“If Roy Barnes doesn’t win it in November, you can probably stick a fork in the Democratic movement, because we will not be able to come back for a generation or more,” Powell said in a phone conversation today.

If Barnes loses, Powell said he would “seriously consider” switching parties because Democrats would not only have no influence, but no hope regaining power. He also said he thinks he could halt the Republicans’ drift to the right and bring it back toward the middle.

Powell, who calls himself an “independent Democrat,” said he doesn’t think he could win as a true independent. But would the Republicans have him? Remember, this is the guy who once told a roomful of people that Gov. Sonny Perdue can’t satisfy his wife.

Miller’s lead over Murkowski has dwindled to about 1,400 votes with many absentees yet to be tallied, but Murkowsk said Tuesday night in Anchorage: “I don’t see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor.”

It was a shocking defeat for Murkowski – polls released just before the primary election showed her with a supposedly healthy lead over Miller – and a huge victory for her political nemesis, former governor Sarah Palin.

Where Palin could not deliver a victory for Karen Handel in Georgia’s GOP primary for governor, she was able to propel Miller, an obscure political newcomer, to victory over the incumbent Alaska senator.