The Miller campaign has compiled an impressive collection of both triumphs and setbacks in the four months since Joe Miller announced he was gunning for the seat currently filled by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Successes have included endorsements by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, plus a generally attentive local media, while challenges like negative press over Miller's departure from a job with the Fairbanks North Star Borough slowed the campaign.

But now, with just over a week until voters head to the polls, the Miller campaign is dealing with perhaps its biggest shakeup yet: the exit of its campaign manager, Paul Bauer, after he picked a fight with local college Republicans and a talk show radio host, Dave Stieren who goes by "Super Dave."

The noise intensified when Bauer's wife got into a reality-style showdown with the young GOPers and Stieren at McGinley's, an Irish bar popular with local Republicans that's also owned by Anchorage's mayor, and when someone sitting at the table filmed the whole thing on their iPhone.

The Miller campaign's spokesman, Randy DeSoto, said the college Republican kerfuffle was "an aspect" of Bauer being bum-rushed out the door, but that Bauer also had "personal matters" he needed to deal with. (Though when the Anchorage Daily News called Bauer to confirm his departure, he said "I am not stepping down. Who sent you a message?")

Miller's new campaign manager, Barrow attorney Robert Campbell, said the Bauer boondoggle isn't a big deal and that he's excited about his candidate and excited about the upcoming week. (This is Campbell's first campaign.)

"I don't personally have one negative thing to say about Lisa Murkowski, except that she's not Joe Miller," Campbell said. Asked whether his comment signaled a shift to a kinder, gentler Miller campaign, Campbell didn't deny it but said that was something for an outsider to judge.

But at least now the whole fight is over and Miller can focus on the last week of his campaign, right? Not quite. Monday afternoon Bauer sent out a press release titled "Radio talk show host blackmails Miller campaign." Campbell said the release is from Bauer and not from the campaign, and that his predecessor didn't check with him before sending the release.

In the press release Bauer said that after his wife said her piece in McGinley's, Stieren and Ryan McKee, the president of UAA College Republicans and a paid Murkowski staffer, trapped a Miller staffer and showed him the video they made of Bauer's wife (Bauer said she didn't know she was being filmed.) In the release, Bauer says Stieren told the Miller staffer that "If you don't fire Paul Bauer, this will go on the air."

Stieren said the encounter outside McGinley's was less cloak-and-dagger than Bauer described it. According to Stieren, as he and McKee were leaving the bar the Miller staffer approached them and asked if he could watch the video. After about two minutes the Miller staffer asked what the campaign could do about the video. Stieren said he wasn't telling them what to do, but that he didn't think Bauer was a very good campaign manager.