Here’s a snippet from a flyer that’s been hanging on doors in West Anchorage for House candidate Republican Anand Dubey, who’s running against Democrat Matt Claman for the seat being vacated by Rep. Lindsey Holmes. Mia Costello. The flyer is written by Dubey’s wife Shivani. ( Full disclosure, Shivani is a very nice woman and helped me get this website up and running):
The flyer would appear to contradict what Dubey told Alaska Family Action in August: Continue reading
The Virginia-based political prognosticator Larry Sabato completed his final Senate race Crystal Ball predictions on Monday. He has Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and Arkansas moving from Democrat to Republican and Kansas and Georgia leaning Republican. All told, he’s predicting that the makeup of the Senate will include 47 Democrats and 53 Republicans. If that holds true, and particularly if Republicans take purple Iowa and Colorado, Democrats are going to have to do some soul searching about their message. (BTW, Sabato also has the governor’s race leaning toward Walker. And if that holds true, Alaska Republicans here certainly will have their own souls to search.) Here’s Sabato’s Senate map:
So many, including me, are all wondering how to read the current slate of polls. Is Gov. Sean Parnell down by 7 or by 1. Is Sen. Mark Begich down by 1 or by 5? And what the heck is going on with Rep. Don Young? Nothing’s for sure, but do keep in mind that Alaska is a hard place to poll, and that, historically, Alaska polls have shown a Democratic bias. Here’s a chart that Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight put together a few weeks ago, illustrating that according to his model, the polls have averaged a 7 point Democratic bias in every single race since 2000:
Here’s both Gov. Sean Parnell’s and Bill Walker’s closing TV ads. What do you all think?
http://youtu.be/71FVl4donhQ
Confession: I usually hate going to political fundraisers. I normally feel out of place, and it can feel really uncomfortable sitting in a corner, squinting at nametags, scratching on my notebook. But I always felt at home at Walker-Mallott fundraisers, and now that they’re over, I’ll miss them. For one, the food’s usually good, and though I never eat anything at these things, I like to be around good food. And good people, who talk about interesting things. At Walker fundraisers, I’ve talked existentialism and German literature with Bruce Botelho, constitutional law with Charlie Cole, and the state of the media with Hal Gazaway. I’ve talked about the good old Valdez days with former Lt. Gov. Stephen McApline, who I always call Steve. I’ve talked about Wally Hickel’s vision for Alaska with Malcom and Cindy Roberts. I’ve talked about subsistence issues with Craig Fleener, and fashion with Donna Walker. I’ve talked about the Catholic church with Cal Williams and about fisheries with Clem Tillion. I’ve talked women’s rights with Rep. Harriet Drummond and the human condition with her husband Elstun Lauesen. If I do something horrible in my life, and my punishment is that I have to spend the rest of eternity at a political fundraiser, I would hope that She will have mercy enough to put me at a Walker/Mallott fundraiser. The last one I went to was last Monday, and the campaign outdid themselves. All the usual suspects were there—plus Jerry Ward, for whom I will always have a fondness after he saved me from the wrath of a group of media hating Tea Partiers in 2012. But this time, there were more. Hundreds, of people of color, ethnicities, and sizes and political leanings were crammed upstairs at Gallos Mexican Restaurant in Anchorage. It was hot crowded and interesting.
With the election less than a week away, I’m told that people are tired of fundraisers. Continue reading
Below is a summary of the most recent PPP polls, which shows GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan up 1 percent, gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker up by 1, Rep. Don Young by 6. Also a recent Rasmussen Reports poll has Walker up by 7 and Sullivan up by 5. Caution: both PPP and Rasmussen use robo-calls to conduct their surveys. That’s not to say that robo-polling is always bad, it’s just at this stage of the season, when Alaska is so over-polled, I can’t imagine that machines are getting good samples.
Here’s PPP’s summary:
The Alaska Senate race is even tighter than the one in Colorado, with Dan Sullivan leading Mark Begich just 46/45 with the full field and 47/46 in a head to head contest. Begich leads 50/36 with independents and has 91% of the Democratic vote behind him to just 81% of Republicans who are for Sullivan. The picture in this race is pretty steady- Sullivan led by 2 points on our last poll in September. Begich has a very strong ground game and it could be enough to put him over the top.
The Alaska Governor’s race is similarly tight with independent Bill Walker holding a 1 Continue reading
On Friday, Americans for Tax Reform sent out a release, claiming that gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker wrote a letter to the editor in 2004 calling for a statewide income tax. Shortly after the release, Bill Walker’s lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to ATR, claiming that Walker did not write the letter and that there were at least 20 Bill Walker’s in the state that could have done so.
Now it appears that Bill Walker who wrote the letter has stepped forward. This Bill Walker has a blog and builds boats and wants some credit for his letter, which was supposed to be a satire, but satire in newspaper land is hard pull off:
Here’s what the real writer of the letter wrote on his blog:
I found the idea of both permanent fund dividends and a state income tax to be such an absurd idea that I wrote a satire proposing it. Mine was originally titled “A Modest Proposal” after Jonathan Swift’s 1729 satire where Swift proposes the absurd idea of the impoverished Irish selling their babies as food for the rich. Unfortunately, ADN replaced my title with their own. However, ADN did leave my reference to “A Modest Proposal” in the text.
No response yet from ATR.
Here’s a memory: It’s 2007, and I’m at the Loussac Library’s Wilda Marston Theater, with about 200 other Alaskans, listening to members of Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration explain a new plan that they promised would finally, after more than 30 years of trying, get a natural gas pipeline built. It was called the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, or AGIA, for short. And it’s was a different plan than any other plan that had been floated in the 30 years that plans had been floated.
The difference: Historically, the energy companies that hold the lease rights to the gas had been the ones that were going to make the decision about when and how to build the line. They were, in effect, in the driver’s seat. This plan, however, would separate the line from the producers. AGIA was structured in such a way as to allow—in fact to favor—a third party to come into the state and build the line. The assumption was that if the pipeline was built, then the producers would make the smart and prudent business decision and sell the gas to buyers. They would have to. Their shareholders would demand it.
It was a radical rethinking of the project. The producers—among the biggest private energy companies in the world—would be put in a corner. We were, at long last, going to outsmart them. Continue reading
Probably 200 people filling the dealership waiting for interior candidates to speak first right now #aksen #alelect pic.twitter.com/OHAwoCBjhh
— Weston Morrow (@FDNMschools) November 2, 2014
UPDATED: Below is 2009 email correspondence between then Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom and the wife of retired Lt. Col. Kenneth Blaylock, regarding allegations made by Blaylock of corruption and abuse in the National Guard. Blaylock, the husband, is a 30-year National Guard veteran before he retired in 2012, has recently come forward to multiple media outlets about the Guard scandal, saying that he’s been trying for years to get people’s attention. His wife, whose name is redacted, is also a retired National Guard member.
The allegations that she sent to Dahlstrom involved then Brigadier General Thomas Katkus, and Colonels Catherine Jorgenson and Timothy DeHass. Katkus, promoted to adjutant general in 2009 shortly after Blaylock’s correspondence, was recently fired by Gov. Sean Parnell, followed by Jorgenson. Questions have arisen about DeHass.
After Dahlstrom left the Legislature, she served for a little more than a year as a special assistant for Gov. Sean Parnell for veterans affairs beginning in February 2012. During that year, she received numerous complaints about the National Guard, but handed them all off to either Mike Nizich, and in one case the FBI, she said. Continue reading
A lot of people have been asking about the Republican rallies that have been scheduled for this weekend with Senate candidate Dan Sullivan and Sen. Ted Cruz. Likewise, there will be a Republican Rally featuring Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Gov. Sean Parnell, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan on Monday. Here are the details:
Dan Fagan and I moderated a gubernatorial forum sponsored by the Mat-Su Business Alliance on Friday at Evangelo’s in Wasilla. Before a crowd of about 250, Gov. Sean Parnell and his running mate Mayor Dan Sullivan, along with their opponents Bill Walker and Byron Mallott, fielded questions, mostly from the audience, for 90 minutes. It was a very engaged crowd and it was anything but boring. Because I was participating in the forum, I couldn’t take notes. However, here’s what I saw and the highlights as I remember them and taken from a recording I made: