Tag Archives: alaska politics

Mat-Su legislator’s son pleads guilty to federal drug charges

KTUU is reporting that the son of Mat-Su Valley Rep. Lynn Gattis pleaded guilty in federal court to being the ringleader of an international “bath salts” distribution ring. Robin Gattis is 20 years old. He was arrested in 2012, first by the state and then by the feds, and has been in custody since. The distribution ring had tentacles in China. According to KTUU, drugs from that ring were used by another 20 year old, only described as MGS, in a fatal overdose. Bath salts have nothing to do with either baths or salts, but are a stew of nasty chemicals that when used, act like speed.

Robin Gattis faces 20 years in federal prison. Gattis’ co-defendents include Anchorage residents Kevin Rupp, 21, and Haylee Hays, 19; Palmer residents Chad Cameron, 18, and Bren Marx, 20; Stephen Kimbrell, 20, of Soldotna; and Shane O’Hare, 23, of Wasilla.

Lynn Gattis was elected to her seat in 2012, despite her son’s problems. She beat her Republican primary challenger Mark Ewing with 61 percent of the vote, and won in the general with 73 percent.

She’s smart, quick witted, and is considered one of the rising stars in the Republican Party. Her chief of staff, Erick Cordero Giorgana sent out a statement that said Lynn Gattis and her husband appreciate everyone’s prayers and they also appreciate their privacy during this difficult time.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

BW2 : A “squared” idea that sounds cool to some of Parnell’s opponents

Fourteen percent of Alaska voters are registered Democrats. About 27 percent are Republicans. The rest belong to the Libertarians, Alaska Independent Party and the vast majority are undeclared. So those who want to beat Republican Gov. Sean Parnell, whose term is up next year, had an idea: put parties aside and join the independent candidate for governor with the likely Democratic nominee.

And if those candidates are both named Bill, and both have last names that start with W, you’ve at the very least a good campaign logo: Meet “BW².”

It also doesn’t hurt that Bill Walker, the gubernatorial candidate, is a Republican at heart and that he’s friends with Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, the potential lieutenant governor, and that both have the potential for populist appeal.

To be clear: right now, the scheme seems more of a quixotic Facebook campaign than anything. But the two have been talking about the possibility. Walker said that although he’s a Republican, he and Wielechowski agree on more issues than they disagree, particularly oil taxes.

Walker isn’t the firebrand on the issue that Wielechowski is, but he doesn’t think that the bill that passed, SB21, had the necessary investment assurances and said that he wouldn’t have voted for it if he were in a position to do so.

Pollster Ivan Moore, whose been pushing the BW²idea, is sure that this is the only chance to beat Parnell, whose support is relatively strong statewide and especially among Republicans.

“The only ticket that could possibly beat Parnell right now is a ticket that unites moderate Republicans, independents and Democrats,” Moore said.

“If the Democrats put someone in the race now, it dooms the Democrats and independents and instantly reelects Parnell,” he said.

Word is that the Democratic Party is none-too-happy about the possibility and has been trying to pressure Wielechowski to abandon the idea. But the party doesn’t really have that much leverage these days. Its numbers are down. Campaign finance reform that the Dems pushed for has greatly limited its fundraising ability. And its bench of candidates is dismally short.

If nothing else, it would be fun and could provide the kind of excitement that Parnell seems incapable of generating.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Walker goes Independent and Wielechowski takes his time

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker is now Independent candidate Bill Walker. Walker thinks that he’ll have an easier time bypassing the primary and challenging Parnell as an Independent, and he’s likely right.

Parnell’s numbers are strong. A recent poll conducted by local pollster Marc Hellenthal shows Parnell’s approval rating is 57 percent positive and 26 percent negative.

Where Parnell could be vulnerable is on oil taxes. Hellenthal said that his poll showed that roughly as many people would vote for a candidate who would support repeal of the oil tax bill than a candidate who wouldn’t support repeal. However, 22 percent are undecided.

That’s a lot of undecided voters and a big opportunity to change some minds. And the next legislative session will likely provide that opportunity. Because of the tax break, the state will likely be facing a deficit. Oil production will not have increased, and the opportunities for talking points and great campaign ads will be numerous, on both sides of the issue.

Because Walker has been more focused on issues surrounding a natural gas pipeline than on oil taxes and has never fully embraced the repeal crowd, there’s also room for a Dem in the race to take on that issue. Both Democratic Sens. Bill Wielechowski and Hollis French are considering a run. Wielechowski, whose seat isn’t up, has less to lose than does French. However, French has a strong challenger in Rep. Mia Costello. And he can only run in one race.

Wielechowski, apparently not an Andrew Marvell disciple, said that “there’s plenty of time.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Are PPP’s Alaska polls pure propaganda?

The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling, also known as PPP, is once again proving that it values publicity above all else. And in Alaska right now, the interest is the looming race against U.S. Sen. Mark Begich. Throw in an off-the-cuff statement that Sarah Palin made about considering running for Senate, and you’ve got the makings for some screaming headlines, no matter that the numbers buried under the headlines are suspect, at best.

A recent poll that the firm conducted via robo calling shows support for Begich’s job performance at about 42 percent. That might make it sound that Begich is in a little bit of trouble. However, Alaska-based pollster Marc Hellenthal, who actually knows the state and uses real-live people to do his polling, has Begich’s approval rate at about 60 percent in a recent poll.

Hellenthal’s got some other numbers which contradict PPP’s poll, but before we get into all of that, let’s get the elephant out of the room: Palin might have considered running for Senate, in the same way that I have considered taking belly dancing classes. I’m not going to take belly dancing classes. Palin is not going to run for Senate. She would lose.

According to PPP, most Alaskans want Palin to run. That might be true, in the way that dogs think they want that car that they’re chasing. But from the headlines the poll has generated, you would think that Palin is still popular in Alaska. Palin is not popular in Alaska.

In fairness, PPP’s numbers show that she’s got a high disapproval rating here. And the firm can be forgiven for not understanding the intricacies of Alaska’s politics, nor is it responsible for a lazy media. What isn’t forgivable is that the group’s polling methodology stinks. In this particular poll, Democrats are way over represented, as are women and older people. Law dictates that pollsters aren’t allowed to robo-call cell phones, so there goes about 50 percent of the population that use them all the time or most of the time. And those are just a few of the problems with using machines to do the work that humans should.

Alaska, as uber poll cruncher Nate Silver points out, “is perhaps the most difficult state in the country to poll. Its residents are in a strange time zone and keep strange schedules; it has very high rates of cellphone usage; it has highly unusual demographics.” (It should be noted here that Silver himself has used Alaska PPP polls and therefore gotten Alaska horribly wrong in the past).

Couple Alaska’s idiosyncrasies with PPP’s sloppy work, and you might as well throw numbers on a wall.

PPP isn’t a stranger to using such suspect methodology. It conducted an absurd poll in May that showed that Sen. Mark Begich actually lost support in Alaska as a result of voting against Obama’s gun control bill. In that poll, Democrats were over represented by a whopping 9 percent, women were over-represented by 12 percent, and the firm just couldn’t figure out the nonpartisan/Alaska Independent Party thing.

They got it a little better on this one. But the sampling error is still way off. Dems in this poll are over represented by six percent, women by 10 percent, and the ages are all screwy. The numbers show it.

Hellethall’s poll was conducted for a private citizen who is not involved in any of the races.

Here’s a few examples of how Hellenthal’s poll numbers compare with PPP’s:

Begich has 60 percent approval and 24 percent disapproval rating. Prior to the gun control vote, Hellenthal had Begich at a 53 percent positive and 35 percent negative. In other words, Begich’s vote helped him enormously, which is in direct contradiction to what PPP reported.
Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has a 30 percent positive approval rating, a 16 percent negative rating, 30 percent had never heard of him, and the remaining are neutral about him. PPP reported a 29 percent unfavorable rating.
As for unannounced Senate candidate (DNR Commissioner) Dan Sullivan: PPP has his negatives at 28 percent, which is absurdly high for a commissioner. Hellenthal didn’t poll him, but the only thing that could figure is that people are confusing Commish Sullivan with Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan.
Gov. Sean Parnell’s approval rating is 57percent positive and 26 percent negative.PPP has those numbers at 44 percent and 42 percent respectively.
Both Hellenthal’s poll and PPP’s poll show that Democratic Sens. Bill Wielechowski and Hollis French would have a way to go in name recognition if either chooses to run for governor.
Rep. Don Young’s wetback comment didn’t seem to hurt him much. He’s got a 56 percent positive and 28 percent negative approval rating. PPP has Young at 47 percent approval 43 percent disapproval rating.

PPP didn’t poll on her, but another interesting finding from Hellenthal is Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s numbers. According to Hellenthal, she is the most liked politician in the state with a whopping 69-24 approval/disapproval rating. This number might just quell the squirrels who are chirping that Murkowski is so unpopular that she’s not going to run again in 2016.

Another pollster in Alaska, Matt Larkin, who has taken over for long-time Republican pollster Dave Dittman, declined to take on the PPP poll, saying that he didn’t want to get into the back and forth of who was a better pollster. He did say that generally bad polls “undermine the integrity of the whole field.”

He also reminded me how wrong PPP got the 2010 Senate race. In the last poll PPP conducted before the vote, it had Scott McAdams tied with Lisa Murkowski. It showed that Miller would take it by 7 points. On election night, Murkowski had 40 percent of the vote. Miller got about 35 percent and McAdams 23 percent.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Thank God it’s Friday: The shut the f#%k up edition

Wednesday was not the best day for Wilda Laughlin, the legislative liaison for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. In fact, it might be forever remembered as “F-bomb Wednesday.” As many in the state knows by now, Laughlin thought her phone was on mute when she was listening to a House Finance Committee hearing on the department. The hearing was not going well. Legislators were getting frustrated by the lack of answers to their questions. And as legislators are wont to do, they didn’t hide their frustration.

In the middle of a scolding of the department by Chugiak Republican Rep. Bill Stoltze, Laughlin blurted out over the phone, “shut the f#%k up.”

After a long silence, Stoltze recovered gracefully. It’s unclear, however, if Laughlin will, which might seem unfair. The political arena is full of “hot mic” gaffes, and many have committed more serious ones than hers, both inside and Outside. The difference, however, is that Laughlin’s fate is left up to bureaucrats, who tend to be less forgiving than voters. And of course, she is a she and people tend to be less than sympathetic to foul-mouthed women than they are to men.

Below are some more well known “hot mic” mistakes made by both Alaskans and national figures. Some of them were punished for their mistakes. Others, mostly men, were forgiven.

Dan Fauske, the director of Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, once called the Senate Finance Committee Chair Steve Frank a “moron,” after a private telephone conference, when he thought the line was dead. Fauske is now the state’s highest paid worker.
During the Hickel administration and the huge retroactive back tax fight, there was a teleconference between BP officials and the Speaker of the House Ramona Barnes, who was supporting the industry’s position. She changed her mind quickly after someone from BP called her a “bitch.” He assumed the line was dead. It wasn’t. The mistake looked like it might cost BP billions. However, after an extensive lobbying session, Barnes calmed down, resumed her pro-industry stance and saved BP billions.
In South Korea following a 90-minute meeting between Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, journalists overheard Obama tell Medvedev, on a hot mic, to give him “space” on missile defense, saying, “This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility.”
During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush called New York Times reporter Adam Clymer a “major league asshole” just before a campaign speech to Vice-President Dick Cheney, whose response “big time” was also said on a hot mic.
Before a Fox-News interview in 2008, a hot mic picked up Jesse Jackson telling a fellow guest that because Obama was talking down to black people, he wanted to “cut his nuts off.”
In October 2010, a voice-mail was accidentally left on Joe Miller’s spokesperson’s cellphone. The voices belonged to KTVA reporters, who were discussing a Miller campaign event. At the event, could they find a registered sex offender, they wondered? Will there be violence? And if so, how best to publicize it? Though even Fox News said that there was no bias in the stories that the station produced, two producers were fired after Sarah Palin got involved, calling them, not so originally, “corrupt bastards.”
Speaking of corrupt bastards. Who could ever forget oilman Bill Allen getting caught on tape telling former legislator Pete Kott that he “owns his ass?” Or former Rep. Vic Kohring, who is now running for Wasilla City council, all but begging Allen for money for his child’s Easter eggs?
Speaking of sex offenders? Unfortunately, there was never a hot mic moment when Bill Allen was allegedly having sex with teenagers in his hot tub.
Speaking of animals and Sarah Palin: Everything was going fine. Thanksgiving 2010 was right around the corner. It was a beautiful day and the turkey was pardoned. The trouble started, as it’s likely to start with Palin, when she decided to give an interview to a local TV station. As she spoke about freedom, this great country, blah, blah, the camera focused in on a worker in the background, shoving turkeys neck first into a grinder. That’s not quite a hot mic moment, but anytime a writer can get animals and Sarah Palin into the same paragraph, he or she should stretch to make it work.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Obamacare: the politics of delay and denial

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Don Young voted on a bill to give President Obama the authority to delay, by a year, the employer health care mandate portion of Obamacare. The mandate was to go into effect in 2014, and would have required businesses that employ more than 50 full-time workers to provide affordable insurance, or else be subject to a fine.

This doesn’t mean that Young approves of Obamacare. Young, who has for more than four decades been the beneficiary of some of the best tax funded health care available, has been one of the bill’s staunchest critics. In a release on Tuesday, he called it “one of the worst bills Congress has ever passed,” and promised to continue to advocate for full repeal.

Many critics of Obamacare crowed after the administration announced the delay in the mandate. Others, however, saw a greater game at work, one that could ultimate strengthen the program.

Now that employer mandates are off the table, at least temporarily, the thought is that people are increasingly going to be signing up for individual coverage. Such coverage was always available to the individual, but often times it was too costly, overly burdensome to get, and many were denied due to pre-existing conditions. However, insurance exchanges, one of the key provisions of Obamacare, are still set to be up and running by the end of this year, and individual coverage could be cheaper and easier to get under those exchanges.

Recently, California announced that such exchanges could cut rates for individual insurance by up 29 percent for some consumers. And on Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New Yorkers who buy individual policies will most likely see their premiums cut by half in 2014.

Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to buy that plan for as little as $308 monthly. The costs could be lower with federal subsidies.

That consumers might find individual health care insurance affordable makes Obamacare foes nervous. The public, once it tries it, actually might like it. They might actually be able to afford the kind of insurance that state and federal officials get. Such a notion is anathema to many, including Young and Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, as well as other Republican governors. Parnell, among others, has refused to help set up those exchanges. The feds are doing it for Alaska, no matter that if the state cooperated, the exchanges would be better for residents.

Apparently, Parnell and others would leave uninsured Alaskans uninsured in the hopes that they can force Obamacare to fail.

Some Republican governors however, seem to have the health of their residents more in mind than partisanship. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for example, said that he’s not fighting Obamacare because it was in the best interest of New Jersey for its residents to have access to affordable healthcare.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Republican strategist eyes Alaska

Texas Republican strategist Chris Turner, with Stampede Consulting, has been in and out of town now for a few months. This time, however, he’s been in Alaska for nearly a week. With his wife and 11-year-old son, he’s here, ostensibly, for a vacation. And he has been on the usual vacation tour circuit: spotting bears in Denali, whales in Seward, etc, etc. . .

But any Republican strategist worth his spit would see a vacation in Alaska right now as more than just an opportunity to spot wildlife, as evidenced by the fact that he showed up at Speaker of the House John Boehner’s Anchorage fundraiser on Tuesday evening wearing a suit.

(The event was officially off the record, but I can report that Boehner lived up to his red wine drinking, cigarette smoking, weeping reputation. He actually wept during a speech.)

The U.S. Senate race is looming. The balance of power in the chamber may very well rest on how Alaskans vote. The technologically savvy, incredibly effective army of Obama Democrats will be setting up in force in the next year to ensure Sen. Mark Begich’s reelection. And the Republicans are not going to give up without a vicious fight.

“Alaska will be ground zero,” Turner said. Big money is coming to the state in a big way on both sides of the aisle. In addition to the Senate race, if the oil tax repeal makes it on the ballot, oil money will gush. If marijuana makes it, pot money will cloud the airwaves. “Alaskans have no idea what’s coming at them,” Turner said.

Then, depending on how the never-ending process known as redistricting is complete, there’s all those state candidates.

Turner doesn’t know who, or if, he’ll be working for. So far, former candidate Joe Miller and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell have announced they’ll take on Begich, DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan is said to have been considering a run, but has recently flat out denied this.

What Turner does know, he said over lunch on Tuesday afternoon, is that whoever it is, he or she needs to have as powerful a ground game as the Democrats have, a ground game that will both challenge Begich on pressing the flesh and on the technological front.

The Dems have gained the ground-game advantage largely because of Obama’s team, which won in 2008 by organizing neighbor-to-neighbor contact, along with the most advanced get out the vote computer applications. That effort has continued to evolve and was deployed to breathtaking efficiency in 2012.

Begich will have all those tools at his disposal, tools that the Republicans have been dismal at deploying.

Team Romney was supposed to change that. His team promised that they had “the Republican Party’s newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election.”

That plan, dubbed “Project Orca,” turned into a nightmare. Everything about the system failed. Hundreds of thousands of campaign volunteers were foot-stomping frustrated, and that was before the system crashed on Election Day, leaving senior staff in Boston to tally votes on a calculator.

Turner, who worked on other presidential campaigns but sat out Romney’s, claims that he’s got the ground game answer. He’s coy about the specifics, and so is his decidedly unsophisticated website. But out of 100 races that he was involved with in the last election cycle, he claims to have won 92. (It should be noted that not all of the candidates were the most savory.)

If there’s a good candidate, Turner thinks he can help win the Senate seat for the Republicans.

That’s a big if, however. The only declared or potential candidate so far who has shown even a hint of the kind of tenacity that Begich has is, of all people, Joe Miller. And if Miller wins the Republican primary, Republicans across the land will cry big Boehner tears.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Dancing with both parties at Bill Sheffield’s birthday bash

The house not unknown to throngs of polticos and well known Alaskans was out-thronged with them on Saturday afternoon, where hundreds showed to wish former Gov. Bill Sheffield a happy 85th birthday. A Democrat in a Republican state, a staunchly pro-union businessman, pro-development, pro-choice, pro-money, and an active contributor to candidates in both parties, Sheffield has always eluded ideological labels, and it showed Saturday afternoon.

Gov. Sean Parnell and his wife Sandy made an appearance. Former Gov. Tony Knowles and his wife Susan were there.

Reps. Lindsey Holmes, Mia Costello, and Bill Stoltze formed a Republican cabal with Sens. Lesil McGuire, and Kevin Meyer.

All of whom were in spitting distance of Vic Ficsher, Jane Angvik, Jana Varratti, Nancy Groszek, and Mike Szwmanski, to name a few prominent Dems.

There didn’t appear to be a love-fest between the two factions, but nobody that I saw at least got a drink thrown in his or her face.

Mayor Dan Sullivan showed as did former Anchorage Mayor Tom Fink, the staunchest of staunch conservatives who Sheffield beat in the governor’s race and remains one of Sheffield’s best friends.

Sheffield’s Lt. Gov. Stephen McAlpine, who hates to be called Steve, was there. Steve is perhaps the only lieutenant governor who was serious about the Division of Elections. Also present: Diane Adams who is the wife of former Rep. Al Adams, Jim and Marty Weeks, John and AJ Shively, Kelly Campbell, the great organizer and most faithful friend ever “Mother” Laurie Herman and Dan Hickey , Paul Quesnel, Al and Ann Parrish, Curtis Thayer …The list goes on. (And of course, no party is complete without a Margy Johnson hat sighting.)

Some enterprising society page columnist rag would have had a field day at the event, and might have carried a notebook, taken some notes, and snapped a few pictures, if nothing else to remind herself that Democrats in the state once actually mattered.

As it was, I spent my time either standing at the buffet line or sitting snarfing my spoils.

Regardless of the lack of documentation, one thing would have been apparent to even the most bloated and wine soaked observer — and there were plenty of them – that all of these people, all of them with all of their various and sundry and often conflicting agendas and personalities, that all of them could all be together in goodwill is a testament to the man who brought them all together.

From Spokane, Sheffield began his career selling appliances at Sears. He worked tirelessly, leased a hotel and turned his business into the largest hotel chain in the state. He had enormous energy and determination, but he was never a natural politician. He had a nearly debilitating speech impediment and did things like making enemies of government workers by making them wear ties and cutting their salaries..

What is nearly inconceivable now, one of the biggest uproars caused by his tenure, aside from a nasty Republican-hyped non scandal, was that he consolidated Alaska’s four time zones into one. What is also inconceivable, he is the only governor to significantly cut the budget. This at a time when oil went below $10 a barrel.

He did this and also oversaw the state’s purchase, from the federal government, of the Alaska Railroad. He also oversaw the development of Red Dog Mine and Bradley Lake dam and cracked down on air and water pollution problems in Anchorage and Fairbanks. He cared deeply about rural Alaskans and traveled all over the state to reach out to them.

Sheffield didn’t get a second term. He lost to Steve Cowper, who didn’t even own a house in Alaska and only served one term. When Cowper left, he left the state for good.

The party was said to go on well after I left. Songs were sung. Memories shared. Tears were shed. A few began to dance. Sheffield joined them. At his party, it didn’t matter what party they belonged to. He danced with them.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Healthcare hearing leaves things unsaid

Alaska state Rep. Lora Reinbold, who chairs the Administrative Regulation Review Committee, held an interesting if unbalanced hearing on the effect the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, is going to have on Alaska.

“Is Obamacare the best or worst thing to happen to the U.S.? That’s what our hearing is about; we want to learn the facts and clarify what is currently known about the program’s effects in Alaska,” she wrote in a press release announcing the hearing, two days before it was held.

Reinbold, a Republican from Eagle River, is not a supporter of the Affordable Care Act, and is a cosponsor of a joint legislative resolution to call on Congress to delay the implementation of the act.

Those testifying, all invited by the committee chair, included Deborah Erickson, the executive director of Alaska’s Health Care Commission, Jeff Davis who is president of Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, Division of Insurance Director Bret Kolb.

Dr. Ilona Farr, who is a primary care physician and who has been one of the state’s most vocal opponents of the ACA, also testified. She was the only health care provider who did so.

Alaska has the third highest cost of health care in the world and its citizens pay among the highest premiums rates for insurance in the country. At about 120,000 uninsured Alaskans, the state has among the highest rates of uninsured per capita in the country.

The committee didn’t invite patient advocates or anybody from the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, or any of their members including Providence Hospital or Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

Nobody from the public testified.

With the absence of those voices, it was difficult to get a balanced perspective on the Act and how it will affect such people and institutions, say nothing of what it would do to such people and institutions if Gov. Sean Parnell declines to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid.

It was a topic that those presenting only touched on, which was also surprising given that it is one of the few things about the Act in which the state has a voice.

In the other major area that the state could have had say—health exchanges—Parnell ceded the state’s voice and has allowed the feds to build Alaska’s exchange, which is supposed to be up and running by September. (Read more about exchanges here.)

The major take-away from the hearing, based on those testifying, was that health care costs are going to rise under the Act.

Farr, as she has done in the past, also spent much of her time talking about the negative impact that onerous regulations were going to have on doctors.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Silence from the right over Murkowski and gay marriage

Josh Barro writes in Business Insider about the deafening silence from the right following U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s statement in support of gay marriage. He finds nothing.

I too spent a good part of my day on Wednesday and this morning looking for reaction to Murkowski’s statement on gay marriage. Nadda. Not from the National Review. Not from the American Spectator. Not even from Joe Miller or Sarah Palin, neither of whom have been shy about taking shots at Murkowski.

Just a few years ago, the right would have been in an uproar and would have denounced Murkowski as a heretic.

Barrow suspects that “deep down, many socially conservative writers are less confident than they used to be that gay marriage is wrong. So they’ve abdicated any effort to argue against gay marriage or hold accountable Republicans who support it.”

I suspect that deep down, they know it’s a losing issue for them. And they are also jittery about being on the wrong side of history days before the U.S. Supreme Court is set announce one or both of its decisions on gay marriage.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Quote of the day and the wisdom of Lisa Murkowski

On the same day that Sen. Lisa Murkowski came out for gay marriage, Exodus International, the oldest and largest Christian group that promoted “reparative therapy” in order to “cure” homosexuality, is closing its doors following a remarkable apology to the gay community by Exodus’ president Alan Chambers. Here’s a passage from that apology, but it’s worth reading in full:

“Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives. For the rest of my life I will proclaim nothing but the whole truth of the Gospel, one of grace, mercy and open invitation to all to enter into an inseverable relationship with almighty God.”

Sen. Lesil McGuire running for lieutenant governor

The tenacious, smart, impetuous, and always interesting state Sen. Lesil McGuire will be announcing on Wednesday at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium that she’s running for lieutenant governor in the 2014 election.

McGuire was first elected as a state representative in 2000 when she was 29 years old. She won her current Senate seat in 2006, even though during her early years of public service she drew some controversy for issues related to alcohol and her ex-husband, former Rep. Tom Anderson, who was later sentenced to five years in federal prison.

McGuire’s fought hard to prove her mettle and has risen to be part of the Senate leadership team. She chairs the powerful Senate Rules Committee, which dictates the flow of legislation to the floor for action. Sometimes that entails stopping bills, which McGuire has been known to do, even when pressured by other members of leadership.

Rumors have it that Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan, who also has raised eyebrows again for issues related to drinking, is also running. He’s yet to confirm his intentions though he did file a letter of intent to seek statewide office. He’s also reportedly been calling potential challengers, all but telling them that the seat is his and to butt out.

McGuire, however, is going to decline to do so.

No matter which other Republican she will run against in the primary, McGuire’s candidacy will be interesting if nothing else because she is likely to be the only one in the race whose politics, particularly on social issues, might be described as moderate. That is if being a moderate these days means that you don’t believe that abortion should be outlawed in cases of incest, rape, and when the mother’s life is in danger.

It’ll also be interesting because she will likely be the only candidate who can walk just as gracefully down the carpeted halls of the Capitol building as she can on icy sidewalks, wearing stilettos.

And she’s a fighter.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Chuck Kopp rumored to be after state Sen. Fred Dyson’s seat

Rumors abound that Chuck Kopp, legislative aide to Senator Fred Dyson, is telling folks that his boss is retiring and that he intends to run for the state Senate seat in Eagle River. Dyson was first elected to the legislature in 1996 and has served in the Senate since 2002.

Fiscal conservative former Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom is also rumored to be interested in the seat. However, if Rep. Bill Stoltze, who is also in that district decided to run for the Senate, it would be his for the taking.

Kopp was Sara Palin’s very short lived public safety commissioner who resigned after it came out that he had been had been investigated and reprimanded for a sexual harassment complaint made by an employee when he was the chief of police in Kenai.

Most recently, Kopp’s name has also been in the news for being the brother-in-law of Judge Paul Pozonsky. Alaska Department of Labor hired Pozonsky as hearing officer last year, even though he was being actively and openly investigated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office at the time of his hire. Too, the job was only open to Alaska residents. Pozonsky has recently been charged, among other things, for pilfering cocaine while on the bench in Pennsylvania.

Questions quickly arose, and keep arising, about possible political patronage. But Kopp has denied that he had anything to do with the hiring, and told the Anchorage Daily News in December that he didn’t know that Pozonsky had even applied for the job until the hiring was in process.

“I knew that he retired from his job (as a judge) and I was informed afterwards that he had applied. And I never communicated with Department of Labor or the governor’s office, or anybody. That was strictly all his doing,” Kopp told the ADN.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Model for Mark Begich and gun control vote

Sen. Mark Pryor, Democrat from Arkansas, is responding to an ad from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which is criticizing Pryor’s gun control vote. Pryor was one of four U.S. senators to buck the Dems and vote against gun control. Bloomberg’s group reportedly has spent $350,000 on the ad

In his counter, Pryor takes on Bloomberg, which is likely a winning strategy in Arkansas as it would be in Alaska. Watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5JDuTkHt20

Sen. Mark Begich also voted against gun control, and Bloomberg’s mayors are also eyeing Begich’s vote. I haven’t seen any Bloomberg commercials yet, but they are said to becoming and Begich is likely salivating over notion. He’s already responding with radio ads, using his vote on gun control as a positive. Which, despite a ridiculously flawed PPP poll, it will likely be.

PPP also came out with a poll on the Arkansas race. It describes its findings: “Mark Pryor’s chances for reelection next year would be enhanced if he supported a background check bill when it comes back up in the Senate.”

I don’t know if the Arkansas poll was as flawed as the poll in Alaska. If it is, then Pryor’s team should just ignore it. The PPP poll done on gun control in Alaska showed that only 35 percent of Alaskans opposed background checks, a notion that’s so absurd that I dug a little deeper into the poll. Among the poll’s many flaws:

Gender: Alaska is roughly 50 percent male to female, but the firm sampled 56 percent women to 44 percent men.
Party affiliation: Of the total registered voters in Alaska, only 14 percent are registered Democrats. About 27 percent are registered Republicans. The sample size that PPP used was 25 percent Democrats and 30 percent Republicans.
“Independents/other.” About 53 percent of registered voters are registered “undeclared,” and “nonpartisan.” Then there’s the Alaska Independence Party, which is a whole other breed of people, and the Libertarians. The two of them make up about 6 percent of voters. The PPP’s sample lumps them all together, calls them “Independent/other,” and only uses a 45 percent sample size.

As I wrote before, I’d chalk that poll up, as I have other PPP polls, to the kind of crackpot tool that you find on both sides of the political spectrum intent on spreading propaganda and false narratives if it weren’t for the fact that the media dutifully reports on the polls.

There’s a healthy debate to have over Begich’s gun control vote. But it won’t happen through distortions and fabrications.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com.