Democrats can’t win in Alaska anymore, at least not statewide. The last one to do it was Mark Begich in 2008, when he beat a convicted felon, and lifetime political criminal, Sen. Ted Stevens. Those circumstances were special. Begich is a talented politician, and spent six years readying himself for reelection, but he was a D, and he went down.
So when they came up with a challenger to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a woman named Margaret Stock, they had her run as an Independent. The formal Democratic candidate, who won the primary, is former Republican legislator Ray Metcalfe, who’s turned into a Bernie Sanders man. With the recent entry of the 2010 Republican nominee for Senate, Joe Miller, running now as a Libertarian, it changed everything, from the Democrat perspective. Before Miller, or B.M., the Democrats didn’t really have a chance of beating Murkowski. Now, A.M., they do. The Republican vote will be split.
But they can’t win with Margaret Scott. She doesn’t have the skills required. And certainly not with former State Representative Mercalfe, who’s a fruitcake. The only person in the State who could pull it off is former Sen. Begich. The Democrats have asked Metcalfe to withdraw, but there’s no chance of that. Metcalfe has been a political nuisance ever since Jan Faiks beat him out of a State Senate seat in 1982. He’s waited for 34 years to get in the spotlight, and he’s not giving it up. He’s a strange man.
So the only way Begich can run is as a write in. Margaret Scott will withdraw, but as an Independent she can’t be replaced. So it would be Murkowski and Miller splitting the Republican vote, and Begich gets all the Democrats to write him in. Metcalfe won’t get enough votes to matter.
In Alaska, this kind of a thing can get done. It’s a very small voter pool, and a little money goes a long way. This exactly what Lisa Murkowski did in 2010. It can be done. Begich has until Thursday to come up with about $8 million to do it. If he can get the money he will.
I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post that I might have a way to raise some money, and it turns out I was right. The signs are all positive. I was going to have some fun up in Alaska, at Murkowski’s expense. But this morning I heard what Begich was up to, and that put a screeching halt to that. If I went after Murkowski, it might wind up electing Begich, and I wouldn’t want to take that chance. Instead, I’ll go after Begich. If I hit him just right, I could knock as many as ten points off him.
That’s exactly what I did to Frank Murkowski’s Democratic opponent in 1980. Look it up in the 1980 edition of the Almanac of American Politics, by political genius Michael Barone, as nice a man as you’ll ever meet. I had in on my radio show in the early 90’s, when he was in Anchorage for some reason. I told him I was amazed that he got the 1980 Alaska Senate race so spot on. No one in the Alaska media understood what had happened, but Michael Barone did. How the hell did he know that? Who follows a race for U. S. Senate seat in Alaska that closely? He just shrugged, and smiled. What a great guy.
When Begich was on the Anchorage Assembly he sponsored some traffic camera scam out of Arizona for the City of Anchorage Parking Authority. It was just a way to fleece the common man, and extort traffic fines from him, all to support the payment of parking garages that needed the money. They wouldn’t increase taxes to get the revenue, they’d get the money from traffic fines.
Some listener of my radio show got so pissed off at this that he organized a city initiative to repeal the traffic camera law. I had him on my show all the time. When it was coming up for a vote, Begich came on to explain his sponsorship of this stupid law. He never got any campaign contributions out of the deal, did he? He was a weaselly son of a bitch. And like all so called “moderate” Democrats, he’s the devil in disguise. He’s not going back to the Senate.
I enjoy this kind of stuff.
reaganproject.com 