Tag Archives: mead treadwell

Treadwell goes after Begich for lack of enthusiasm to end oil export ban

partisanshipU.S. Senate candidate Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell’s campaign has been churning out the press releases in the past few days, most of them attacking Sen. Mark Begich for being both soft on energy and for taking money from the national Democratic Party, which is taking money from former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is fighting for stricter gun control.

Both charges are a stretch, but the last one is particularly elastic. Begich was one of a handful of Democratic senators who broke with the party to vote against gun control, incurring the wrath of gun control groups everywhere, including one funded by Bloomberg.

On energy, Treadwell accused Begich of failing to lend his enthusiastic support for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s fight to end the 1970-era oil export ban.

Murkowski is leading the charge to do away with ban, with the support of the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The ban was issued in 1975, following the Arab oil embargo, and was meant to protect American consumers from an unstable market and widely vacillating gasoline prices.

It does not apply to all oil produced in Alaska. However, demand has been high enough that no Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, according to the Energy Information Administration.

As more domestic oil is produced, it’s likely to be one of the biggest energy issues in the coming years.

Although Begich considers a higher priority making sure that Alaska can sell its natural gas to Asia, he does support lifting the ban.

“Alaskans know Mark Begich’s strong record of supporting Alaska’s energy industry and his work to create quality energy jobs for middle class families including his support of exporting Alaska crude oil and natural gas,” a Begich campaign press spokesperson said.

But some top Democrats say that because oil companies will try to sell oil more expensively to other countries, lifting the ban will translate into higher prices for consumers at the pump. Refiners, such as Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner by capacity, also opposes lifting the ban, according to Bloomberg News.

“Yesterday, Mark Begich had the opportunity to enthusiastically support Alaskan energy by supporting Lisa Murkowski’s bid to end the oil export ban but he failed to do so. Mark Begich and the Obama Administration cannot claim to support free trade in energy on one hand without reversing policies to produce Alaska energy on the other,” Treadwell said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is willing to consider lifting the ban.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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D.C. publications focus on Alaska Senate race

On Sunday, two inside-the-beltway publications, Roll Call and The Hill, featured stories focusing on the 2014 Alaska Senate race.

Roll Call headlined its article as one of its 12 “Most Fascinating Races of 2014: Alaska Senate.” The publication announces what Alaskans had known for years: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is vulnerable. According to the article, the race is currently rated a Tossup/Tilt-Democratic by Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call. Roll Call said the fight between the top two Republican candidates —  Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and former DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan —  is less about ideology and more about who can beat Begich, which is kind of true. However, Treadwell has increasingly positioned himself to the right, particularly on social issues, while Sullivan has steadfastly refused to go there.

In any case, the first real fundraising test is coming up. FEC financial disclosures are due on Jan. 30.

Enter the money game.

The Hill’s article, “Five Fundraising Numbers To Watch,” focuses on the importance of former Alaska DNR commissioner Dan Sullivan’s year-end campaign cash totals as a number to watch:

Republican strategists have been predicting a big fundraising quarter from Sullivan, a former Bush appointee with close ties to a number of national Republicans. His brother is a top fundraiser for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).Sullivan’s main primary opponent, Alaska Lieutenant Gov. Mead Treadwell (R), has struggled so far with fundraising, bringing in just $200,000 last quarter. If Sullivan can post a huge fundraising quarter, it could help establish him as the clear front-runner on the GOP side. But if he fails to live up to the hype, the primary could turn into a slugfest.

If nothing else, the article suggests that Sullivan’s D.C. Republican squirrels have been chirping into the ears of reporters, which I suppose is indicative of a campaign that’s capable of raising money. But it’s also worthy of note that those chirpers likely themselves have a financial interest in Sullivan’s fundraising prowess.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Does Treadwell really want to go back to the 1950s?

feminism According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner’s Sam Bishop, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell sent out a fundraising letter in early November, which told a personal story about his mother and abortion. In the letter, and in others since, Treadwell writes about his 18-year-old mother’s decision not to have an abortion 58 years ago when she discovered that she was pregnant “out of wedlock.”

“We used to be a culture that valued liberty and life,” he wrote. Treadwell said that unlike Washington Democrats, “I am a Republican candidate for the United States Senate because I do not believe the way we used to be was wrong.”

It’s hard to say what rosy past Treadwell is evoking here, but since he brought it up, it appears that the 1950s was the time when we “used to be a culture that valued life.” The time, apparently, that he does not believe “used to be wrong.”

A few facts about the 1950s, the utopian era for which Treadwell apparently longs:

  • Until 1978, women could be fired for being or becoming pregnant.
  • In the 1950s, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower proposed cutting taxes from the the top rate down to 91 percent from 92 percent. Currently, the top rate is in the upper 30s.
  • In the 1950s and 1960s, laws in several states prohibited women from working and banned their hiring for some length of time before and after childbirth.
  • In most states until the 1970s, a wife didn’t have the right to refuse sex with her husband and a husband couldn’t be prosecuted for marital rape. In July 1993, marital rape became a crime in all 50 states.
  • In the 1950s, about a million illegal abortions a year were performed in the U.S. and somewhere between 160 to 260 women died from these abortions, while thousands more were seriously injured.
  • In Alaska, it wasn’t until 1968 that the first two women —  Mary Alice Miller and Dorothy Tyner —  were appointed judges.
  • In 1955 when Treadwell was born, there were no women on the U. S. Supreme Court and only two of the 307 federal district judges were women.
  • In 1955, of the 435 U.S. House members, 17 were women and only one of the 96 U.S. senators was a woman.
  • In Alaska in 1955, there were 16 territorial senators, one of whom was a woman, and 24 house members, three of whom were women.
  • Currently, out of 60 total, there are 17 women serving in the Alaska Legislature: 13 female members of the House of Representatives and four senators.
  • In 1955, the “poodle cut” was all the rage.
  • There was no licensed polio vaccine until 1962.

It goes on, including that Alaska wasn’t a state until 1959 and Prudhoe Bay wasn’t discovered until 1968.

Treadwell was once known in political circles as a forward-thinking, technology-embracing Republican moderate. That began to change when he ran in 2010 for lieutenant governor. Now, he’s even more vocally conservative than his boss, Gov. Sean Parnell, who although plenty conservative, would likely never say in a fundraising letter that he wants to go back to the days of Jim Crow, of separate but equal, of breathtaking sexism. The good old days when Treadwell’s mother could and likely would be kicked out of school or fired from her job because she chose to bring a child into the world.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Anthony Weiner and Mead Treadwell make Rothenberg’s award list for 2013

Stuart Rothenberg, political fortune teller and Roll Call political blogger, has published his annual “end-of-the-year awards.” The award categories range from the worst political decision of the year, which had Anthony Weiner’s name, or whatever, all over it, to the five most vulnerable incumbents up in 2014. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., made the list. Surprisingly, Sen. Mark Begich didn’t.

Perhaps that’s because Rothenberg doesn’t think much of Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, one of Begich’s main challengers, whom he gave an award for the most “interesting” candidate interview. According to Rothenberg, the interview was, “Memorable because the candidate couldn’t get his chip off his shoulder. Never has a candidate spent so much time complaining about an earlier article about him.”

Rothenberg was referring to an interview he conducted with Treadwell, among other GOP Senate hopefuls, in October. It’s unclear what exactly Treadwell’s specific beef was, but here’s what he wrote about Treadwell then:

Of the four,Treadwell was the most difficult to figure out, possibly because he spent so much of his time complaining about an article that my colleague, Nathan Gonzales, had written for my newsletter. No matter what question we asked, Treadwell somehow brought it back to what he regarded as an oversight or mistake in the article. He was clearly peeved, and that made him less affable and likable.

Rothenberg has yet to write anything about Dan Sullivan, the other GOP Senate candidate. Perhaps that’s because, although it’s been two months since he announced, finding Sullivan’s website or his contact information on Google takes about as long as it takes for the Senate to pass a bill, pre-filibusterer reform.

Rothenberg did, however, include GOP Senate candidate Annette Bosworth from South Dakota in his list of most interesting interviews. He called Bosworth charismatic and compelling, with “quite” a personal story. “But did it all add up?” Rothenberg asked. “Plus, I rarely see candidates who have absolutely no clue how to put together a winning campaign,” he wrote about Bosworth.

When you Google “Annette Bosworth for Senate” her website is on the top of the page. Just saying.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Error riddled article on Senate candidate Sullivan sensationalizes tragic murders

Thursday began as a very good day for U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. Roll Call, an inside-the-beltway publication owned by Congressional Quarterly, wrote a story about his campaign, highlighting that he worked for Condoleezza Rice in the Bush administration, his time in Alaska as the state’s attorney general and as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. It mentioned his service in the Marine Corps, and that he was deployed as a reservist to Afghanistan this summer.

“Sullivan’s résumé reads straight out of a Republican textbook,” Roll Call wrote.

Most importantly for Sullivan’s campaign, the article suggested that Sullivan might be out fundraising Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller, his opponents in the Republican primary.

And then another story appeared about Sullivan. This one was in Brietbart.com, an online conservative news site that was founded by the late Andrew Breitbart, who had been a staunch tea party and Sarah Palin supporter. The site has not been known for always getting things right and does not shy from controversies. The headline on this piece read, “Dan Sullivan, Alaska U.S. Senate candidate, ran office that let child molester free.”

An alternative headline read: “Dan Sullivan AK US Senate child molester coddler.” (That alternative headline appears to have been written for search engine optimization purposes, or for getting as many hits as possible. Hit baiting, they call it in the business.)

The article indicates that as attorney general, Sullivan was responsible for the heinous 2013 double murder and rape of a 2-year-old and 92-year-old in Anchorage.

Mike Anderson, Dan Sullivan’s spokesperson, said that the Brietbart article “is riddled with inaccuracies and reads like a political hatchet job.”

Indeed, the author appears to be using the crime to score political points against Sullivan by exploiting the victims and playing loose with the facts.

Jerry Andrew Active is accused of committing the crimes 12 hours after he was released from jail, where he was serving time for a parole violation. An error in the state database system likely was the result in the light sentence he received for a 2009 rape, after which he was let go, sent back to jail, and let go again.

Sullivan was attorney general during the time that Active received his “soft” sentence as a result of a plea deal. However, the initial charge for the 2009 rape happened months before Sullivan took the job, and the problem with the database pre-dated his tenure. According to a report done on the case by the current attorney general, the database error took place on Jan. 30, 2009, when Sullivan was on duty with the U.S. Marine Corps.

Sullivan wasn’t appointed as Alaska’s AG by Sarah Pain until June, 2009, five months after Active was charged, and was the DNR commissioner when Active committed his crimes.

Additionally, it was the database maintained by the Alaska Department of Public Safety that made the error on Active’s record; not the one maintained by the Department of Law, as the article states.

According to the Department of Law, “It is unreasonable to suggest that anyone could have predicted the crimes Mr. Active is presently charged with committing over the Memorial Day weekend in Anchorage this year.”

It’s unclear from whom or where the writer of the article, Charles Johnson, is getting his information. According to Sullivan’s press secretary, they played phone tag in late October or early November, but were never able to touch base.

The piece also appeared on Joe Miller’s website, the content of which is primarily culled from other conservative sources and websites. Miller’s campaign spokesperson did not return a call requesting comment.

Fred Brown, a spokesperson with Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell’s campaign responded to a request for comment via email. “This was a very tragic event,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims families for this senseless and heinous act of violence. I sincerely hope that the policies in the Attorney General’s office that let this criminal out onto the streets have been reviewed and addressed to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

During Sullivan’s time as AG, there were about 47,287 criminal cases handled by the Department of Law. About 12,155 of these cases were felonies, according to the department. His campaign said that his number one priority was “protecting Alaskans, particularly the most vulnerable.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Treadwell and Sullivan speak out on Medicaid expansion

On Friday, Gov. Sean Parnell announced that he would not accept federal funds to provide health insurance for poor Alaskans. His announcement was met with much criticism from groups and individuals across the state, many of whom were incredulous that the governor would turn down what was considered free money from the federal government, something that Alaska hasn’t historically been known to do.

More to the point, had Parnell accepted the funds, up to 41,500 more people could have been insured.

It’s unclear how it will play out in the electorate in the long run, but judging from reactions, it doesn’t appear to be the most popular decision that Parnell has made, which, viewed through one lens, could be considered brave.

Some politicians praised Parnell, but most, who went public anyway, did not. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, for one, appeared not to agree with Parnell’s decision. In a statement, he said that turning away the federal funds will just make health care more expensive for others. The three Republicans who are vying for his seat, however, remained mum.

On Wednesday, both Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan responded to the decision.

In emailed statements, both appeared to support the governor’s decision. Treadwell is more unequivocal. “I support Governor Parnell’s decision to not expand Medicaid,” he wrote. “When I am elected I will work with our Governor to bring decision making home and find solutions that work for Alaska.”

As Alaska’s former attorney general, Sullivan wrote one of the first legal challenges to the law on behalf of the state. His response is more thoughtful and more measured but in the end, he agrees with Parnell.

The country’s healthcare system is in “disarray,” Sullivan wrote, “and the federal government’s promise in Obamacare to cover the vast majority of Medicaid expenses is doubtful at best.”

Medicaid, he said, “requires a functioning healthcare market and a federal government with the credibility to deliver on its healthcare promises.”

Both of their responses are printed in full below.

Joe Miller’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Miller walks a fine line here. He gets veterans’ health benefits, but his wife and children in the past received coverage through Alaska’s Medicaid program. He did, however, discuss the issue with local talk show host Glen Biegel and said that he supported Parnell.

“More power to him,” Miller said.

Treadwell’s statement:

The many failures associated with Obamacare have been well documented. I support Governor Parnell’s decision to not expand Medicaid. The federal budget is a mess and Alaska cannot trust Washington DC to fulfill its financial obligations.  We seek more cost effective ways to help those who need help. Alaska needs flexibility from the federal government to craft our own health care solutions. When I am elected I will work with our Governor to bring decision making home and find solutions that work for Alaska.

Sullivan’s statement:

As Alaska’s Attorney General, I spent weeks evaluating the Affordable Care Act, trying to understand all of its complex components and the constitutionality of its provisions.

The work I authored (attached) provided a strong foundation to the legal challenges that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare that limited the federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause and its ability to coerce states into accepting certain federal government mandates.  President Obama and Senator Mark Begich consistently promised Alaskans: that if they liked their current insurance plan, they could keep it.

For those who actually read the Affordable Care Act, they would have known that this was a promise that could never be kept. The combination of Obamacare’s mandates and healthcare policy requirements is fundamental to the structure of the Act. As these and other interrelated provisions of the Act are failing or are delayed, in a legally dubious manner, the entire structure of Obamacare is in disarray and the federal government’s ability to deliver on healthcare promises and results for Alaska has thoroughly been undermined. This is not surprising. Trying to reorganize close to one-sixth of the U.S. economy is a task for which the federal government is ill suited.

This is the context in which I view Medicaid expansion. Health care access and affordability are extremely important issues to Alaskans and it is important for policy makers to focus on them. So too is the urgent need to revive our national economy and reign in the trillions of dollars of deficits that the Obama Administration has run up in the past five years.

Medicaid costs in Alaska and nationally are skyrocketing. Medicaid expansion requires a functioning healthcare market and a federal government with the credibility to deliver on its healthcare promises. Right now we have neither—the U.S. healthcare market is in disarray and the federal government’s promise in Obamacare to cover the vast majority of Medicaid expenses is doubtful at best.

The issue of access to affordable healthcare for Alaskans remains a very important issue for our citizens. Congress needs to regain the trust of the American people on these issues before we move forward on additional major healthcare programs.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Martha McKenna: she’ll work hard to keep Begich in office

You’ll likely never meet her, see her face, or even hear her name, but one way or another, you’re going to be touched by Martha McKenna in the next year. According to Roll Call, McKenna will be leading the independent expenditure program for Senate Democrats in the 2014 race.

The independent expenditure, or IE, arm of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee controls tens of millions of dollars spent on Senate races each cycle, much of which will end up in the pockets of Alaska’s expanding media outlets.

In Alaska, the group will support U.S. Sen. Mark Begich against Republican challengers Joe Miller, Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan, who are running in the Republican primary.

Although a party’s IE can be effective, those kinds of expenditure groups haven’t received the kind of attention that the super PACs have received, which have fewer restrictions but cannot coordinate with a party. Often, as opposed to groups associated with a political party, super PACs are homespun and more nimble.

So far in Alaska’s Senate race, Jim Lottsfeldt is running a super PAC to support Begich. Art Hackney is running one to support former DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan. Stephen Wackowski and Taylor Bickford are is running Mead Treadwell’s super PAC.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com 

Correction: The original story said that Taylor Bickford was running Treadwell’s super PAC. That’s incorrect.

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Government shutdown could cost Alaska up to $39 million

Using Moody’s Analytics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee says that the recent government shutdown could cost Alaska as much as $39 million in lost wages, federal funds, and in impacts from lost federal contracts.

The 16-day federal government shutdown was at its heart a fight over the funding of Obamacare and affected, among other things, disability checks, veterans’ benefits, and federal lands and contracts.

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who is running in the U.S. Senate Republican primary, has been repeatedly calling for the repeal of Obamacare.  At one point Treadwell said that he would “stand” with the senators who were supporting the shutdown, and at other times said that he wouldn’t. Another candidate, Joe Miller, unequivocally supported it.

The DSCC called both of them “reckless,” and said that they were putting “partisanship ahead of Alaska.”

Former DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan, who is also running in the Republican primary, has yet to address the issue. He declined to answer questions on the day that he announced his run on Oct. 15, the day before the shutdown ended.

Both Sens. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Democrat Mark Begich worked to end the impasse.

Alaska appears to be faring better than other states with a high federal presence. Washington D.C. is expected to be hit hardest, followed by Maryland and West Virginia.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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DNR Dan Sullivan’s primary election voting problem

21813094_mlOf the three candidates in the U.S. Senate Republican primary race so far, it looks like former DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan is the candidate who can raise money. His first fundraiser brought in about $50,000, which was more than 25 percent of what his most heavily financed primary challenger, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, managed to raise in 90 days.

His opponents know this. Both Treadwell and incumbent Sen. Mark Begich are trying to stick him with the rap that he’s not a real Alaskan and that he’s using the state for his own personal political advancement.

His voting record, specifically that he missed voting in primary elections, will likely be used to further that rap.

While Sullivan has voted in every general since at least 2004, when public records are available, he has only voted in two of five primaries in those years. He skipped the 2004, 2006 and 2008 primary elections.

The Republican primary race in Alaska in 2004 was relatively uneventful. There was no governor’s race, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only member of the delegation to have a challenger, whom she beat handily. In 2006, however, the governor’s primary race was a three-way one, pitting challengers Sarah Palin and John Binkley against incumbent Frank Murkowski. (The rest of that story, as they say, is history.)

In 2008, Rep. Don Young only won the primary by about 300 votes against current Gov. Sean Parnell.

Joe Miller did not vote in the 2008 primary, but voted in all of the others since 2004. Neither Treadwell or Begich have missed an election.

Sullivan’s spokesperson Mike Anderson sent the following email in response to questions about his voting record:

Since coming to Alaska over 16 years ago, Dan has always voted in the state. While serving his country after 9/11, he stayed engaged in voting in Alaska while working as a National Security Council staff at the White House, then as a Marine Corps Infantry officer and finally as an Assistant Secretary of State. During that period, he did miss a few primary votes, but never missed a general election vote.

Sullivan moved to Alaska in 1997 after getting a Georgetown law degree to clerk for judges, including Chief Justice Warren Matthews. He was in private practice until 2002, when he moved to D.C. to head the International Economics Directorate of the National Economic Council and National Security Council under George W. Bush. He left the White House to become an assistant secretary of state.

In 2009, then Gov. Sarah Palin appointed him to become Alaska’s attorney general. Sullivan has also served in the Marine Corps since 1993, both on active duty and in the reserves. He was recently called to active duty to work on a counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Sullivan fundraiser proves he can raise money. Will he connect with Alaskans?

10349421_mThe food was lousy – greasy, boney, and ungainly – but the long awaited first fundraiser for former Alaska DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan’s run for U.S. Senate, held on Wednesday night at Ruby’s in midtown Anchorage, was a success. According to the campaign, the evening’s spoils were more than 25 percent of what his most heavily financed primary challenger, Mead Treadwell, managed to raise in 90 days.

Which would be about $50,000.

Depending on who you ask, somewhere between 70 to 100 people showed and a good many were co-hosts, such as former GOP chair Randy Ruedrich, ENSTAR president Colleen Starring, head of Alaska Gasline Development Authority Dan Fauske, Northrim Bank’s Marc Langland, private equity guy Mark Kroloff, Jim Jansen who owns Lynden Transport, Cook Inlet Tribal Council head Gloria O’Neill and the always aggravating lobbyist Ashley Reed, with whom I’m in a relationship.

Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan was there and joked about walking away with the evening’s take to use in his own race for lieutenant governor. Whatever you think about the mayor, he can be funny.

Also in attendance: Acting DNR Commish Joe Balash, head of Alaska Housing Finance Corp. Bryan Butcher, Alaska state Sen. Charlie Huggins and his lovely wife Becky, Alaska GOP brain trust Frank McQueary, and Attorney General Mike Geraghty, among others.

A handful of staffers from other campaigns also showed to monitor the event. “Trackers,” they’re called in political circles, and they’re pretty easy to spot. Their presence proved what some in the room were saying: Sullivan’s the candidate that most scares both Mark Begich and Mead Treadwell.

DNR Dan’s obviously got the money behind him, as well as the Republican credentials. But this is his first run at political office, and it sometimes shows. His campaign slogan is “New Energy for Alaska,” (the same slogan Sarah Palin used in her 2006 governor’s race) and his stump speech needs some of that energy. As I wrote before, Sullivan is at heart a Marine, but he also has the illusive quality best known as charm, and there’s a fine line between charm and superciliousness.

Treadwell doesn’t have charm. He does, however, have an awkward, pulling gravitas that can be appealing. Alaskans will accept a lot from their politicians, as long as they feel that you’re talking to them and with them as one of them. Sullivan has some work to do in this area, some are saying.

What Treadwell doesn’t seem to have, however, is a smart campaign. On Wednesday night, a young man from out of state sat in the building’s hallway, outside of the restaurant, taking pictures of those who were leaving. He said his name was Austin and that he was working for Treadwell. Everyone inside knew he was there and what he was doing. It was a horribly demoralizing job.

Some of Sullivan’s staffers went outside the restaurant to offer him food. He didn’t accept, but he looked hungry, and grateful.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Begich far outraises Treadwell in quest for U.S. Senate seat

Money Alaska U.S. Sen. Mark Begich raised $813,000 in the third quarter, which runs from July 1 to Sept. 30, according to a filing shared by his campaign staff. He has $2.4 million cash on hand. All told, Begich has raised $4.8 million this election cycle.

Begich does not have a Democratic challenger in the primary, so the real heat in the race belongs to the three Republicans who have so far filed to run against him: Joe Miller, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, and Dan Sullivan. Miller did not respond to a request to share his file. Sullivan wasn’t running this past quarter and didn’t have to report.

Treadwell raised less than $200,000. He has about $155,000 on hand. In total, Treadwell, who announced his plans to run in June, has raised only $340,000.

His campaign called it “tremendous” but it has to be a disappointment. Candidates in other races who are challenging in what are considered vulnerable Democratic Senators have done much better.

In Arkansas for instance, Rep. Tom Cotton outraised Sen. Mark Pryor $1.07 million to Pryor’s $1.04 million.The Republican favorite in Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy, raised. $700,000. In North Carolina, GOP favorite Thom Tillis raised $800,000.

As everyone knows, despite its geographic size, Alaska is a small state demographically, making fundraising more difficult. Also, there isn’t a contested Republican primary in these other states.

Even so, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is watching closely, and it won’t throw the full weight of its support behind a candidate who can’t raise more than 25 percent of what his opponent raises.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Senate candidate Treadwell’s latest campaign video

Senate candidate Mead Treadwell posted another campaign video on Tuesday, the same day that former DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan announced that he’s entering the race. This one, like the last, stays with the homespun theme. The video signals that he’s an average Alaskan who just wants to do good by his state and his country. Notice the slight stutter, the hesitancy, the reference to allergies in D.C., trying to turn what many view as a lack of charisma to his advantage.

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Dan Sullivan finally announces for U.S. Senate

In front of a crowd of about 60, former Alaska Attorney General and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan at long last announced that he’s running for U.S. Senate, a fact that took few by surprise. For months, rumors have been swirling about his impending run.

Sullivan will be taking on Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller in the Republican primary. The victor will then go on to try to beat Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. Miller issued a press release welcoming the competition and Sullivan into the race. Shortly after his speech, Alaska’s Democratic Party sent out a release trashing Sullivan, calling him an “establishment” candidate who has the “stamp of approval from Washington insiders.”

At the announcement, Sullivan billed himself as the candidate who was both experienced and optimistic. A Marine and the tough “fighter” who can beat U.S. Sen. Mark Begich in the general election. The one who sees Alaska’s future as one that will help the rest of the country grow. The father of three young girls and the husband who is in love with his Athabascan wife. The one who can be both simultaneously detached and engaged enough to display to the audience that illusive quality best known as “charm.”

During his speech, Sullivan touched on the general themes of this campaign, mostly about how the state can take the lead on what he called the country’s “energy renaissance,” but didn’t get specific. How would he help try to save the government from impending financial collapse? What about the shutdown? Where does he stand on the hot button social issues? How is he different from his Republican rivals?

The answers have to wait for another day. For all the months that Sullivan had to plan for the announcement, for all of his supposed “establishment” credentials —  including being a former U.S. assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush — apparently no planning went into answering media questions following his speech.

“There’s plenty of time to answering questions,” he said. “You know me,” he told members of the media. “I’ll answer your questions,” before walking away to talk to people in the crowd.

It’s true that since Sullivan took the job as attorney general in 2010, and then later as DNR commissioner, he’s been generally available to the media. The fact that he wasn’t on what could be the biggest day of his political career was puzzling.

Indeed, there’s time. The primary election is more than 9 months away. But one of the biggest issues for Sullivan will be differentiating himself from Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan, who is running for lieutenant governor. It also doesn’t help that there’s another Dan Sullivan in Arkansas who is also running for U.S. Senate against a Democratic incumbent, a state whose postal code often gets confused with Alaska’s.

When Bill Clinton was running for president, some of his mail ended up at the post office in Hope, Alaska instead of his hometown in Arkansas.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

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Begich holds fast with Democrats over shutdown

chess moveSince being elected in 2008, Sen. Mark Begich has often bumped heads with his Democratic Senate colleagues. He did so over gun control, for one. He’s repeatedly voted against environmental issues that Democrats have pushed for.

But now, he’s holding fast and true with his fellow Democrats who are blaming Republicans for shutting the federal government down over the funding of the Affordable Care Act, an act, it should be noted, that Congress passed, has been litigated up to the Supreme court, and has gone through an election cycle.

It’s also something that Alaskans are against, by and large, for now at least.

So why is Begich, who’s up for a tough reelection in 2014 sticking with the Dems on this? Principle no doubt plays into it. He likely truly believes that Republican entrenchment on this is wrong for the country. But Begich is nothing if not a political animal. He has one of the best political noses in the state, and the political winds he’s smelling are telling him that this one is a winner.

I couldn’t find anybody who’s polled on the shutdown in Alaska, but feelings here aren’t likely radically different than feelings across the country: no matter how much people object to the health care law, they have consistently told pollsters that they are not in favor of tying government operations to defunding the law. Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake probably put it best when he said, “Obamacare is not popular, but we’ve managed to find the one thing that’s less popular than Obamacare.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who’s running for Begich’s seat, believes otherwise, apparently. He has said that if he were elected, he would “stand” with those Republican senators most entrenched, senators that even Republican stalwarts like John McCain and Richard Burr, to name just a few, believe have gone too far.

He’s since walked some of that back, maybe, although it’s been hard figure out exactly where he stands. Indeed, Roll Call writer Stu Rothenberg, who interviewed four Republican Senate candidates about the shutdown, said that among all of them, Mead was the most “difficult to pin down.”

Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, who is also running, is not difficult to pin down. He’d fight to end the health care law for as long as they’d have him in the Senate.

Former Department of Natural Resources Commissioner, Dan Sullivan, who has for weeks dithered about running, may be the smartest of the three. He’s not answering questions about the mess. He doesn’t have to. For now, he’s a private citizen dithering away like the rest of us. And by the time he might have to, the worst will likely be over, and he’ll get to play statesman.

Begich is holding a telephonic town hall on the government shutdown on Wednesday evening. Expect strong words from him about entrenched Republicans. It’s a winner and he knows it.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.ccom 

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