Potential political spoilers U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Bill Walker continued to consider their options Tuesday, even as time to get their names on the Nov. 2 ballot ticked away.

Both Murkowski and Walker are talking to the Alaska Libertarian Party to replace candidates for senator and governor who had filed to run earlier in the year. This follows Murkowski's surprising and narrow loss to Fairbanks attorney Joe Miller in the Senate race and Walker's solid showing in a GOP gubernatorial primary won by Gov. Sean Parnell.

Murkowski met Tuesday with Libertarian party candidate Frederick "David" Haase, who has filed to run for the Senate. Since filing, however, Haase has raised no money, according to federal records.

Murkowski told the Associated Press she had an interesting discussion with Haase but was not interested in changing her "political stripes."

Campaign spokesman Steve Wackowski said Murkowski spent the holiday weekend with her family and was meeting with supporters on Tuesday to talk about her options. Murkowski told the AP she is not a quitter and is "still in this game."

Walker, who had briefly mulled over the gubernatorial spot on the Alaskan Independence Party ticket until it became clear this weekend the AIP candidate is not going to withdraw, also met with Libertarian Party leaders on Tuesday morning.

Campaign manager Taylor Bickford would only say Tuesday afternoon he had nothing new to report but that "Bill is getting very close to making a decision."

The Libertarians' current gubernatorial candidate is William S. "Billy" Toien of Anchorage, who also appears to be doing little in the way of running a campaign. His most recent state campaign finance report shows he raised $700 -- all his own money -- and spent $568, with $132 left in the bank as of mid-August. Most of the cash went to state filing fees, some to candidate photos and business cards.

That's the same story with the lieutenant governor candidate, Jeffrey D. Brown, who had raised and spent $400, all his own money, on election filing fees. His latest report designated that he'd had no campaign activity since late July.

With the agreement of the party, Walker could chose his own running mate, and political chatter over the weekend was that he has been busy doing just that. "He's talked to some folks to gauge interest, but I can't give you specific names," Bickford said.

Still, time is running short. The current candidates would have to write a letter to the state Division of Elections withdrawing their names and the party would have to agree to substitute the new candidates as the official nominees. And the elections office must have the new nominations by Sept. 15.

Both Murkowski and Walker could also run as write-ins, but both campaigns have said that's a much dicier proposition because the state prohibits the use of stickers on ballots, saying they can gum up vote-counting machinery. With pre-printed stickers off the table, voters would have to correctly write in the name of the candidate -- both governor and lieutenant governor in that race -- and fill in the oval next to the name in order for the write-in vote to count, according to state law.

A candidate with a tough-to-spell name -- Murkowski, for instance -- could have a harder time educating voters on just how the write-in would have to be written.

Elections chief Gail Fenumiai said Tuesday she wasn't sure how misspellings or partial names would be counted or if there is precedent established about how exact a voter would have to be.

Write-ins have to file a letter of intent -- governor and lieutenant governor have to file together -- by Oct. 28, five days before the election. They also have to file a financial disclosure statement at the same time with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.