Just when you thought it was safe for incumbents to go back in the polling booth, along come Tuesday’s Republican primaries. GOP Members of Congress who think they can return to business as usual if they regain the majority should pay attention.

The biggest shock came in Alaska, with incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski trailing unheralded challenger Joe Miller by roughly 1,700 votes with as many as 16,000 absentee ballots still to be counted. As a West Point grad, decorated Gulf War veteran and federal magistrate, Mr. Miller is no lightweight. But he was facing one of Alaska’s great family names, part of the GOP establishment that has dominated the state since it joined the union.

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By TEDDY DAVIS

April 15, 2010

Tea Party activists are once again descending on Washington, D.C., and this time they have a 10-point “Contract From America” that they want the next Congress to follow.

“We want them to listen to us,” Ryan Hecker, the conservative activist who spearheaded the contract, told ABC News. “We want to restructure our relationship with elected officials. This is a bottom-up, grassroots, transparent effort to call for real economic conservative reform.”

The Contract From America, which was produced through an online voting process, will be unveiled officially at a 7:30 p.m. ET “Tax Day” rally taking place on Thursday, April 15 at the Washington Monument.

The preamble to the Contract From America states that it is based on the principles of individual liberty, limited government and economic freedom.

It then enumerates 10 agenda items that it wants congressional candidates to follow.

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On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.

The partisan divide is similar to that found in the President’s Job Approval Ratings and on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

“Unaffiliated voters are continuing the pattern they established in 2006 and 2008 of opposing the party in power,” notes Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports.

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