This will come as news to the Tea Party Express, and to all the chumps who contributed the hundreds of thousands of dollars they pumped into Alaska, but Joe Miller's campaign manager says Miller isn't the tea party candidate.

Last week, The MudFlats obtained an e-mail string between Miller and Todd Palin suggesting a rift between the Palins and their chosen one. Following up on that, they obtained another e-mail, this one an internal communication between Miller’s campaign fundraising chair, Seth Church, and his campaign manager, Robert Campbell.

In the email, dated September 18, 2010, Church asks Campbell for suggested edits for a piece written for the campaign. Campbell returns the email telling Church, “We’re not the Tea Party candidate, so avoid that language...” This distancing, in which Miller’s Campaign Manager states specifically that he is “not the Tea Party candidate” and asks that Tea Party references not be used by the campaign, comes despite the staggering financial commitment, and clear positive effect that Tea Party money had for Miller’s candidacy. The support ultimately lead Miller from complete obscurity to primary victory over a tough incumbent opponent.

My take? Miller's got handlers now. He's been backing down from crazy teabaggy positions, and is clamming up in general, citing the "viciousness" of the media.

Now his campaign is distancing itself from the Tea Party, trying to reposition Miller not as a whack-job bomb-thrower, but as a reasonable alternative for reasonable Republicans. Murkowski has them scared about solidifying the GOP base.

But how are the people who've been bankrolling him going to feel about this?

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