What the hell good does it do when the Republicans control the Senate? They roll over like whipped dogs at the first sign of a fight. It’s easy to blame the Leader, McConnell, but he’s a symptom, not the disease itself. The disease is lily-livered milk toast so-called moderates who are the balance of power in the Republican Senate Caucus. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and some of the Republican Senatorial links are made of linguine.
Take Lisa Murkowski. Please. Match her room temperature IQ with a hamster’s need for approval, and a desperate desire to be considered enlightened, and you get a Democrat in disguise. Like many people who are in stations far above their capacity, Murkowski compensates by her arrogance, and her air of entitlement. She’s just a lousy politician, all the way around. I’ve known a lot of politicians in my time, and she’s about the worst.
Mayor Dan should beat her. He’s no Marco Rubio, but he’s got enough of the old blarney in him to be an easy guy to like. He had, or has, an Irish pub in downtown Anchorage called McGinty’s. A guy that opens up an Irish pub is probably an all right guy. There’s no one like an Irishman at being a politician. I shook the hand of the best of them all, John F. Kennedy. He was impossible not to like.
Ivan Moore runs a Democrat poll called Alaska Survey Research. He tilts far to the left in his polling. A week out, he called Begich a seven or eight point favorite over Sullivan. He was off by ten. So he has Murkowski and Mayor Dan tied at 51% approval, but with Murkowski with an eleven point higher negative. (Hat tip to midnightsunak.com)
So, as the gun goes off, they’re tied. There are a lot more Alaskans who don’t know Mayor Dan than don’t know Murkowski, so he gets to introduce himself to these people, by campaigning. And spending money on media, money that needs to be raised. A lot of money has been raised to try to take down RINO’s that weren’t as bad as Murkowski. These people need to understand the golden opportunity that Mayor Dan represents. But time is short, so we’ll just have to see.
The only time I spent any real time with George, Mayor Dan’s father, was at the end of the ’94 race for Governor. Jim Campbell, who had a hardware store in Spenard, was the Republican, and he refused to go after the Democrat, Tony Knowles, about things Knowles had said about the Permanent Fund. The things Knowles had said were enough to sink him, but Campbell wouldn’t do it. I didn’t really know George Sullivan, but I called him up, and asked him what he thought, and he agreed with me. So he arranged a meeting between me, Campbell, and George. And George and I laid it out for him. He had to expose this part of the Knowles’ record. But he wouldn’t do it. He said he didn’t want to run a negative campaign. I’ve always wondered if he was afraid of something in his past. He lost by about 600 votes, and I don’t think I ever saw George again. Except I do see some of George in Mayor Dan, and I do believe George saw some of my Uncle Fritz in me.
This is going to be fun.
reaganproject.com 