Category Archives: Politics

Loose Lips: ‘Wolf the Wolf Killer’ meets ‘Tower of Power’ edition

The GOP primary for lieutenant governor is now a three-way race. There’s Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan. State Sen. Lesil McGuire. And now Kelly Wolf, a former one term Kenai state rep has filed. Some say he was most “infamous” for some of his indecipherable letters that he authored while in office. He also sponsored legislation that would crack down on non-profit lobbying activity. Wolf was an advocate of predator control, and wanted to make it more difficult for nonprofits to try to stop people from shooting wolves from airplanes. Wolfe the wolf killer!
Speaking of new candidates: Former state Rep. Alan Dick filed a letter of intent to run against Sen. Click Bishop. Last year, the Legislative Ethics Committee fined Dick $18,000 for suspect business conduct while he was a state legislator. The committee found that had a “cavalier mindset” while doing so.
Cook Inlet Tribal Council will be celebrating 30 years of community service on May 16th from 3:00 – 6:00 pm at their offices located at 3600 San Geronimo Drive, Anchorage.
Upcoming political fundraisers :

May 17, 5:00 – 8:00 pm Bill Walker for Governor Family Dance (and Kalua Pork Sandwiches) at the Eagle’s Hall, Valdez.
May 18, 4:00 – 6:00 pm Anand Dubey for State House Campaign Kick-off Fundraiser
at the home of Anne Gore and David Hart 3001 Illiamna Avenue, Anchorage.
May 27, 5:00 – 7:000 pm., House Majority Fundraiser at the Crown Plaza, Anchorage.
May 28, 5:00 – 7:00 pm. Joint fundraising event for Speaker Mike Chenault and Rep. Mike Hawker at the Petroleum Club of Alaska.

Congratulations are due to one of my favorite editorial cartoonist. San Francisco based Healthline website has named Anchorage’s Peter Dunlap-Shohl’s blog Frozen Grin as one of the “15 top Parkinson’s blogs in the country.”
Miller Energy Resources, Inc. announced the acquisition of Savant Alaska LLC for $9 million cash. The primary asset in the deal was Miller obtaining a 67.5 percent working interest in the North Slope Badami Unit. ASRC Exploration LLC has the remaining 32.5 percent partner interest. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Ever heard of the Valley’s “Tower of Power”? Well, it has nothing to do with Valley trash, nor of Sarah Palin’s new mega-mansion. Gov. Sean Parnell, not known for his alliterative abilities, used the phrase to describe Sen. Mike Dunleavy, who is like 10 feet tall, at an education bill signing Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Parnell had an overflowing turnout at a $100 plate luncheon at the Aladin Restaurant. Some of the folks attending included Northrim Bank’s Marc Langland, ASRC’s Tara Sweeney, Petro Star’s Doug Chapados, all five RCA commissioners, DOT Commissioner Pat Kemp, DOA Commissioner Curtis Thayer and Jim Palmer, who for years ran BP’s government and public affairs department in Alaska. At the event Republican Party Chair Peter Goldberg presented a check to the Parnell campaign for $100,000 from the party.
Also on Tuesday night, Alaska gas czar Dan Fauske and his wife Elaine hosted an event for Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. About 80 people turned out including House Speaker Mike Chenault, Rep. Mike Hawker, AHFC Executive Director Brian Butcher, Rep. Lindsey Holmes, North West Strategies’ Tim and Christine Woolston, John Boyles from the North Slope Borough, former legislator Alyce Hanley and Tara Sweeney, to name a few.
Also on Tuesday evening at the Petroleum Club of Alaska, Reps. Eric Feige and Dan Sadler had a joint event as well; unfortunately, no one called to share any details.
Getting sick of fundraising accounts? Me too. Expect more.
Did anyone know that Matt Moore has dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress and is now seeking a seat in the Alaska House of Representatives?
The Dems are meeting in Nome this weekend for their biennial state convention. This is how Nome is described on the party’s website: “A vibrant, multi-cultural, multi-national first class city in Northwest Alaska, established over 100 years ago as a Gold Rush community in the late 1800s. It is populated by native peoples, families of Gold Rush families, emigrants, immigrants and adventurers seeking freedom and peace in this welcoming community on the Bering Sea.” Which is certainly one way to see it. Another way is that it’s populated by Democrats who will vote for Byron Mallott and particularly Mark Begich.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Andrew Halcro: Begich a ‘great’ Senator

The Facebook post below, from Andrew Halcro, is causing a stir. Halcro, a friend of mine, is a Republican and the president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce. Never one not to speak his mind, Halcro said last month that he was “mad as hell” that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was airing ads in Alaska for Senate candidate Dan Sullivan and against Sen. Mark Begich, whom Halcro now calls “great.” Hence the stir:

Alaska Libertarian Mark Fish runs for U.S. Senate seat

In a move that has the potential to affect Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, Mark Fish filed on Wednesday with the Alaska Division of Elections to run for the U.S. Senate seat as a Libertarian.

Fish has long been a Libertarian, and is well known in those circles, but worked as both a Sarah Palin and GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller staffer and remains close to the Miller campaign.

There’s been speculation that Fish is running in order to save a spot on the ticket for Miller were Miller to lose the Republican primary and chose to run as a Libertarian. It would be a move that would all but ensure a win for U.S. Sen. Mark Begich. However, in an interview, Fish said that he has never talked with Miller about that scenario.

“We’ve had conversations about a lot of things, but never about that,” Fish said.

He said that he is running so that Libertarians have a viable candidate to vote for in an open primary. The Republican primary has a closed ballot, meaning that those in other parties don’t get to vote for their candidate. The Democratic primary, however, allows for other parties.

“I want to give the registered Libertarians and people who choose an open ballot a choice other than Begich,” he said. After the primary, he said that he’ll reassess the situation. If he does stay in the race, he’ll likely draw away from the Republican candidate.

Anchorage-based Republican pollster and consultant Marc Hellenthal said that Fish would likely pick up about 5 percentage points if he stays in the race past the primary. “That could easily cost the Republican nominee the vote,” he said.

Another libertarian, Thom Walker, has filed to run for the seat, but Walker is an unknown and until recently was a registered Republican and has not been involved in the Libertarian Party. Numerous people, including this reporter, have tried to contact him in the last days but he can’t be reached.

“He’s not a viable candidate if he can’t answer his phone,” said Libertarian Party Chair Mike Chambers.

Fish is a longtime Alaskan. He spent 20 years in the National Guard. He ran for Anchorage Assembly in 2003 and for state House in 2008. He spent five years on the Human Rights Commission, until a controversial comment that he wrote on a blog about a “radical feminist” was unearthed.

Fish and Miller agree on more things than they disagree on, said Fish. However, Miller is “much more socially conservative than I am,” he said.

For instance, Fish, unlike Miller, doesn’t believe that the state should be involved in marriage at all. And also believes that abortion should be a societal, rather than legal decision.

GOP candidate Dan Sullivan’s campaign declined comment. Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller’s spokespeople didn’t return calls requesting comment.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

New wide-ranging poll surveys Alaska’s political landscape

I’ve been suspicious in the past of the Democratic polling firm PPP. One, they robo-call. Secondly, in the past, they have way over sampled Democrats and under-sampled young people. That said, their sampling has improved, and some of the numbers in a wide ranging poll that PPP released today on Alaska is generally in keeping with at least one other recently released poll, even if they did poll a candidate who dropped out of the race. Read on.

Here’s some highlights from the poll on the governor’s race:

Gov. Sean Parnell: 44 42 percent approve of the job he’s doing while 41 44 percent disapprove. By comparison, in a poll done in March by local firm Dittman Research, 54 percent of Alaskans said that the governor was doing a good job, and 41 percent said the governor wasn’t doing a good job.
In the general election, Parnell wins 37 percent to Democratic challenger Byron Mallott’s 27 percent and independent candidate Bill Walker’s 17 percent. 15 percent of Alaskans remain decided.

Here’s some highlights from the poll on the Senate race:

Among 313 Republican primary voters surveyed, Dan Sullivan has a 14 point lead over Mead Treadwell: 40 percent for Sullivan and 26 percent for Treadwell. Joe Miller, the other challenger, is falling in the polls with only 14 percent of GOP primary voters saying that they’d vote for him in August. These numbers are generally consistent with a poll paid for by Sullivan that was released earlier this month.

Other findings:

In the lieutenant governor’s GOP primary race, Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan would beat state Sen. Lesil McGuire 53 to 27 percent, with 21 percent undecided.
Among the general voting public, Sarah Palin’s favorability rating is 36 percent. Her unfavorable is 56 percent.
U.S. Rep. Don Young is surprisingly the most popular politician up for reelection in Alaska this year. 46 percent of voters approve of the job he’s doing to 39 percent who disapprove.
However, as evidenced to how much PPP knows about Alaska politics, it polled Matt Moore against Young. As expected, Young is walloping Moore, 50 percent to 22 percent. The problem? Moore isn’t even running for Congress. He dropped out to run for state House. The new darling of the Democratic Party, Forrest Dunbar, is running against Young. But he wasn’t included.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

U.S. Senate candidate Mead Treadwell hires communications director

It appears that despite rumors that he was going to drop out of the primary, Republican Lt. Governor and U.S. Senate candidate Mead Treadwell is digging in. On Tuesday, Treadwell announced that his campaign has hired Tom Intorcio to serve as communications director.

Intorcio is no novice. He’s worked for Republican congressmen, was an Iowa field rep for Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, and a field coordinator for President Bush’s 2004 campaign. He’s also been affiliated with a Patriot Voices, a grassroots group devoted to “liberty.” Watch him here talking about the group. Word is that the hire has been in the works for awhile.

According to two recent polls, Treadwell’s numbers have been falling while Dan Sullivan’s have been rising. A PPP poll released on Tuesday shows that among 313 Republican primary voters surveyed, Sullivan has a 14 point lead over Treadwell: 40 percent for Sullivan and 26 percent for Treadwell. Joe Miller, the other challenger, is falling in the polls with only 14 percent of GOP primary voters saying that they’d vote for him in August.

All of them lose to Sen. Mark Begich in the general, however. The poll, which surveyed 582 general election voters, has Sullivan losing by 5 points, Treadwell losing by 8 and Miller by 16 percentage points.

PPP is a Democratic leaning firm, and uses robo-calls to conduct its polls and has been suspect in the past. However, the numbers are fairly consistent with a poll paid for by Sullivan released in early May that used live interviewers.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Outside Dem groups dropping about $8 million into new pro-Begich ads

I found this on my Facebook feed on the day that I learned that the pro-Begich super-PAC, Put Alaska First, was buying as much as $4.6 million of television ads which will begin to run eight weeks before the election. Put Alaska First is about 90 percent funded by the Senate Majority PAC, which is run by former aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is also preparing to spend $3.5 million in the same time period. This money, it should be noted, is above and beyond the millions that Begich himself will put into the race, more than 80 percent of which has come from Outsiders.
Begich special interest money

Mayor Dan clarifies remarks about teacher education programs

From Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan’s column in the Alaska Dispatch clarifying his remarks that teaching degrees aren’t as challenging as engineering degrees. Full disclosure: I dropped out of a teacher certification program because it was tortuously vacuous. I decided to get a masters in creative writing instead.

(T)he facts show that the countries that are outperforming the U.S. are doing a better job of consistently attracting top students into the teaching profession through a combination of strategies, including more rigorous and challenging college instruction and financial incentives for entering teaching as a professional career path. The point I was trying to convey is that we should examine those strategies and implement those that make sense and will help improve our student results.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball can’t predict Alaska’s Senate race

University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato has solid record of predicting races across the country. His most recent map of Senate races in his Crystal Ball has all in various shades of blue, red and mango. Three of them, however — Alaska, North Carolina and Louisiana are yellow — are yellow, indicating “toss-ups.”
senate map

It’s likely the reason that the pro-Begich super-PAC, Put Alaska First, has recently bought as much as $4.6 million worth of advertising in Alaska in a single buy. It’s a huge amount of money for the state. But it’s also a must-win for Dems, and it’s a relatively cheap one to boot, even though TV stations are charging as much as 10 times more than they did last election cycle.

Byron Mallott responds to gay marriage ban challenge

As has been widely reported, a lawsuit was filed Monday by five same-sex couples arguing against Alaska’s same-sex marriage ban. It’s the first one in the state since the ban was passed 1998, which was in reaction to Anchorage couple Jay Brause and Gene Dugan’s Supreme Court challenge. All told, 18 states across the country allow for same-sex marriage. Arkansas joined the group on Monday.

As far as I know, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Byron Mallott is the only candidate so far to respond to the news. Here’s his release:

I welcome today’s news that five Alaskan couples have challenged Alaska’s ban on same sex marriage. Alaska’s constitutional framers declared that “all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the rewards of their own industry” and that they are “equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities and protection under the law” they didn’t add the caveat “except for gays and lesbians”. Gay and lesbian Alaskans should be treated fairly and equally under the law. I will work to make sure that same-sex couples have the freedom to marry like anyone else. The freedom to marry is a basic right that more and more states are recognizing. Alaska should become a leader in this movement.

Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s new ad

Here’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s new ad, highlighting his service in the Marines, which goes with the key line: “I’m running for the United States Senate because Alaska needs a fighter again, not another talker.”

Loose Lips: The spry Vern Rupright edition

Mat-Su musings: Wasilla mayor Vern Rupright, who people say is looking young and spry, is said to be considering an independent bid for the House District 7 seat currently held by Rep. Lynn Gattis. Reports are that he’s talking to folks about signing a petition to get his name on the ballot.
Rep. Bill Stoltze’s bid for the Senate has opened up his District 12 House seat. Now, lots of people want that seat. The first person to announce was Mat-Su Borough assemblyman Ron Arvin, a Republican. The next candidate was Stoltze’s sister in law, Gretchen Wehmhoff, who is running as a Democrat. Now, two of Rep. Mark Neuman’s legislative staffers, Cathy Tilton and Rex Shattuck, are said to be interested and entering the race.
On the move: Revenue Deputy Commissioner Bruce Tangeman’s last day with the department is Monday, May 12th. He has accepted a position with the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation. It’s likely just as well. It’s said Commissioner Angela Rodell and Tangeman were never the best of friends.
On Saturday, Ethan Berkowitz hosted a fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Byron Mallott. The turnout was rumored to be light, then again it was a beautiful Saturday evening. Upcoming fundraisers:

Gov. Sean Parnell – May 13th luncheon at the Aladin’s Restaurant, Anchorage from 11:45 am – 1:00 pm

GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan – May 13th reception at the home of Dan and Elaine Fauske, 7241 Setter Drive, Anchorage from 5:30 – 7:00 pm.

Gov. Sean Parnell – May 14th reception sponsored by the Alaska Tourism Industry at the Millennium Hotel, Anchorage from 5:00 – 6:30 pm.

Gov. Sean Parnell – May 14th reception sponsored by the Anchorage Women’s Republican Club at the home of John and Julie Papasavasi. 5922 Big Bend Loop, Anchorage from 7:00 – 8:30 pm. (Bring your sweet tooth to this one for desserts galore and Judy Eledge).

DeLena Johnson for state Senate Campaign Kick-off – May 17th from 3:00 – 6:00 pm at the Palmer City Ale House.

Bill Stoltze for state Senate – May 22nd campaign BBQ and reception hosted by Senate President Charlie Huggins at the Pavilion behind the Regan Building located at 3161 E. Palmer-Wasilla Hwy from 5:00 – 7:30 pm.

Hollis French for lite governor – May 29th reception at Nancy Groszek’s house in Turnagain from 4:30 to 7:00 pm at 2512 St. Elias Drive.

Days until the general election: 177
The latest buzz of the LA food truck scene is Cousins’ Maine Lobsters out of West Hollywood and like most good things, there is an Alaskan connection. Former Anchorage resident, Clark Bickford, just joined their culinary team. Clark worked in Juneau at the legislative lounge on the second floor of the Capitol during the 2013 legislative session. His parents are lobbyist Frank and Annie Bickford. His brother, Taylor, served as Bill Walker’s campaign manager in 2000, then as the reapportionment director for the state and now runs Strategies 360’s, a public relations/public affairs consulting firm, Anchorage office.
The Alaska Democratic Party’s Biennial State Convention will be held later this week from May 15 – 18th in Nome.
Given all the discussion this past legislative session about education funding and teacher’s salaries, I couldn’t help but to share this data point I came across earlier in the week: The earnings of the top 4 hedge fund managers made a combined total salary of $10.4 billion which dwarfs the combined salaries of the 157,800 kindergarten teachers in the United States, earning an average $52,840 per year, which adds up to be about $8.34 billion. Not sure what it means but I thought it was an interesting data poont worth pondering.
Sarah Palin made a surprise call-in to the Bob and Mark show, earlier this week, long enough to kind of sort of urge Alaskans to support the oil tax repeal on the August ballot and to say some kind words about independent gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker. Who the heck knows how much impact she’ll have? Nobody. But a respected lower-48 pollster, who gave me the numbers on the promise that I wouldn’t out him or her, said that a poll conducted earlier this year showed that Palin’s favorability rating is only 34 percent. 53 percent of Alaskans view her unfavorably. However, those numbers are among all Alaskan voters Among GOP primary voters, 53 percent have a positive view of her. And remember: because there’s a hot, contested GOP Senate primary race, the election is likely to bring out more GOP voters than Dems. For what it’s worth.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Sarah Palin, patriots and Sean Parnell

OK, admit it. You’ve missed Sarah Palin. Her exasperating relationship with the truth. The clan-like sense of justice. The malapropisms. Those mysteriously acquired Midwestern vowels. The smile as she’s reaching for the dagger. The voice, which has within it a piercing dog whistle that, for those who hear it, beckons like an abandoned swing set during a windstorm. Come back and play, kids!

Sarah Palin called into KWHL-FM’s Bob and Mark show, her go-to boys of yesteryear, and blew hard. Gov. Sean Parnell? An oil lackey, “bless his heart.” Repealing the oil taxes and reverting back to the system she created while governor? You betcha. Bill Walker? Right on! He’s got his “thumb on the pulse,” of Alaska, she said.

I caught Walker on the phone a few hours after it happened. He was in the airport in Sitka, heading back to Anchorage. He was as surprised as the rest of us. Apparently he didn’t have his thumb on that particular pulse.

The oilies I spoke to aren’t overly wee-wee’d up about Palin’s ability to draw the votes to repeal. They’ve adopted the Lower 48 attitude of Palin fatigue. Mistake number 1 million and two.

Palin would have felt right at home on Thursday night as about 15 people showed for the tea party-esque Conservative Patriots Group meeting on oil taxes. Ray Metcalfe was the invited speaker. Metcalf was an Anchorage legislator in the late 1970s and spent much of his time dancing at one of the clubs in Juneau. Disco Ray, he was dubbed. In the last years he been an oil industry gadfly with a mission and a calculator.

He showed charts and graphs about oil tax regimes across the world. Newspaper clippings. Lease agreements from obscure and unpronounceable oil fields in Iraq. Much of the presentation was out of focus on the screen and the segments that weren’t were all scrunched up and difficult to read. Internal rates of return. Multiplication. Long division. He came up with all of this on his financial calculator, which he held up in the air.

Bottom line: When the oil companies talk about profits in Alaska, “I urge you, when you hear these numbers, get out your calculator” he told the group, at least three of whom were packing side-arms.

There is nothing that should scare sensible businessmen more than gun-packing Alaskans armed with financial calculators.

A former BP executive was there. He worked on the Iraqi oil fields. He actually understood lease agreements. At one point, he held his shaking head in his hands.

Alaska Libertarian Chair Mike Chambers was also there. Under his leadership, the party appears to becoming as sensible as the Libertarians will allow. Expect a big announcement in the next few days about one of them running for the U.S. Senate seat. Also expect speculation that he or she will be acting as a place-warmer for Joe Miller, were he to lose the GOP primary race. The prospect has the Republican Party regulars chewing their neckties. If he did so, it would make it nearly impossible for anyone to beat Begich.

In other words it appears that Miller, bless his heart, has set himself up as the kingmaker in the upcoming race. The pro-Begich super-PAC Put Alaska First is said to be prepping to take advantage. Word is it’s poised to dump more than $4 million (!!) into locking up air time for the last eight weeks of the election.

More on the race: For the first time since 1990, the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce has called off the only Senate primary debate that will focus exclusively on fisheries issues. All of the candidates were invited in mid-January. Sen. Mark Begich and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell responded immediately. Miller’s invite got lost in the tubes.

And Dan Sullivan? The former DNR commissioner, not the mayor, claims a prior military training commitment. And that may be just as well.

Sullivan proved to know nearly nothing about fisheries during a recent KTUU forum, and there’s talk in hostile groups that he’s avoiding other debates. Apparently, forums are more to his liking. Do you blame him? You’ve got Joe Miller on one side, who can likely recite nearly everything Milton Friedman has written on conservative economic theory, and Treadwell on the other, who dreams in Alaska topography.

Forums, though, can prove to be dangerous battlefields. Just ask the other Dan Sullivan, the Anchorage Mayor, who stepped in it last Monday when he compared union membership to slavery during a lieutenant governors forum. None of the candidates on stage raised an eyebrow. Even Sen. Hollis French let the faux pas pass.

The NAACP didn’t let it pass. It demanded an apology. Eventually, Sullivan did so, but it took a while. In the meantime, dubious Outside websites ran headlines implying that the Senate candidate in Alaska is advocating a return to slavery.

Finally, Gov. Sean Parnell appears to be playing a version of peek-a-boo. Put your hands over your eyes and everything magically disappears! But real people don’t. Real women say that they were abused while serving in Alaska’s National Guard and appear to have been treated by Parnell and his administration as ignorable apparitions.

If she chose to, Palin could really blow her whistle loudly on that one. No niceties or blessing of hearts required.

This piece was first published in the Anchorage Daily News

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Joe Miller’s praise of libertarians has politicos speculating

U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller sent out a press release on Thursday, applauding the libertarians for “schooling Begich on liberty.” Miller was referring to Alaska Libertarian Party Chair Mike Chambers scolding Begich for telling CBS News that Alaskans are “very libertarian.” Chambers lays out what most libertarians believe, and according to Chambers, it’s not what Begich believes. Read the release in full below.

Miller has continually said that he’s running as a Republican and plans to stay a Republican. However, the release and his embrace of the Libertarian Party has caused further speculation that he’s setting the stage to join that party’s ticket, perhaps after the primary, were he to fail to get his party’s nomination.

In an interview, Chambers denied that he’s involved in some sort of scheme to get Miller on the ticket. In fact, he said that someone from the party is planning to file to run for the seat. He declined to say who, however. But he also said that if Miller loses the primary, the Republican Party will get what it deserves “for not taking responsibility” for whom it elects, he said.

Libertarian Mark Fish, who worked on Miller’s campaign in 2010, and is still close to it, said that he wouldn’t discourage a switch. “If Joe wants to come over to the Libertarian Party, I welcome him,” he said.

What’s clear is that if Miller joins another ticket after the primary, it will make it all that much harder for Republicans to beat Begich in the Fall.

Here’s Miller’s release in full:

Republican US Senate Candidate Joe Miller today responded to a recent statement from Alaska Libertarian Party Chair Michael Chambers regarding Senator Mark Begich’s recent mischaracterization of the libertarian movement in an interview with CBS News.

“I appreciate the fact that the Alaska Libertarian Party is speaking out on the important issues facing our state and nation,” Miller said. “What we don’t need more of is Mark Begich’s progressive ideology masquerading under the banner of liberty. True libertarianism is grounded in Constitutional liberty, and I am proud to share those values with the Alaska Libertarian Party.”

Begich attempted to align himself with libertarianism by suggesting that as Alaskans “we’re very libertarian . . . and we don’t think that government should be interfering in our personal and private lives.”

Alaska Libertarian Party Chair Michael Chambers responded with the following:

“Senator Begich, allow me to define the vast majority of libertarians for your educational benefit, as you seem to be confused:

1. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would remotely support the government takeover of our healthcare industry.

2. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would vote to confirm:
•   Eric Holder – anti-gun
•   Elena Kagan – anti-gun
•   Sonia Sotomayor – anti-gun

3. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who supports:
•   Common Core
•   Federal Department of Education
•   suppression of parental rights in education

4. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would vote to support and advocate:
•   The IRS in any malignant manifestation
•   NDAA and the suspension of habeas corpus
•   NSA invasion of our personal effects
•   The Patriot Act

5. No Alaskan libertarian I know would advocate globalist policies like:
•   The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty
•   TPP – Trans Pacific Partnerships
•   UN Treaties having any jurisdiction or precedence over the US Constitution.

Certainly, there are a few libertarians who may support the socialist policies you advocate, but to infer that you are ‘libertarian’ in any of your political representations is to vacate any measure of truth.”

Miller concluded, “These are momentous times, and it is imperative that we transcend partisan frames of reference. The only way we can push back federal tyranny is for all Alaskans of good will to unite under the banner of Constitutional Liberty.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Mayor Dan apologizes for slavery comment

After initially refusing to do so, Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan apologized on Wednesday for comparing union membership to slavery during a lieutenant governor’s forum on Monday. Read the backstory here and here. Here’s the apology in full that he wrote on his Facebook page:

At a recent candidate forum for Lt. Governor, I expressed my support for Alaska to be a “Right to Work” state, one of the key planks in the Alaska Republican Party Platform.

I am opposed to rules that compel mandatory union membership in order to perform certain work, which I referred to as a form of economic slavery. To me, the term has no racial connotations except that people of all races may be prohibited from holding certain jobs unless they pay tribute to an organization they may not support.

I do, however, understand the sensitivity that the term slavery connotes and I apologize if the use of the word offended anyone. I will remain; however, steadfast in my belief that government policies that discriminate against the American worker, regardless of race, and that create unnecessary economic barriers should be eliminated.

Palin praises Walker, swipes at Parnell and calls out Alaska ‘crony capitalists’

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin shocked many in the state when she called into a local radio talk show on Wednesday morning, and seemingly endorsed independent Gov. Bill Walker, took swipes at current Gov. Sean Parnell and called those who supported the current oil tax regime “crony capitalists.”

Parnell was Palin’s lieutenant governor and took over for her after she quit her job in 2009. He then was elected in 2010 and is currently running for reelection. One of his biggest victories since being governor was to change the oil tax structure, termed ACES that Palin fought hard for and enacted in 2007 on the heels of a federal corruption scandal involving oil field services contractor VECO and state legislators.

Palin appears to say on the Bob & Mark show, which has long supported Palin, that the reason Parnell changed the tax structure was because of his ties to the oil industry, including his former job as a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.

“Bless his heart. Remember that Sean Parnell came from the oil industry…lobbying for the cause there. Perhaps that’s ingrained in him,” Palin said. (Listen to the full interview here.)

The tax structure enacted by Palin included a steep windfall tax, and bulged state coffers as oil prices rose in the last few years. The new tax regime, which is highly supported by the oil industry, takes less on the high side but is said to protect the state as prices drop.

A measure to repeal the tax will appear on the August primary ballot. The oil companies have spent more than $8 million so far fighting against the repeal effort, which is supported by Walker and by many in the Democratic Party.

Palin said that those who don’t support the repeal are “buying into the highly funded PR campaign” waged by the oil industry.

“People need to remember what crony capitalism is all about.” She also said that there are still “remnants” of the “Corrupt Bastards Club” in the state, referring to the words on some pro-oil legislators’ baseball caps, which were designed as a joke.

Bob and Mark asked Palin if she could, would she go back in time and choose a lieutenant governor other than Parnell. Instead of answering directly, Palin changed the subject and praised Walker. She said that he’s “absolutely spot on,” and that he has the “thumb on the pulse of most Alaskans.”

She also said that Alaska needs a governor who is a fighter.

Is that Parnell? they asked. She laughed and said, “I want to make sure we’re tuned into all the debates to find out who that fighter is.”

It’s been years since Palin has weighed in on state issues. However, she said that she’s happy to do so, indicating that this isn’t the last time that the state will hear from her between now and the election.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com