The cloture vote on DADT was rejected 56-43 today. We needed 60 votes to end Sen. McCain’s filibuster. Senator Murkowski was busy with her write-in campaign and didn’t bother to vote. The two Democratic senators from Arkansas voted against their party. Seeing that cloture would not pass, Sen. Harry Reid had to vote “no” as well, so that he can reintroduce the bill another time.

UPDATE: The Dispatch reports that Lisa would have voted against the DADT repeal:

Mike Brumas, Murkowski’s Senate spokesman, confirmed that Murkowski would have voted “nay” on the cloture motion… if she had been in D.C.

The next chance to consider the National Defense Authorization Act, with both the DREAM Act and the DADT repeal amendments, will likely be in December after the mid-term elections.

“Today’s vote is a failure of leadership on the part of those who have been duly elected to serve this nation and to put the best interests of the country ahead of partisan politics,” said Alexander Nicholson of Servicemembers United. “It is simply inexcusable that this vote failed today.”

In Alaska, we gave Senator Murkowski a chance to show her support for our troops and for fairness, to establish herself as the moderate candidate before the November election. Instead, she showed her loyalty to the GOP and gave in to the social conservatives who voted her out of office a few weeks ago.

She made her choice, now we will make our choice.