I wrote about the Saturday-night Palin family brawl  in my Loose Lips column—my version of a gossip column–hoping that some other news source, preferably a local news source, would pick it up, and run with it. I’m a one-woman show here. I’m the writer, the editor, and the business manager, and I’m trying to cover the state’s political races. As I write this, I’m at a health care conference in Girdwood, trying to learn as much as I can about why healthcare costs are so astronomically high in Alaska, when they have appeared to be declining elsewhere. (Expect a post on that later). All this is to say that I have little time to track down the details of the brawl. And even if I did, I’d probably pass. I spent many years covering Palin. It’s a rabbit hole every time.

But I thought I should update, because people seem to really want to know. Frankly, I would too if I were them, and weren’t at a health care conference, etc…

So, here it goes: What I have heard since, without much trying, and what I knew then, is that the cops were called after the brawl. It’s confirmed that the Palins, all of them, were in some way involved in a fight at a house in Anchorage where a party was going on. Bristol’s son, Tripp was at the party. I have confirmed from multiple sources that Bristol punched someone repeatedly, and that charges might be filed. I spoke to a source yesterday who witnessed part of it. She said that some in the crowd were trying to restrain Sarah, who was clawing to get involved in the fight, which had moved to the cul-de-sac outside of the house. She was also screaming loudly. She wore platform high-tops with the American flag on them, and Bristol wore big, round shades. As I reported, Track was at some point in the night, shirtless.

The whole family arrived in a stretch Hummer limo, and had to be told to leave the house.

That’s what I know. Stay tuned, no doubt, for more.

Update: Executive director of the Iron Dog, Kevin Kastner, wants people to know that this was in no way an Iron Dog party, though some Iron Dog racers may have been there.

Below are reactions from Alaska’s congressional delegation and federal candidates to President Obama’s speech on his plan to fight the Islamic State jihadist group called ISIS, or ISIL. Obama said on Wednesday night that he was prepared to order expanded airstrikes in Syria, and send 475 more U.S. military troops to Iraq. He will also urge Congress to approve funds for training moderate rebel forces in Syria, something that Sen. Mark Begich doesn’t support. Obama did not give a fixed date for when the operation might end, and according to news reports, his top aides have suggested it might last beyond his time in office.

The statements are from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Mark Begich, Rep. Don Young. U.S. Democratic House candidate Forrest Dunbar and GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan.  Continue reading →

The National Education Association Advocacy Fund released an ad on Wednesday, attacking GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, for his role in a settlement that Alaska received for the state’s retirement trust funds while he was attorney general. Sullivan has touted his role in negotiating the settlement, which some have criticized as being too low. His campaign ran an ad recently, featuring a school teacher who said that the settlement helped Alaska teachers. Hence the NEA’s involvement on Sen. Mark Begich’s behalf and its pushback.

Also on Wednesday, the National Association of Teachers- Alaska (NEA-Alaska), the Alaska Professional Fire Fighters Association (AKPFFA), and Alaska Public Employees Association (APEA), held a press conference, criticizing the settlement.

A Begich campaign press release about that event included quotes from union members criticizing the deal. It also included a picture of a fake check for $91 million made out to a New York Law Firm with Dan Sullivan’s signature on it. The memo line of the fake check reads, “Money that should have gone to hard-working Alaskans.”

However, Alaskans from both sides of the aisle question whether the criticism is fair.

The backstory: Mercer Inc., a financial actuarial firm, knowingly gave bad actuarial advice to the managers of the Public Employees’ Retirement and Teachers’ Retirement Systems. The state’s suit was filed against the Wall Street firm in 2007. The Department of Law asked the Legislature in 2008 for $12 million to sue. It refused. Some members of the Legislature, including Rep. Mike Hawker and Sen. Bert Stedman weren’t sure that the state had a case. It’s like “suing the weatherman for a bad forecast,” Hawker said at the time. Both urged the Department of Law to hire a lawfirm on contingency. Continue reading →

About 65 people showed for the fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker and lt. gov. candidate Byron Mallott on Monday night. It wasn’t the usual Dem crowd. These people were a little bit older, a little less enviro, a little bit more stable. A lot more excited. When Mallott gave a speech, he said that one thing that had changed was all the Acuras and Lexuses parked out front.  A standout: Sterling Emmal, one side of her hair ashy blond, the other side dark. Stylishly rag-tag, and, as she put it “tortured.” This will be Emmal’s first general election voting experience. She is 18 years old, and she takes her civic duty very seriously. Until a few days before, she was a committed Democrat. She changed her registration to protest the fact that Hollis French is no longer on the ticket. She is a die-hard French supporter, and can’t understand why the party didn’t choose him to top the ticket. She stood up to shake Walker’s hand and to try to figure out if she could vote for him, a Republican. He’s good at these things and he was patient with her but much of what he said didn’t sink in because he spoke in platitudes and she was so nervous. But there was something about him that she liked. Awhile later, after she calmed down, she tried again over the buffet table. They talked about his commitment to education. That worked better. She’s not there yet, but it was something that she could hold on to. “Maybe I could vote for him” she said, and she looked relieved. Among others spotted: Ira Perman, former lt. gov. candidate Bob Williams, Rep. Andy Josephson, former ANGDA guy Scott Heyworth, Bea Rose, Hal and Barbara Gazaway, pollster Jean Craciun, former Teamster boss Mike Kinney, woman-hall-of-famer Eleanor Andrews, and Oscar, the ubiquitous flower peddler.

Last week, I reported that Tom Wright was rumored to be coming aboard the Parnell-Sullivan campaign. Now, it’s official. He’ll be taking over the reigns as campaign manager replacing Jerry Gallagher. Continue reading →

GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan has announced that he’s not going to attend the Senate fisheries debate in Kodiak in October. His spokesperson said that he’ll be planning on traveling in rural Alaska during that time. The last debate in Kodiak was pre-primary. Sullivan was scheduled for Marine reservist duty then and couldn’t attend.

Sullivan’s campaign said that 20 organizations have shown an interest in hosting debates, and if they accepted all of them, that’s all they would be doing.

“The Sullivan for Senate campaign is currently finalizing our debate schedule – which will include ample opportunities for Dan and Mark to debate the many issues facing Alaska and the country,” Sullivan spokesperson Mike Anderson said.

That’s all probably true, except that this is a particularly important issue. The fishing industry is Alaska’s largest private-sector employer and fish are the state’s main export product. Imagine a Senate candidate from Iowa, say, skipping a debate on corn. Continue reading →

The National Republican Senate Committee is airing two new commercials that target Sen. Mark Begich’s time as mayor of Anchorage. Both star real Alaskans, such as Anchorage Assemblyman Chris Birch, Alaska Pasta Company owner Hope Nelson, Alaska Family Action’s Donald Ross, Downing Electric’s past president and shareholder Aaron Downing,  and Gary Bader. All focus on how much Begich spent during his tenure as mayor, statements that have been disputed by Begich’s campaign. (See those ads here and here).

Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove controlled super-PAC, also released an ad on Monday focusing on Begich’s time as mayor. It’s spending $850,000 to air it statewide. See that one below.

On Monday, the Begich campaign defended his time as mayor:

In 2003 Begich inherited a $33 million debt, which he turned around by working with the Anchorage Assembly and city employees. Begich’s financial stewardship earned Anchorage a “AA” bond rating and put the city in a strong position to withstand the nationwide recessions and stock market crash that devastated cities across the country.

Standard and Poor’s did give the city a AA bond rating and said that in 2008, the city, under Begich, had been well managed. However, it also relied on the state’s overall economic condition, Continue reading →

Here’s a tweet from state Sen. Hollis French that caught my eye:

Parnell administration does nothing to reduce health insurance costs for Alaskans, then complains about the results. http://t.co/IvRpbM5K7N

— Sen. Hollis French (@SenHollisFrench) September 8, 2014

French is responding to the recent politicized announcement that rates for those covered under individual plans through Premera Blue Cross are going to increase next year by as much as 37 percent. As Dermot Cole pointed out in his ADN column, there doesn’t appear to be public information available to justify the rates. Nor does it appear that the state has any intention of negotiating the rates. And they could. In Washington State, insurers, including Premera, asked for an average of an 8.6 percent increase for next year. The Washington Commissioner of Insurance, who is consistently consumer friendly, found that the increases weren’t justified and instead only allowed a 1.9 percent increase on average.

I asked French what Gov. Sean Parnell’s adminstration could do to reduce costs. Here’s what he wrote back: Continue reading →

Below is the press release that Gov. Sean Parnell sent out about the Alaska LNG Project’s request to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to begin the process to officially file for the natural gas project. The release also says that the state entered into an MOU with Japan.

The Japanese MOU doesn’t mean all that much. MOUs come and MOUs go. However, if played right, it could be used by Parnell to help inoculate himself against candidate Bill Walker’s accusations that Parnell is allowing the producers to control the fate and the market for Alaska’s natural gas. Don’t, however, hold your breath.

The pre-FERC filing is more substantial, and at the very least indicates that the companies still see a market for Alaska LNG, said Larry Persily, the Federal Coordinator for an Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline.

However, we’ve been here before. Two projects in the last four or so years have also been through the pre-FERC application process, and both gave up before they got to full FERC because the gas market in the lower 48 tanked. Continue reading →

The latest data from the highly suspect New York Times/CBS/YouGov “opt in” online poll is in. It shows that Republicans have an edge in taking the Senate in the midterms. That’s not surprising. The last data from this survey showed similar results, as do other “good” polls. What has shifted is the numbers coming out of Alaska. When the last data was crunched pre-primary, Sen. Mark Begich had a 12-point lead over GOP challenger Dan Sullivan. In this set of numbers, Sullivan leads Begich by 6 points.

No doubt the numbers will be used by Sullivan’s supporters for fundraising purposes and to bolster his campaign. However, we should all approach the findings with caution.  The methodology used by the poll is highly controversial because it uses “opt-in” respondents, basically meaning that people had to go to them online to get surveyed. Such survey methods fly in the face of what has been considered scientifically sound polling. Until this election cycle, the New York Times itself refused to publish such polls.

And then there’s the Alaska problem. Apparently,  it has been difficult for the New York Times to find people in Alaska who want to participate:

Alaska, however, is a state where there are reasons to have reservations about the quality of the data. The panel had less than 500 respondents, despite recruitment efforts. There should be fairly low confidence in the exact finding.

Which begs the question as to why they’re publishing it at all.

The Republicans and Gov. Sean Parnell are taking the Walker-Mallott ticket seriously. Good sources say that Republican strategist and political operative Tom Wright, who is considered to be one of the best in the state, will be taking a leave of absence from his position as COS to the Alaska Speaker of the House to join the Parnell campaign team. Other unconfirmed rumors suggest that some other top talent may be on board soon.

Parnell should be taking things seriously. The Dems are fired up about the Walker-Mallott merger. They smell a win, which is a new experience for many of them. Perhaps they should have long ago chosen a Republican to head their ticket. Why not, if you can win? Aren’t partly labels just labels, after all? Indeed, throwing off those labels seemed to make many of them giddy on Friday night at the Democrat’s Art of Politics, a art-auction fundraiser for the Democrat Party, which supposedly was the brainchild of IBEW’s Melinda Taylor. It was a big hit. About 200 or so showed. So many, in fact that there weren’t enough items to bid on, and people walked away with money burning in their pockets, which, because we aren’t doing labels anymore, might just show up in Republican coffers. Spotted: Vic Fischer and his wife Jane Angvik, who are treated like royally at these things. Travel guru Scott McMurran was there. Assemblywoman Elvi Gray-Jackson whose dress elicited oohs and aahs. A particularly ebullient Elsun Lawson; a dapper former Lt. Gov. Steve McAlpine, who likes to be called “Stephen.” Assemblyman Pete Petersen, Michelle Scannell and state Senate candidate Clare Ross huddled in the hallway, no doubt planning some sort of massive takeover of something. Lots of legislators were there. Congressional candidate Forrest Dunbar was a late arrival, and received a warm round of applause.

From an interview with KCAW in Sitka: Continue reading →

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is on air in Alaska, with a “multi-million dollar” ad buy, hitting GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan on Medicaid and Social Security. The ad features Gladys Meacock, whose husband has Alzheimer’s. “Our lives are hard enough. We don’t need Dan Sullivan making them even tougher,” Meacock says.

Sullivan has promised to work to repeal ObamaCare, which has saved seniors an average of $900 a year just on prescription drugs. If the law were repealed, seniors would also lose access to a host of preventative care benefits, including mammograms and colonoscopies. Also as pointed out in the ad, Sullivan has said that he would be willing to vote on a plan that would raise the age of retirement for younger generations.

Watch here:

Until recently, Sen. Mark Begich has run what many would say was a flawless campaign. He’s everywhere in this state, reaching out to as many different interest groups as possible. His attacks on his challenger, GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, for not supporting women’s rights, for not supporting Alaska Native rights, for not supporting the elderly, hunters, fisherman, to name a few, are no doubt working. Sullivan’s bruised. But he’s far from down.

An attack that began airing on Friday of Labor Day weekend was no doubt intended to try to take him out, and it might have worked had it been done differently and played at a different time. We’ll know more when polls start to roll in, but if wide condemnation from the national media—from Politico to MSNBC to the Washington Post, to Jon Stewart, some of which is summarized below–means anything, it appears to have backfired.

The ad in question said that Sullivan was to blame for the 2013 horrific murders of two elderly grandparents and the sexual assault of a two-year-old girl. The accused is Jerry Active, who had a record and who committed the crimes within hours of getting out of jail. Active’s trial is set for September 22.

He was out of jail due to a light sentence that he received, and shouldn’t have, as part of a plea deal that was cut while Sullivan was the state’s attorney general, and which bore his name. However, the plea deal was cut as a result of a mistake on a database that was maintained by the Department of Public Safety. The mistake was made prior to Sullivan’s tenure at the Department of Law, as were all of Active’s crimes.

The family’s lawyer, Bryon Collins, asked that the Begich campaign take it down. Eventually, they did, but it took a while.

The reasons for the media’s admonishments vary. Some focus on the “Willie Horton” type ad. Some focus on the timing and the bungling of it. Others focus on the veracity.  All seem to strike a resounding chorus that this was a major misstep by Begich in an otherwise well-orchestrated campaign.

Here’s some summaries of some of the media coverage: Continue reading →

Bill Walker, with the blessings of the Democratic Party, will be running as governor as that party’s “unaffiliated” candidate. One of the things that has made Democrats nervous is that he’s pro-life and is against gay marriage. However, he has repeatedly said, this time around at least, that the would not push that agenda. At Tuesday’s press conference, he said that social issues were not his focus, and that the laws that are currently on the books are going to continue to be the law.  (It might be worthy of note that Senate candidate Dan Sullivan has also said that social issues weren’t his focus. although with less clarity. Nonetheless, his beliefs about social issues have been unacceptable to Democrats.)

There’s no reason to believe that Walker isn’t telling the truth, but it’s important to know where Walker stands on these issue.  Four years ago, when Walker ran for governor in 2010, he expressed his views clearly. He completed at least two surveys on social issues: A survey from Alaska Family Action  and from Alaska Right to Life.

From Alaska Family Action survey

Alaska Right to Life is looking for the complete survey that he filled out then. But the director, Christopher Kurka, remembers the interview that the group had with Walker. From that interview and from what he does have of the survey, Kurka said that they would have endorsed him then if the organization’s policy was to endorse two candidates. As it was, Gov. Sean Parnell got the endorsement.

“Bill Walker told us everything we wanted to hear,” Kurka said, including telling them that he was committed to passing pro-life legislation.

Walker filled out another survey for Alaska Family Action in 2010.  (Read the full survey here: AK-VoterGuide-Gov-LtGov-081210).

Here’s a summary of what Walker said then on that survey: Continue reading →

For many across the state, including this writer, the excitement and bipartisan spirit that has accompanied the merger of an unaffiliated ticket comprised of Bill Walker, a Republican and Byron Mallott, a Democrat, is infectious. It’s a new day in Alaska, they said at the press conference on Tuesday officially announcing the merger. We’re doing it for the best of the state, they said.

It all felt familiar. Déjà vu for the politico in you. Scott Heyworth, a former Palin disciple, said to me, “This feels like when Sarah Palin won, but better!”

Indeed it did feel like 2005, when Palin won her party’s nomination for governor. Her message then was largely centered around creating a bi-partisan team that was going to do what was right for Alaska, party politics be damned.

Walker vowed that he was going to “field the best and brightest Alaskans across the state.” He said, “Partisan politics will not have a place in our administration.” Continue reading →

The release below just came from Mark Begich’s campaign, which claims that Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s campaign was involved in an “orchestrated attempt to deliver Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat for Dan Sullivan,” by getting Vic Kohring to drop his bid as Alaska Independent Party’s Senate candidate.

It might even be true, but given recent events, it’s a startling charge. It comes on the heels of Begich’s people being highly active in getting Democratic Party leaders to nullify a gubernatorial state primary election, in order to put a Republican on the top of the ticket for the first time in history. Why did Begich want this? For one, it plays nicely into his theme about party affiliation mattering less than doing what’s right for Alaska, and is music to the ears of independent voters. It has the potential to breathe life into what was a listless campaign. Continue reading →