Category Archives: Politics

New American Crossroads ad attacks Begich over taking undue credit

Below is an American Crossroads ad attacking U.S. Sen. Mark Begich for taking credit for things that the ad claims he shouldn’t take credit for. The ad continues a theme that has been playing out between the campaigns of GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan and Begich for weeks now. (See the ads here, here and here.)

As expected, it quotes Rep. Don Young, who recently told a camera crew during a recent campaign shoot in Fairbanks, that he was tired of Begich’s claims about his accomplishments. “Don’t take credit for something you did not do,” Young said in an impromptu interview by a camera crew that regularly works for Young and for Art Hackney, an Anchorage based ad-man and strategists for American Crossroads.

Among other things, Young was referring to a road that was recently built in National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, that was an effort by Continue reading →

Pro-Begich Super-PAC releases third ad attacking Sullivan on HB 77

Here’s another ad from Put Alaska First, the pro-Mark Begich super-PAC, going after GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan over HB 77. The ad features Beth Northlund, the executive director of Anchorage Park Foundation, talking about the controversial, complicated bill that got scuttled because of the controversy last legislative session. On one side, the rap on it is that it proposed to give unprecedented powers to the DNR commissioner to issue permits. At the time of its drafting, Sullivan was the DNR commissioner. Those who helped draft the bill, including Sullivan, said that it cut through red-tape that was impeding development. In any case, the public came out in droves to testify against it and the bill died in the Senate. This is the third ad Put Alaska First has made featuring HB 77. The first featured a moose hunter—the claims of which were a ‘stretch’—and the second featured well-known former Democratic lawmaker Sam Cotten. I’d bet that Put Alaska continues to focus on the issue because it works.

Here’s the response from the Sullivan campaign to the ad: Continue reading →

Loose Lips: Power brokers. Campaign cash. APOC complaints all around.

To the extent that Alaska has power brokers, many of them were at Rep. Bill Stoltze’s political fundraiser for his state Senate bid at the Aviation Museum in Anchorage on Monday. About 70 in all showed, with a hefty dose of sports fishing enthusiasts in the room lead by Kenai angler Bob Penney. Spotted: Linda Leary from ACS; Bill Eckhardt and Dan McCue from Alaska USA Federal Credit Union; Tom Gimple with Geneva Woods Pharmacy; AOGA’s executive director Kara Moriarty; GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan and his lovely wife Julie Fate; Verne Martell; Mat-Su Borough Assembly members Steve Colligan and Ron Arvin; SCI President Eddie Grasser; awesomely dressed Marie Evans and Michael Hurley from ConocoPhillips; AK Republican Party Vice Chair elect Frank McQueary; Rasmuson Foundation President Diane Kaplan; Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux; Mark Davis from AIDEA; retired Superior Court Judge Karl Johnstone; and Ketchikan state House candidate Agnes Moran. Rumored take at the door was north of $15,000.00. Continue reading →

Former GOP chair Ruedrich files APOC complaint against Republican women’s club

In a rare move that’s likely to shock many in political circles, former Alaska Republican Party chair Randy Ruedrich has filed an APOC complaint against the Anchorage Republican Women’s Club, the club chaired by Judy Eledge.

In his complaint, which was filed late Tuesday afternoon, Ruedrich alleges that the ARWC is not keeping proper donor-records. Specifically, he says that it has failed to disclose aggregate contributions. Contributions to political groups under $100 are not subject to detailed APOC reporting rules. However, names and address of donors are required when donors exceed more than $100 a year, even if those contributions are in small increments.

Ruedrich said that it appears that the ARWC wasn’t keeping track of small donations, and therefore couldn’t account for aggregate contributions Continue reading →

Alaska GOP Senate debate might violate FEC laws. Will it go on?

What was supposed to be a relatively seamless GOP Senate candidate debate sponsored by four Alaska Republican women’s’ clubs, including the Anchorage Republican Women’s Club, has turned into an event which, as planned, might violate federal election laws.

The debate is scheduled for Thursday night at East High School in Anchorage, and all three major candidates—Joe Miller, Mead Treadwell, and Dan Sullivan—were expected to attend. The organizers were charging $10 at the door.

At issue is who, Continue reading →

Mike Miller and Mikse Willoya-Marx withdraw from state Senate races

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner is reporting that former Alaska state Senate President Mike Miller is dropping his bid against Fairbanks Sen. Click Bishop. Miller told the paper that he withdrew because the race would be a “‘distraction” for the Republican party at a time when the party needs cohesion. He told the paper that he had been talking to Bishop over the past few weeks, and that the two “agree on a whole lot more issues than we disagree on.” Bishop is considered a moderate, union-friendly Republican. Miller was likely to draw conservative votes in the race.

Mikse Willoya-Marx, the Wasilla Democrat in Senate District E, has also dropped out of the race. Willoya-Marx was challenging state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, who will now face former Mat-Su Assemblyman Warren Keogh, who’s running as an independent, in the general.

Mayor Dan Sullivan mulling ‘reasoned response’ to APOC over fine

Below is Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan’s response to a question I asked about if he plans to fight APOC’s staff decision to fine him $187.50 for a campaign violation. APOC said that a statement that Sullivan sent from his official office was “election related” and therefore should not have been sent from his office. The statement in question was an apology for comparing union membership to slavery at a lieutenant governor’s forum. Read the back story here:

I am going to present a reasoned response that suggest that when something of this nature is so ‘de minimus,’ a cautionary warning to try and avoid candidate/elected official conflicts might be more appropriate than an arbitrary $187.50 penalty. The headline generated is completely out of proportion to the actual event, probably punishment enough.

APOC recommends fining Mayor Dan for issuing an apology

Anybody else think that APOC is stretching here?

A report by the state agency that regulates campaign finance laws says Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan broke state law by issuing a campaign-related press release through his city spokeswoman last month. The report, written by an agency staff member, recommends that Sullivan pay an $187.50 penalty.

At issue is whether or not Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan should have sent an apology for comparing union membership to slavery. Sullivan made the comments at the candidate forum, but many, including the NAACP asked for comment from him as the mayor. He, his spokesperson Lindsey Whitt, Continue reading →

Wash Post lowers Begich’s chances of winning, still betting on Sullivan in primary

The Washington Posts’ Election Lab, a joint effort between the Post and a group of political scientists, now only gives Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich a 43 percent chance of retaining his seat in the upcoming election. That’s a six-point drop since May, when the Lab gave Begich a 49 percent chance of keeping his seat.

What’s changed? Campaign contributions, said political scientist Eric McGhee, who is a contributor to the project. The group has yet to include polls in its model, and unlike other people and organizations that predict races, its model doesn’t include subjective information, Continue reading →

Lt. gov. candidate Fleener apologizes to Parnell, and asks for apology in return.

Below is lieutenant governor candidate Craig Fleener’s response to the dust-up between Fleener and Gov. Sean Parnell’s campaign. Fleener is running as an independent with Bill Walker. Read the back story here:

I and NCAI conference organizers and participants expected Governor Parnell to speak as listed on the program. When he did not take the stage after he was introduced and I was told by an organizer that he was delayed in traffic, the universal opinion was that Gov. Parnell was a no show. It is now known that Parnell declined the invitation by email to the NCAI office manager but apparently the information never made it to the meeting coordinators, Alaska Native leaders, or conference attendees and Parnell remained on the program. While I did check my sources all the way to the top of those in charge at the conference, I apologize for stating Governor Parnell was an unexcused no-show. I would ask that Governor Parnell and his campaign manager, Jerry Gallagher, apologize for calling me a liar. I would also ask that the underlying Native Alaskan issues addressed in my opinion piece not be lost in this unfortunate dust-up concerning event attendance.

Loose Lips: Atwood’s ghosts. Dunleavy busy bush hogging. Alaska Republican Assembly endorses.

Donna Sheridan has been threatening to retire for years. Now, she’s really going to do it. Sheridan, who has been running the administrative side of BP’s Juneau office for years, is finally calling it quits. Rumor has it that she’ll be hanging out in the sunshine state of Florida.

On Wednesday evening, Carl and Pam Brady hosted a fundraiser at their Anchorage home for Gov. Sean Parnell. Approximately 60 people showed. Some of the guests: Carl Marrs, Mayor Dan and Lynnete Sullivan, Diane Kaplan, Larry Cash, Mary Hughes, Jerry Hood, Rudy and Natasha Von Imhoff, Dan Coffey, Ed and Cathy Rasmuson, Art and April Hackney, and Kyle Parker. Continue reading →

Why so few female candidates?

From Slate’s Amanda Marcotte on why politics is so male-dominated:

After performing 45 interviews with experienced candidates and officeholders and holding multiple focus groups with other politicians and staff members, the [Institute for Women’s Policy Research] found that women had smaller networks than men to access for funding, faced sexist nonsense while campaigning, and had far less support on the homefront than male candidates, who can often depend on a wife who devotes herself to his career full time. One thing the researchers did not find is that women lack ambition. “Ambition is not an issue or a deficit with these women,” Denise L. Baer and Heidi Hartmann, the study’s authors, write. “Most women self-recruited for their first office or campaign, and only one in four say others recruited them for their first office.

In the upcoming races in Alaska, nine women are running for state Senate, compared to 16 men who are doing so. Twenty-six women and 56 men are running for state House.

Murkowski and unions urge voters to vote against repeal

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, along with the North Slope Contractors Association and the pipeline trade unions, held a press conference on Friday afternoon to urge voters to vote against ballot measure 1 in August. The measure would repeal a recently passed oil-tax overhaul, and would revert it back to ACES, the system that was passed during Sarah Palin’s tenure in Juneau.

Murkowski, the eight union reps and contractors all said basically the same thing: The future of Alaska is at stake. Under the new regime, the state stands an economic chance. Under the old regime, it doesn’t. Continue reading →

Young issued ‘letter of reproval,’ signaling end of investigation

On Friday, the U.S. House Committee on Ethics released its final report on the panel’s investigation into allegations that Rep. Don Young misused travel expenses and accepted gifts improperly.

The report follows years of various investigations into Young’s activities, all of which now are over. Ultimately the panel issued a letter of reproval for actions which “demonstrated a lack of appropriate safeguards and an inattention to the relevant standards of conduct.” It also said that Young did not act “corruptly” or in “bad faith.”

The panel ordered Young to pay $59,063 to his campaign fund and to various gift-givers, and to amend his financial disclosure reports, Continue reading →

Young: Caught on camera

U.S. Rep. Don Young, not known for always being appropriate, was caught on camera on Tuesday being particularly inappropriate as one of his colleagues, Rep. Scott Garrett, was talking about a bill to rename a post office after Joseph D’Augustine, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2012. Watch the video here.
Don Young yucking it up
Matt Shuckerow, Young’s spokesperson, sent a statement to The Daily Caller, which first had the story:

“ The House cameras caught Congressman Young in a light-hearted moment interacting with a colleague. As a veteran himself, his actions were obviously not related to the legislation being discussed on the House floor and he clearly meant no disrespect.”