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.
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
Maria Downey, a longtime anchor with KTUU Channel 2 News, entered the fight on her Facebook page between her station and cable company GCI. GCI is threatening to black out the NBC affiliate in rural areas if the two can’t come to an agreement on fees that GCI would pay KTUU to carry its content, including the news show where Downey works.
On her Facebook page, Downey calls the fight “unfortunate,” declares KTUU a “trusted” news source, and urges readers to go to KTUU.com for more information.She also makes allusions to the fact that the fight is transpiring as GCI is trying to get a station up and running that would directly compete with KTUU.
Some of the information that she points readers to are strongly worded press releases from KTUU claiming that GCI is holding its rural viewers “hostage,” and that GCI is using rural viewers as a “negotiating tactic.”
There are, of course, two sides to this story, which Downey doesn’t mention. In a nutshell: KTUU is demanding that GCI pay the station $2.5 million for its content, which until now has been free. KTUU says that it’s offering GCI use of its content for free until Dec. 2014 and that GCI is trying to lock in agreements for too long.
Here’s Downey’s Facebook post in full:
Hey gang, I am out of town and staying off Facebook but I felt I needed to respond to all of the concerned posts from our friends in rural Alaska and the other communities about GCI dropping Channel 2 from cable in some areas. It’s unfortunate that our faithful viewers are caught in the middle of this issue when all you want is to find out what’s happening in your state through a trusted source . Channel 2 has even offered not to charge GCI for using “our product” on it’s cable until Dec. 2014 out of consideration for our viewers. For more on this issue you can go to ktuu.com. In the meantime I want to thank the hundreds of people we have heard from in support… From longtime viewers to officials and other respected journalists who have been expressing concern at a time when GCI is awaiting FCC approval to buy KTVA … We hope to keep coming into your homes everyday to share what’s happening around our state. Go to KTUU.com for more details and thanks again!”
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
I’ve been a supporter of ObamaCare, but it’s now been 14 days since the federal healthcare exchange has launched and it’s only been able to handle signing up more than a handful of people, at most. It’s probably the worst roll out of any core domestic presidential initiative in history. Former Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs called it “excruciatingly embarrassing.” It’s more than that. It’s a stunning debacle.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin followed the crowd and the cameras to appear at a protest in D.C. at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall on Sunday, where the crowd pushed past barriers to protest the memorial’s closing under the government shutdown.
Prior to the rally, she met with some of the architects of the government shutdown: Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.
It’s unclear what they talked about, but it was unlikely that they discussed how the Veterans Affairs Department has furloughed almost 8,000 employees, half of whom are veterans. Or how they should do all that they can to open up the government so that servicemen can get their disability payments on time.
The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf has more to say on the subject:
[E]ven when the federal government is functioning normally, it fails to adequately care for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who are suffering from high rates of suicide, PTSD, and joblessness, in large part due to the wars of choice they were asked to fight and that conservatives, who are still allied with a faction of hawks urging even more wars of choice, overwhelmingly backed.
This, it probably goes without saying, will not change by storming the barriers to a monument in D.C.
Here’s Palin’s speech in full:
We were proud to stand with thousands of America’s vets and other patriotic Americans today in Washington, D.C. This morning, Todd and I met with Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and they joined us and other Americans at the World War II Memorial and then at the Lincoln Memorial, where we were met by a SWAT team in full riot gear! Watching those who have fought to protect freedom prevented by barricades from visiting these memorials to freedom was truly heart wrenching. Seeing the unity of the American people as they joined together and rose up against this out of touch government was an inspiration. God bless our veterans, those who continue to serve, and their families.
I’ll be posting an album of some photos from today. Below are the brief remarks I gave today:
We’re here to show that the size of America’s heart for our veterans is immeasurable! But look around – barricades to shut down our memorials? Is this how a Commander in Chief expresses his gratitude? This “shutdown” priority proves a shameful lack of respect. It reflects a person’s lack of valor.
But, Vets, We the People have learned from you! We know America will only remain the “Home of the Free” so long as we are the “Home of the Brave!”
So, as we honor you, U.S. Military, know that our gratitude will not sleep! We will be brave! You were not timid, so we shall not be timid in calling out ANY who heart-wrenchingly would use you as pawns in a political game.
America’s finest paid the price for our freedom today. Vets, you protected us from tyranny then. Rest now, it is OUR turn to protect against tyranny again.
Ronald Reagan said, “Some people live an entire lifetime wondering if they ever made a difference in the world.” YOU, vets, need never ask that of yourselves. You made ALL the difference!
Our war memorials remind us of the cost to keep us free. YOU paid the price! Rest now! We will pick up the mantle. We won’t let you down. We now take up the fight for freedom!
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
The government shutdown is now on its 11th day and doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. From many of our perches here in the far North, from thousands of miles away from the heart of the fighting, it can all look as abstract as a Pollock painting. All drips and splatters, until something that we recognize jumps out. A friend, perhaps, who doesn’t get a disability check. An uncle who’s a trying to get into a government-funded medical study. A trip to the social security office. A neighbor who can’t send her child to Head Start.
Others, like me, have no connection whatever to the shutdown and the abstraction remains until a good story catches our eye. And it becomes even more real when we’re confronted with a series of them.
The list compiled by Zack Fields, communications director for the Alaska Democratic Party, did this for me. It turned what I had been viewing as a political story into a human one.
I’ve taken the liberty of cutting and pasting Fields’ work for my Friday facts column. I don’t usually do this and I won’t make it a habit in the future. But it’s likely more of an exhaustive list than I could come up with. And I’m currently in Iowa visiting relatives, four of whom are under the age of 15. None of them are in danger of shutting down anytime soon.
Here’s the list of some of the stories about the human toll of the shutdown from around the state:
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
From Andrew Couts in Digital Trends:
“The site is so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully purchased healthcare through it was in the “single digits,” according to the Washington Post…. But the fact that Healthcare.gov can’t do the one job it was built to do isn’t the most infuriating part of this debacle – it’s that we, the taxpayers, seem to have forked up more than $500 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.”
According to the Anchorage Daily News, former Palmer Mayor John Combs resigned Wednesday as Wasilla’s recreation and cultural services director because someone ratted on him about having a few beers while on duty at a boxing event at the city’s sports center. Also, someone, perhaps the same person, reported him as a possible drunk driver after he left the event.
He wasn’t. He only registered .06. The limit is .08.
Apparently, Combs has an enemy or two. In March, members of the Wasilla City Council proposed firing Combs ostensibly to save his $90,000 a year salary. The amendment didn’t pass.
Wasilla grudges can be fascinating. But the most interesting part of the story was about the financial shape of the Wasilla Sports Complex. Alaskans might recall that in 2002, Wasilla passed a .5 percent sales tax to pay for what was then billed as a $14.7 million multi-use center. The measure passed by only 20 votes, 306 to 286.
One of the major proponents of the center was then Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin. She and a group of boosters sold it the public by assuring them that it would be profitable.
Getting the tax passed was one of her biggest achievements while mayor. The vote’s slim margin, Palin said, was proof of the city’s fiscal conservatism.
How’s it doing now? In 2010, the city subsidized the center at a cost of $800,000. Things haven’t improved much since, according to the ADN:
The Menard Center has struggled financially in recent years since it opened in 2005. The center’s total operating revenues peaked at $728,000 in 2007 and dropped to the lowest level, $544,000, in 2011 according to a July report from Wasilla finance director Troy Tankersley. Total operating expenses, however, swelled from $789,000 in 2005 to $1,169,000, a 49 percent increase.
At least now the city will save $90,000.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
It’s been a big news day. The wind whipped up on a few houses. The governor spoke to a business group in Wasilla. The Anchorage mayor gave up on plans to build a homeless housing project on the west side of town. President Obama gave a speech about the shutdown. And then there was the possibility of a big Lester Lunceford comeback.
Lester Lunceford, some of the readers of this blog might know, is the former, ousted mayor of Whittier, Alaska, which should not to be confused with Whittier, Calif., the sunny, vibrant, boyhood home of President Richard Nixon. Our Whittier is a dot of a town hugging Prince William Sound with about 220 residents, most of whom live in one of two buildings in the city. To get there, you have to drive through a 2.5 mile tunnel. In the winter, the city sees about 22 feet of snow every year. Our Whittier is filled with residents with very strong feelings about their town, particularly when the snow piles, the tunnel only opens part time, and the towers begin to feel like crypts.
Last winter, during one of those spates of strong feelings, the city council held a meeting where Lunceford and other council members allegedly violated the open meetings act by going into executive session to discuss the hiring of the new city manager.
Lunceford got recalled in July. Out of a total of 134 votes, Lunceford lost by 15.
Some politicians would have hung it up after getting recalled, moved to sunny Whittier, Calif. perhaps. Our Whittier’s Lunceford hung in there and began a write-in campaign for city council.
Last Tuesday, Oct. 2, when the polls closed, Lunceford appeared to have lost his bid, coming in third in a three-way race. Even I wrote a column wishing him well in his future endeavors.
Au contraire mon cheri! It appears that Whittier has not seen that last of Lester Lunceford. Turns out that Lunceford got half of the absentee votes cast for the council seat. At last count, according to Lunceford, it was Peter Denmark with 45, Lunceford with 25, and Arnie Arneson with 24. Because no one candidate got 40 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff election in three weeks, right about the time the snow begins to pile up.
One of Whittier’s political analysts, which would be me, thinks he has a shot.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
Late last week at lunchtime, members of the Alaska state Senate leadership team were seen going into a private dining room at the Glacier BrewHouse in Anchorage. They were there for a meeting with Department of Natural Resources Acting Commissioner Joe Balash and Department of Revenue staffer Mike Pawlowski, also known as “Fish.”
The Senate Rules Committee Chair Lesil McGuire was noticeably absent. Was she busy with official legislative duties? Was she campaigning for her bid for lieutenant governor? Or was she simply not invited? Why do people call Pawlowski “Fish”? What was the group discussing? They weren’t likely discussing an oil tax overhaul. That, after all, is so last year. Natural gas taxes? Probably.
On Monday, ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips and TransCanada announced that the terminus to the mythical natural gas “big line” would be in Nikiski. Say what you will about the project bypassing Valdez, the fact that the three producers who don’t often agree on anything, agreed on this is kind of a big deal.
Embedded in the announcement was a message to the state: “A competitive, predictable and durable oil and gas fiscal environment will be required for a project of this unprecedented scale, complexity and cost to compete in global energy markets.” Translation: They also all agreed that they need a tax break on gas to build the line.
Currently, natural gas is taxed at an effective rate of 35 percent prior to credits, roughly the same rate as oil. But it’s much less valuable and the producers aren’t going to invest up to $65 billion on a project that won’t result in a hefty profit.
However, even if all the evidence points to the fact that the producers actually do need a tax break to move forward, it’s unclear if legislators have the stomach for more talk of tax breaks for the producers.
A repeal of last legislative session’s oil tax break is still in the works and won’t be voted on until the primary election in August 2014. Taking this one on next legislative session might invigorate those who would repeal that tax.
Besides, creating the kind of “competitive, predictable and durable” tax regime takes tons of political capital from the governor’s office. And it’s unclear, in an election year, if Gov. Sean Parnell will have that much to spare.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
The New York Times confirms what many in Alaska already knew: we’re a big government state that hates big government. Another way of looking at it: we’re a big government state that’s completely hypocritical about our hatred of big government.
But at least we’re not alone.
The paper has a graphic and corresponding story about how, with few exceptions, states with a larger government presence are states which vote Republican, at least in the last presidential race. And the opposite is also true. Out of the 15 states with the lowest level of government employment, only two — Indiana and Tennessee — voted Republican.
The NYT made a graphic of government employment in all states. 24.9 percent of employed Alaskans work for the government. Only Wyoming beats Alaska, with 25.2 more government workers as a percentage of all employees. New Mexico, which did not vote Republican in the last election, comes in third.
The average percentage of government workers in all states is 16 percent.
Another interesting factoid from the NYT: since Republican Sean Parnell has been governor, total government employment in the state has risen 3.9 percent.
Digging into those numbers shows that in 2012, there were 15,858 state employees, according to the Alaska Department of Labor. That’s more than a 5 percent increase since 2007, when the state had 15,064 employees. Not coincidentally, that was the year that oil prices began their rise, from $60 dollars a barrel to more than $100.
In 2007, the governor’s office, for one, employed 133 people. Five years later, in 2012, the governor’s office employed 143 people. That’s more than a 7.5 percent increase.
Also, since 2007, the average monthly salary of workers in the governor’s office has risen more than 20 percent, from $5238 a month to $6297 a month.
In the private sector, which Republicans laud, the increase was only about 17 percent during the same time period.
So much for small government conservatism.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
A series of polls commissioned by the Democratic group MoveOn.org Political Action Committee has Democrats and some in the media all abuzz about the effects the government shutdown might have on the 2014 midterm elections. The polls, conducted by Public Policy Polling, or PPP, show that control of the U.S. House of Representatives may be in reach of the Democrats.
For Democrats to regain control of the House, 17 seats would need to change to their favor. The PPP polls show that Republican incumbents are behind in 17 of the districts across the country analyzed.
That might well be true, and the most recent PPP polls might accurately reflect the population of the districts. However, the group’s record in Alaska might shed some light on whether or not the numbers should be trusted.
PPP got it way wrong in the last big Senate race in 2010. That race, however, was a difficult one and others also missed the mark. More recently, however, the group polled in Alaska about gun control. It showed that U.S. Sen. Mark Begich lost support in Alaska as a result of his vote against it. But the poll was badly flawed. 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.
Other polls that PPP has conducted in Alaska are similarly flawed.
In the wake of the firm withholding a poll about the recall of a Democratic state senator in Colorado, others in the media are beginning to write about PPP’s suspect methodology.
Uber pollster Nate Silver tweeted that the main problem with group’s polls is that “their approach to polling is extremely ad hoc. Ultimately, that ad-hockery stems from a lack of appreciation/understanding for the statistical fundamentals behind polling.”
In The New Republic, Nate Cohen writes the following:
After examining PPP’s polls from 2012 and conducting a lengthy exchange with PPP’s director, I’ve found that PPP withheld controversial elements of its methodology, to the extent it even has one, and treated its data inconsistently. The racial composition of PPP’s surveys was informed by whether respondents voted for Obama or John McCain in 2008, even though it wasn’t stated in its methodology. PPP then deleted the question from detailed releases to avoid criticism. Throughout its seemingly successful run, PPP used amateurish weighting techniques that distorted its samples—embracing a unique, ad hoc philosophy that, time and time again, seemed to save PPP from producing outlying results. The end result is unscientific and unsettling.
Elsewhere in the piece, Cohn indicates that PPP tweaks the methodology to get the answers it wants.
I don’t know the effect that the current slate of polls will have on the shutdown or on the midterm elections. But I do know that if PPP is trying to help Democrats in Republican districts, which appears to be the case, flawed polls will backfire eventually. They will confirm what many suspect: the group, and the party associated with it, are all big liars.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
What a busy week. With the government shutdown on Tuesday, I have mostly been focused on the shores of the Potomac and our nation’s capitol. That, and trying and failing to sign up for the federal health exchange. So, I thought that my Friday’s facts column would cover all the things this week that I wanted to write about, but didn’t get around to.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
Gov. Sean Parnell’s administration has for six months declined to make public a report that the state paid for to analyze the effect Medicaid expansion would have on the state. The Department of Health and Social Services paid $80,000 to the Lewin Group, a consulting firm based in Virginia, to write the report. It’s been completed since April, but DHSS won’t release the report until the agency analyzes it.
Alaska state Sen. Bill Wielechowski recently requested the report from DHSS. He was denied. He’s appealing that decision. If he doesn’t receive it, he’ll take it to court, he said.
Wielechowski was told that the report will be made public “once DHSS has completed its analysis and submitted its recommendations to the governor.” Others, including this reporter, have requested the report and have received the same response.
Parnell has not made clear whether or not he would accept funding from the federal government in order to expand Medicaid, a state program that pitches in for health insurance for low income Alaskans and that receives matching federal funds. The report, presumably, will have some impact on Parnell’s decision.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government has offered up to 90 percent of the money to expand the program. The Lewin Group has completed a similar study for New Hampshire. It found that although not accepting the funds would reduce state Medicaid spending, it would reduce the number of uninsured in the state, and increase federal revenues by $1.8 to $2.7 billion in New Hampshire between 2014 and 2020.
A separate report commissioned by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium estimated that if the state accepts expansion, 41,500 uninsured Alaskans will become eligible for Medicaid in 2014 and bring an estimated $1.1 billion in new federal revenue to the state over the next seven years,.
Parnell has said that he’ll make his decision on whether or not to expand the program when he presents his budget at the end of the year.
DHSS did not say when it would release the report. According to the Alaska’s Public Records Act, public records need to be released no later than 10 days after requesting them. Not all records are public, however. Some can remain private because they are considered “deliberative” and contain “opinions, recommendations, or advice about policy.”
Legislative lawyers told Wielechowski that the report is not a deliberative document because it contains no advice about policy.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
In a wide ranging telephonic town hall meeting on Wednesday evening, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich answered questions from Alaskans across the state about the government shutdown, the Affordable Care Act, the debt ceiling, and the effects all of this has on Alaska.
Begich has clashed in the past with Democrats. However, on the shutdown, he’s sticking with his party and he had harsh words for Republicans on Wednesday. “All the gimmicks are coming from the other side,” he said. “These are the kind of shenanigans that Alaskans and Americans all across the country are fed up with.”
The shutdown is in its third day. Federal employees all across the country are furloughed. Veterans’ benefits are being held up, so are checks for those applying for Social Security and disability. According to J.P. Morgan analysts, furloughs will reduce national income by a total of $1.3 billion per week. As a result, the shutdown could shave 0.12 percent off fourth quarter GDP growth for each week it goes on.
Why? Because House Republicans want to defund or delay the onset of the Affordable Care Act as a condition of allowing a budget bill to pass.
To be more specific, an increasingly shrinking number of House Republicans, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, won’t allow a bill on the House floor that would separate funding for the Affordable Care Act from the rest of the budget.
If allowed, such a bill, or a “clean continuing resolution,” would likely pass with the support of more centrist Republicans and those who are up for reelection in more moderate districts.
Begich urged callers to email and call the rest of the congressional delegation to push to get a bill on the floor, particularly Rep. Don Young. He indicated that Young might vote for such a measure, but hasn’t yet said so publicly.
Young was unavailable for comment late on Wednesday evening. In response to a question about whether or not Young would vote for a budget absent conditions on the health care bill, Young’s spokesperson Mike Anderson said that there hasn’t been such a bill yet offered. However, in response to a question about the shutdown on Wednesday afternoon, Young told reporters that if it were up to the Alaska delegation, the crisis would be averted.
Begich also spent time busting a myth: neither Begich, nor any member of Congress get exemptions from signing up for insurance through the exchanges. In fact , he said, they are the only employees in the country who are actually required to get their insurance through the exchanges.
The federal exchange website has been overwhelmed and glitches have been widely reported. One caller expressed frustration over the glitches. Begich said that he too experienced problems when he tried to sign up.
Unlike many other states, Parnell opted to allow the federal government to create the exchange for the state. Had Alaska chosen to create its own exchange, like Washington state did, there would likely be fewer issues, Begich said.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
