be an easy re-election in 2010, and put together a campaign team.