In an interview with the Anchorage Press, Sen. Lisa Murkowski agreed that she thought Republican leaders are “secretly hoping that [she will] win,” and talked about how winning as a write-in candidate would allow her to be free from pressure to conform to the Republican party platform.

“Right now I’m a write-in candidate and I’m not my party’s nominee and [Republican leaders] are looking at the situation and saying, ‘We have to stick by the process,’ so they’re doing about what I expected of them, which is they’re standing by the party nominee. They may not be doing it gladly but that’s what they’re doing,” she said.

Murkowski doesn’t expect there to be any consequences from Senate Republicans if she succeeds in her write-in bid. “I imagine that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will welcome me back warmly,” she remarked.

Asked “what do you have to offer progressives in the way of reassurance that if we cross over and write in your name, you will keep us in mind once you’re back in D.C.?” by Anchorage Press reporter David Holthouse, Murkowski indicated she didn’t expect to toe the Republican party line.

“When I return to D.C., I will be returned because Alaskans from across the political spectrum have sent me back, and I won’t forget that,” she said. “Also, I will have a certain freedom in the sense that without the official Republican backing that has historically been there for me, I’ll have not just a desire but also a clear mandate to ensure that all Alaskans are fully represented.”

“As a write-in candidate running against my party’s nominee,” Murkowski later added, “I’m no longer in a position where I have party leaders that can say to me, ‘Wait a minute, Lisa, if you go that way you’ll be going against the party position,’ because I’m already going against the party position just by running. I’m not saying that on every occasion in the senate I’ve voted a certain way because of pressure from my party, but the reality is you do have that hanging over you. But I won’t. Not anymore.”

Saying that she agreed with Tea Party on “lowering taxes and getting the government out of our lives,” Murkowski also talked about how positions embraced by some Tea Party candidates “defy common sense,” including “this notion that if anything isn’t specifically enumerated in the constitution, that government shouldn’t be doing it.”

“That sort of strict and literal interpretation is just plain silly,” Murkowski continued. “The founding fathers had wisdom and foresight. They knew they weren’t infallible and they knew they couldn’t predict the future. That’s why they provided for the amendment process,” she said, mentioning how the amendment process had allowed slavery to be abolished and given women the right to vote.

Murkowski also vehemently disagreed with the assertion that she and Republican senate candidate Joe Miller held very similar positions.

“The suggestion that Miller and I would have virtually similar voting patterns is just not valid,” she said. “Consider earmarks — he’s signed two pledges to oppose any and all earmarks in the name of reducing federal spending. To suggest as Joe has that somehow or other if we eliminate all earmarks we’ll bring federal spending under control is deceptive to the nth degree. And Joe knows that. But he has bought into the [Republican senator from South Carolina and Tea Party champion] Jim DeMint mentality and he’s engaging in these flip and easy answers that people shouldn’t be responding to, and that makes him dangerous for our state.”