Here’s the latest ad from GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. It’s not very subtle, but probably effective in helping to establish his Second Amendment creds, which have been under fire recently over the “Stand Your Ground” bill that was passed last legislative session. The woman featured is Elaina Spraker, an icon in the largely male-dominated hunting world. She’s married to former Board of Game member Ted Spraker, a well-known, outspoken hunting rights advocate in the Kenai.
* Lt.
Let me get this straight…the guy who was born as an Alaskan, ran Anchorage into to a near Detroit situation and now has voted with Obama 97% of the time would do a better job? Hmmmm. I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter where you were born, it matters what you do FOR Alaska.
Thank you for admitting it. It is about time that a Begich supporter was honest concerning what they and he thinks of our military. That you do not think they are deserving of our support just for being military members. Based upon the Senator’s performance, I think that mind set fits him perfectly.
@Garand. Amanda here. Thanks for reading and very many thanks for all the times you’ve led the discussion. I don’t always agree with you, but I read my site sometimes just to read what you have to say.
Sorry, Treadmill doesn’t get my vote.
Mae is a broken record with broken logic. She’s not a worthwhile contributor to this discussion, or any, for that matter, because she calls people names and refuses to recognize facts. I appreciate you listing the facts but she will never see it. Ignorance is bliss for some people.
Of course it is!
As I’ve commented on this blog, I’ve never been shy about my support of Begich. Good observation!
Skidmore’s letter put out by the Sullivan campaign saying that Dan had nothing to do with it + Dan saying he knew nothing about that letter.
Rep. Neuman, the sponsor of AK’s stand your ground bill, said many time now that he worked with Sullivan on the bill. What part of that don’t you understand?
We’re not talking about Begich’s gun rights. We’re talking about Dan’s word. The only thing you have is your word, and he lied. He came out saying he supported a bill that he had nothing to do with, it’s no longer just an embellishment. That’s called lying.
President Reagan served in the Army Reserve from 1937 until 1945.
Yes Veterans deserve to be looked up to as citizens who are willing to serve their country and make the sacrifices needed to preserve liberty. It doesn’t mean that they are all cut out to be elected representatives or that they all want that for themselves. I would say, when it comes to veterans, they deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt concerning their motivations and character.
I think your opinion on this matter is very close to being the same as Senator Begich. That attitude has not served us well.
So where exactly is Begich on stand your ground, and why do the media not ask him that?
Alaska liberals and remittance people from CA and the East Coast likely go crazy when Alaska candidates for the US Senate can and must try to one-up each other on who is strongest on the 2nd Amendment and its components such as stand your ground. This is a great state, and Begich is an anomaly elected because of a unique crisis that left Ted Stevens temporarily down and out.
The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with what the Begich team mistakenly calls skeet shooting. Alaskans understand gun rights, and Col. Sullivan is one of us.
Prepare yourself for the sarcasm.
I whole-heartedly agree with your assessment on Treadwell campaigning on the State’s dime. We should propose a new law so no elected official can campaign while they’re in office. Parnell, Begich, Mayor Dan – they’re all campaigning while they’re officials, and that’s just wrong.
In fact, only people who are rich enough to not have to work (or hold a job for longer than a year and a half) should have the opportunity to run for office. While we’re at it, term limits would be a great idea! So what if the Founding Fathers argued directly against them during the Constitutional Convention? They did the same thing creating an argument against the 17th amendment, “It is equally unnecessary to dilate on the appointment of senators by the State legislatures” (Federalist 62, II). But so what?! A vote for Joe is a vote for our founder’s beliefs. Joe is 100% pro constitution. He’d bring us back to the good days, when some people were only worth 3/5th vote! He knows what we need.
This is such a softball ad. Does the campaign think people won’t remember him lying about stand your ground just one month ago?
This is a good ad. The home stretch to the primary will be worse than loud, and while I hate to see the summer passing so quickly I will be happy to have this primary election done.
The 4th of July parade I attended had an anybody-but-Begich flavor. Patriotism and the Obama White House are very much in conflict, and that mortally wounds the Begich brand as Alaskans are very patriotic. There were no Miller supporters whatsoever, and the Sullivan supporters outnumbered the Treadwell supporters by perhaps three to one. Sullivan may have gone for the quantity discount in the 4X8 signs as I see them everywhere. Come January someone will look at Treadwell travel costs for the 4 years and may find they exceeded those of Lt. Gov. Lehman by at least a factor of 3.
Ballot Measure 1 will be defeated next month, and the boom on the North Slope cannot be denied. The gubernatorial race has turned into a nonevent, and Governor Parnell may even win again in Juneau. The 29th Alaska Legislature will look very much like the 28th despite the retirements and House people going on to the Senate.
The House Minority has been so nasty since the end of session that it might not depend upon Majority largess to exist (who knows?). So possibly we can look for too many demanding the Finance Committee seats, threatening to otherwise bolt to the Majority and thereby make the Minority disappear.
Sullivan will win in August and again in November. President Obama is bewildered by America, and he hates these United States. Celinda Lake should have told Begich to run against Obama. Begich is in need of a bold move, something akin to taking the goalie out of the net for the third period. I think he should look at joining the Republican party immediately after the primary.
We all should be and quite likely are grateful for this Amanda Coyne column. The print media are clueless about Alaska politics, and the radio and television media merely read the newspapers to us (as sales dollars are up this year no matter the quality of the journalism).
“Show me a Marine and I’ll show you a defende of the constitution.”
So all people who join the service are good and deserve to lead us? Not one of them has ever used the position to advance their own agenda, i.e. join to run for political office?
Do you like Reagan? Ronald wasn’t a veteran. If you’re a Republican who loves Reagan, but support veterans blindly, come on…
Being that Begich is winning, no matter who he goes against, hands down, I don’t see the point of all the whining and moaning about the Stand your Ground attacks being unfair. Dan got caught lying. You’re lucky that it’s all inside baseball and your opponents don’t have money to attack you on it. Wait until you step out of the kiddie pool and into the deep end, because Mark has been stroking you gently up until this point.
Great ad. Proud to support Col. Sullivan for the Senate. God Bless America.
These Treadwell supporters, like Mae, make me sick to my stomach. Their innuendo and misuse of the facts is just simly wrong. No wonder this guy Charles Johnson is involved in the campaign as I believe he represents the level of integrity and morals associated with Treadwell and his campaign. Show me a Marine and I’ll show you a defende of the constitution. Treadwell never had the guts or interest in serving his country. He’s all about cheap talk. I’m glad this blog exposed Treadwell and his friend Charles Johnson. Two creeps that deserve each other. This STAND YOUR GROUND CRITICISM IS UNWARRANTED.
L48 Dan woulda had a ALASKAN resident fishing license if he had not claimed residency or obtaining benefits of residency in another state, territory or country. THAT would be the little issue of his home in Maryland …..
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=license.military
Seriously, what is there to put to rest? The guy can’t figure out how long he has been here. But he’ll take a tax residency cut in the state of Maryland for living there?
L48 Dan is all convoluted when it comes to where he lives.
Someone should do a PFD check on him. When did claim residency for that and decide to cash the check?
While this ad seems more Alaskan, my favorite L48 Dan campaign ad is when war monger Condi Rice spoke up for him.
Let’s set this story straight. Dan moved up here in late 1997, as indicated by his PFD (first received in 1999), and fishing licenses. In 2002, he got accepted into the White House’s Fellowship program as a glorified intern. He moved up the bureaucratic ladder until he begged and pleaded to come back to Alaska.
Sarah Palin, without knowing him, appointed him as Attorney General of Alaska. During which, he fought to pass a ‘Stand your Ground’ bill in which he knew nothing about. Dan ‘led’ the choose respect campaign, by diverting funds from the prosecution to other things that weren’t crimes against women. Dan was the presiding person during the first allegation of sexual abuse in the guard. He also fought against Obamacare by writing a letter and allocating $5000 to the fight, a large sum. He also fought for the heller case, by joining onto the work that Abbot did from Texas.
Then he quit his job to take the DNR commissioner position. During his tenure there, he didn’t allow logging to take place on the Kenai while cutting their fire prevention budget. Dan rode off the work of Frank Murkowski and took credit for the ground work Frank did. Dan led the cook inlet energy renaissance, which left it’s biggest backers and investors bankrupt. From there Dan got deployed to Afghanistan to write up a paper for a commanding officer. He then came back to Alaska where he lied on his fishing license, in clear violation of Fish and Game regulations, three months before he filed his candidacy.
And ever since then he’s been slamming a very good, albeit freshman (and therefore he doesn’t wield much power yet), U.S. Senator.
Look at this short summary of your career, Dan. Mark’s going to rock you, buddy. You’ve got no shot.
Moreover all Dan has done for most of his professional life is serve the public interest at the highest levels of the federal and state governments. The idea that is trying to “take, take, take” is just absurd.
Mae – It’s time to put this canard to bed. It’s really pretty straightforward. He lived in Alaska during the 1990s. After 9-11, he went to DC to serve his country. He kept his house in Anchorage thinking he would return in a couple of years. While in DC, where he was working in the Bush Administration, he was called up for active duty. Dan worked for General Abazaid at CENTCOM fighting terrorists. During this period (mid-2000s) his family moved back to Anchorage. After serving in our military, Dan was asked to serve at the State Dept. At the end of the Bush Administration he worked briefly for General Petraues. He then returned to Anchorage in the Spring of 2009.
Here’s the key part: To get a fishing license, so he could fish at his family’s fish camp near Rampart, Dan had to fill out an application. The application said you need to get an out of state fishing license if you lived outside the state during the previous year. Dan checked the box because he lived outside while he was serving our nation.
Please move on from this ridiculous and pointless attack.
L48 Dan needs to come clean on his State of Alaska fishing license. Till then, he is just another carpetbagger, here to take, take, take, take… So yeah, don’t like the ad.
I’m shocked that Mae doesn’t like the ad. Just shocked.
– Well at least they aren’t part of the AK Outdoor Council.
– As for the Stand Your Ground issue, it seems most of those people seem a bit gun righteous and would walk around with their biggest guns strapped to their chest, while picking up a tub ice cream. Whereas the Spraker’s are more about gun safety and less about showing off. Until L48 Dan comes along and makes it look like it is showing off.
At the end of the day, the ad is kinda tacky and doesn’t make L48 Dan anymore Alaskan than what he has claimed on his Alaskan fishing licenses.