Lisa Murkowski, "Ted Stevens"
It's not easy to pull off a campaign ad featuring a recently deceased political icon without coming off as insensitive, but Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski managed to do it with a great deal of class. Two weeks before Election Day, Murkowski unveiled an ad featuring the endorsement of the late Ted Stevens, Alaska's longest-serving Republican Senator, taped shortly before his death. The footage was originally scheduled to run just days after Stevens was killed on Aug. 9 in a plane crash, but Murkowski decided to delay its use. She then cut this spot, which opens with his daughter explaining that her family wanted voters to know "how strongly" her father felt about Murkowski's re-election, before fading to a clip of the iconic Senator. Murkowski is now well on her way to becoming a legend in her own right; she's poised to become only the second successful Senate write-in candidate in half a century after defeating GOP nominee and Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, who beat Murkowski in the primary.