An opinion piece authored by one of the most rabid opponents of Gov. Mike Dunleavy appeared in the Anchorage Daily News, with no mention at all by the newspaper that the author is one of the founders and has served as a lead attorney for the Recall Dunleavy Committee.
Scott Kendall, who was chief of staff for the failed administration of former Gov. Bill Walker, wrote in his opinion piece this week that the governor’s proposal to allow voters to vote on a constitutional amendment to lock in a formula for the Permanent Fund dividend was a bad idea. “Half-baked,” the headline read, with a “deficit of honesty.”
The ADN was snagged by its own deficit of honesty: Kendall, spanked by the voters who couldn’t wait to get rid of Walker & Co. in 2018, helped form up the Recall Dunleavy Committee in early 2019, has defended in court the recall charges that he himself wrote, and is still the man behind the curtain of the now-failing movement to off the governor prematurely.
But the newspaper described him thus: “Scott Kendall served as chief of staff under Gov. Bill Walker. He is now an attorney in private practice.“
No mention that he is Mr. Recall, who also served as Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaign manager, or that he was the author of Ballot Measure 2.
The real message in his op-ed was hidden in plain sight at the end: Kendall wrote that it’s time to get a new governor in 2022. That is all-but an admission that his recall efforts have failed. And the ADN is allowing Kendall to distance himself from the failure.
