Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski is narrowly trailing Palin-endorsed Joe Miller. She was flirting with the idea of a third-party run, and the Libertarian Party was her only chance. Unfortunately (for her), the libertarians don’t want her.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) will not be on the AK Libertarian Party ballot line this fall, according to the secretary of the party.

Murkowski, who is trailing GOP primary to challenger Joe Miller by 1,688 votes with about 23K ballots still to be counted, has reportedly been seeking another way onto the ballot this fall. The Libertarian Party was considered her best option.

Rob Clift, the state Libertarian Party’s secretary, told Hotline On Call that the executive committee of the party met over the weekend. When asked if the decision to keep Murkowski off the ballot line was final, Clift said: “That’s correct.”

Eric Dondero has the scoop on how it all went down:

On Sunday morning, over coffee and donuts, the ExComm voted unanimously, 5 to 0 to deny the Senator the ballot line. There was no malice intended. ALP Chair Kohlhaas has repeatedly stated that she is a nice lady, and the ALP was flattered by the offer.

The meeting was contentious at first. Two board members who were clearly on the Tea Party friendly Joe Miller side were combative before they realized that the other three board members agreed with them on the essentials. At a number of points the meeting even digressed into name-calling. The ‘F’ bomb was even tossed around a number of times. One board member was hellbent on holding an immediate statewide meeting open to full membership or registered Libertarians to decide the matter. That idea was shot down 4 to 1.

The vote on Murkowski was taken at about halfway through the meeting which lasted a total of 3 hours. After the result was clear, tempers calmed down, and the 5 member board moved forward with plans on how to announce the results to the media.

This is bad news for Murkowski, but the death knell hasn’t sounded yet. There are still 25,000 ballots to be counted, after all. Still, it doesn’t look good for her.

In other news, the NRSC got the message that they shouldn’t repeat their Florida disaster with Charlie Crist, and they’re pulling out of Alaska. They’ve pledged neutrality in the race from here on out.

The question is, will Murkowski indeed pull an Al Franken and demand a full recount if she ends up trailing Joe Miller? Stay tuned for more updates…