A few days ago, I wrote a piece about Senate District K in Anchorage, the most contested Senate District in the state. So I thought I should write about the least contested district. Not one of the three legislators—the Senate seat and two House seats–in Senate District S is being challenged.

Senate District S covers a large swath of land in Western Alaska, including the population centers of Bethel, Dillingham and Dutch Harbor. The races may not be competitive, but the issues are enormous and contentious: fisheries, Arctic development and the Pebble Mine, to name just a few.

The incumbent, Democrat Sen. Lyman Hoffman, is one of the two longest serving legislators in Juneau. He was first elected to the legislature in 1986, and has proven his mettle time and again. He’s a power house in or out of the majority. Continue reading →

Here’s an comment from a reader on the story about the amount of money the Senate Majority PAC is putting into races versus the amount that the Koch brothers are putting in. The gist of the comment: Koch-brothers money is bad because the Kochs are bad, and money supporting Democrats is good. It’s an interesting, representative summary of the left’s view on the issue. (But because group-think on either side makes me nervous, click here for a more nuanced look at the Kochs.)

I remember when Kerry was running against Bush, maybe you all have forgotten. Back then there was an awful lot of valid criticism that Bush/Cheney were propped up by the military industrial complex. This line of attack started to gain some traction and the retort was: BUT KERRY IS PROPPED UP BY TONS OF MONEY FROM THE HEINZ CORPORATION!!!

Let me remind you all of the difference between apples and oranges.

The best thing you can come up with when you talk about the difference between Begich’s line of funding and Sullivan’s, is that Begich is being supported by “anti-gun activists” this line coming right out of the NRA playbook. I’m not going to waste more than a breath trying to explain to you how no one is coming for your guns, or that we have a desperately serious problem with gun violence in this country that is making us the societal laughingstock of the world. Begich’s cash flow includes people who want us to rationally think about the implications of our gun laws. There’s an apple for you.

How about an orange? The Koch brothers are a different class of creature. They are not a group of like-minded activists, Continue reading →

From a press release from Sen. Mark Begich’s office about Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro’s Monday visit to Anchorage:

U.S. Senator Mark Begich will host a visit from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro in Anchorage on Monday for a series of community events.  Sen. Begich and Secretary Castro will visit a local development project in Mountain View and will meet with community leaders to discuss efforts to end homelessness. Secretary Castro will make a major announcement during Monday’s press conference.

Any guesses about what the “major announcement” will be?

Just as they did with the Morning Joe clip this morning, the Republicans have been sending out the video below with glee, the words of which, coming straight from President Obama’s mouth during a speech he gave on the economy at Northwestern University on Thursday, will likely very soon come back out of the television screen, with a very serious someone telling you to vote for GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. Here’s what Obama said: “I am not on the ballot this fall.  Michelle’s pretty happy about that.  But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot.  Every single one of them.”

Here’s the video clip, taken from the larger speech, that’s being sent around:

Who knows how much impact this will have on the Senate race here and in other red states where Obama’s approval ratings are in the tank. One thing’s for sure, the president did Sen. Mark Begich no favors at a time when he needs things to be going his way.

Why did Obama say it? Continue reading →

Here’s a comment from reader Lynn Willis on the National Guard situation in Alaska:

What happened to the soldiers and the overall breakdown of discipline and loss of effectiveness to any degree within the organization, followed by what happened to the concerned Officers and NCOs who advocated for correction, is cause for deep concern by Alaskans.

Why were two political appointees, one a State Commissioner, allowed to wear the uniform of an Army Lt. General and the other, a Civilian Deputy Commissioner, given rein to do such damage to the organization over such a long period of time? Why did the Legislature with a standing Military and Veterans Affairs Committee and whose party holds the Governorship refuse to exercise any oversight? Continue reading →

Speaking of the Koch brothers, and everyone’s speaking about the Koch brothers, here’s a pretty interesting take-down of the attacks on them on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a clip that the GOP is sending around with delight. In it, Joe Scarborough rants against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hypocrisy of calling the Kochs “un-American” for trying to “buy the elections” when, in fact, Reid’s own super-PAC is investing far more in the elections than are the Kochs.  It’s worth all five minutes.

• Senate candidate Dan Sullivan has a new ad titled, “Committed”. Jamilia George speaks right into the camera (ala Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s powerful ad) in support of Sullivan’s commitment to prosecuting Sexual Assault offenders while Alaska’s Attorney General. Here’s the The Washington Post’s take on it.

• Want to know why Senate District K (Jewel Lake/Sand Lake area of Anchorage) is leaning Clare Ross? Read the breakdown of the senate district and its accompanying House Districts HERE.

• Greg Sargent of The Washington Post is predicting that U.S. Sen. Mark Begich’s next line of attack will be to focus on older voters beginning with “Begich’s proposal to shore up Social Security’s finances.”

• Fox News under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) conducted a random sample poll of 1,049 registered and found that 74% of those polled felt that Obama’s actions toward ISIL were “not tough enough” while another 52% were in favor of allowing the president the use of ground troops if airstrikes were not enough in Iraq and Syria.

Continue reading →

State Senate District K, encompassing the neighborhoods of Jewell Lake, Sand Lake, a small portion of Spenard and Turnagain, along with its two House Districts (21 and 22), is the most contested election district in the state. There is not a single incumbent running to maintain their seat in the district. That means that two House seats and one Senate seat will go to newbies. Portions of this district voted for President Obama in 2012. However, since reapportionment, led by former GOP Chair Randy Ruedrich, who carved out the district with x acto-knife like precision, the district has arguably become more conservative.

Here’s a little about the two candidates running for state Senate and the candidates running for the two House seats in the district, and my take on the current states of these races, for what they’re worth.

Republican Mia Costello v Democrat Clare Ross Continue reading →

This anonymous comment left on the Senate fisheries debate story is one of the best pieces I’ve read on fisheries in a long time:

Did anyone ask real fisheries based questions, such as why has it taken so long to implement a quota share program in the Gulf of Alaska, or if they support aggressive reductions in salmon and halibut commercial trawl bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska, or if they support 100 percent observer coverage in federal fisheries to ensure fishery conservation measures, or if they support the attempt by rural Alaska Natives to shut down or severely restrict the lucrative Bering Sea trawl fishery because of king salmon bycatch and its perceived devastation to Yukon and Kuskokwim river king salmon populations? Probably not in any great detail because actual fishery issues are often absent to a large degree in fishery debates and conversations these days in Alaska.

Or instead, did we get questions at “fishery debates” from hip commercial fishermen poised against and criticizing any and all other natural resource industries in Alaska – oil and gas industry (Bristol Bay, SB 21, TAPS, OCS Arctic), mining (Pebble, Red Dog, Donlin, Greens Creek), forestry (Tongass, Chugach), and tourism (cruise ship initiative, dismemberment of ATIA, Cook Inlet fish wars).

Commercial fishermen nowadays portray themselves as the frontline, green environmentalists of Alaska (whether or not they are actual residents) in opposition to every other natural resource industry in Alaska. Except of course the state’s commercial fisheries, Continue reading →

Here’s the first ad of the general election paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan. The ad features the often controversial, plainspoken Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m guessing that Paul plays as well in Alaska as any senator other than Lisa Murkowski would. Thoughts?
http://youtu.be/BqYEZWs_PMk

• Last night’s debates were informative and entertaining. The Juneau Empire has a great article about the U.S. Senate debate, the Dispatch about the U.S. Congressional debate, and this site has a compilation of tweets from the debate.

• The Dispatch leads with a long piece by Richard Mauer and Jill Burke about Gov. Sean Parnell’s years of inaction regarding the sexual assaults and misconduct within the Alaska National Guard. There isn’t much new in the story—and it might be interesting to note that the unnamed “acquaintance,” Bill Walker approached about the issue was former Fairbanks Mayor Jim Whitaker and that McClatchy’s Sean Cockerham broke the story--but it’s a damning summation of Parnell’s handling of the issue. The issue isn’t going away, as it shouldn’t. The Dems are having a protest in front of the Atwood at noon, and Parnell’s having a press conference at 11 a.m.

• The University of Virginia Center for Politics has come out with their “Sabato’s Crystal Ball” and has now declared that Alaska’s gubernatorial race has gone from “leaning Republican” to “Toss up.”

• PoliticalNews.me has a story on Sen. Mark Begich’s new Tax Fairness Bill for Tribes which has become law. This new law gives Alaska tribes the same tax protections as state and local service programs. This also coincides with a supportive op-ed written by Valerie Davidson in Alaska Native News about Begich supporting rural, tribal and veterans’ health.

Continue reading →

Pebble Mine, electronic monitoring, climate change, the Magnuson Stevens Act, subsistence, oil and gas development in Bristol Bay, quotas, CDQs–were just a few of the subjects that the Senate candidates wrangled with on Wednesday night at the fisheries debate in Kodiak, an island 250 miles south of Anchorage, and a place where such subjects are regularly discussed at coffee shops and bars. This was obviously Sen. Mark Begich’s crowd. For the past three years, he’s chaired a key fisheries committee in the Senate, and is much more conversant on the subject than is his challenger Dan Sullivan, whose knowledge of fisheries has in the past seemed spotty. Begich won the night, and his supporters won the twitter war. But though he appeared unsure of some issues, and fell back too often on the “federal overreach” meme, Sullivan proved that he could hold his own. Of the seven debates and forums scheduled before Election Day, this will likely be Sullivan’s toughest.

Here are some tweets from the event: Continue reading →

Gov. Sean Parnell hasn’t been known for being a base-galvanizer. But if not exactly on fire, they seem at least a little stoked after the most recent debates. During the debates, Parnell has come out forcefully against Bill Walker, among other things, forcing an admission that education and Medicaid could be on the chopping block. Some wondered what got the governor uncharacteristically charged-up. Has he been eating his Wheaties? Did Walker really privately insult the governor right before the Juneau debate started when the two were shaking hands?  it doesn’t sound like him, but some folks supposedly in the know seem to think so.

So much for the notion of loyalty as payback for cronyism. Just ask Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan, who was friends with Dan Kendall, and served on the Anchorage Assembly with him. While Sullivan was mayor, he put Kendall in a high-paying job in the mayor’s office. Later, he was placed as the interim CEO at ML&P where the mayor took heat from at least one reporter (me!) questioning the appointment, Consider this: Kendall’s only qualifications were that he worked at ENSTAR for 30 years as a corrosion technician. During that time, he was a member of the plumbers and pipefitters union and didn’t supervise or manage any employees. He was never involved in any of the company’s gas supply contracts, regulatory matters nor participated in the operations or management of the company. He likely never participated in one employee’s evaluation while at ENSTAR. And then he’s the head of one of the largest utilities in the state? Anyhow, because of Mayor Sullivan, Kendall got his tier-one, high three years, which significantly enhanced his retirement paycheck. And then he goes and joins the Republicans for Walker committee and writes an op-ed on Tuesday, criticizing Sullivan’s running mate, Gov. Sean Parnell. All of which confirms the saying about reaping what you sow, or something.

It’s all any of us can do to keep up with the November 4th general election. Yet, Ivan Moore Continue reading →

Here’s the first ad paid for by an Independent Expenditure (IE) group in support of “Unity” ticket candidates Bill Walker and Byron Mallott. An IE in the state basically acts like a federal super-PAC in that it can accept unlimited funds and can’t coordinate with a candidate. The disclosure rules however, like listing the top three contributors, are distinct to Alaska. This knockout ad, which begins to run statewide on Thursday, comes courtesy of Alaskans for Walker-Mallott.  The chair is Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami, and Joelle Hall, AFL-CIO director of operations, is the treasurer of the group. The Alaska AFL-CIO was instrumental in the unprecedented pairing of Walker, a Republican running as an Independent, with Mallott, a Democrat, who was on the top of the ticket and who is now running with Walker as his lieutenant governor.  Jim Lottsfeldt, who is running the pro-Mark Begich super-PAC Put Alaska First, said he produced the ad. This project is separate from the Begich super-PAC he said. Local film crew SprocketHeads filmed the spot.