From the Beltway to Juneau, the word on the street is that Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to help with a campaign fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski sometime in the not-so distant future. Murkowski is up for re-election next year.

If this is true, I suppose it means Palin won't be running for the Senate after all. Which is kind of a bummer. I think she'd be more entertaining in D.C. than in Juneau.

Although, can you really blame her?

Who would want to be a regular old senator in the bleak minority after coming so close to being the Queen of the Senate.

The power… The power…

Doesn't matter what that is. She'll happily take your job igloo construction. She'll walk away with your job as a penguin shepherd without blinking an eye. She'll start collecting your paychecks for tracking abominable snowmen before you even know what happened.

And, if you happen to have a high profile job in public service, just forget it…

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, is up for reelection in 2010. And, Politico reports, she's warning Palin to keep out of the race. "I can guarantee it would be a very tough election," Murkowski told Politico. "If she wants to be president, I don't think the way to the presidency is a short stop in the United States Senate."

If Palin does enter the senatorial race in two years and does somehow manage to convince a bunch of people that she's got the chops for politics on a national stage (sounds crazy, right?) and does somehow manage to win Senator Murkowski's seat, it wouldn't be the first time Palin stole a position from someone in her family.

Two years ago, she took the senator's father Frank Murkowski's job as governor of Alaska.

So, what does Gov. Palin have against the Murkowski family? It's hard to say. But we do know from experience that Palin has a history of preying on the weak.

And the weak-minded.