Alex Gimarc: A dunce cap for the Outside PAC supporting Denny Wells

By ALEX GIMARC

I received the latest Denny Wells mailer midweek. This one was a big, glossy, 8.5 x 11” color mailer on card stock. The front was adorned with photos of outdoors Alaska while the back was divided in half with all the wonderful things Denny Wells will do for us and all the awful things he says Mia Costello will do if elected to represent House District 15 in the Legislature.

Most infuriatingly, the front exhorts the reader to “… vote for leaders who will protect them.” 

What do these clowns think we are? Two-year-olds? 

These days, I mostly want leaders who will leave me alone and get out of the way of what should be a resource-development, free-market economy up here. From the looks of it, Denny Wells isn’t one of those leaders.

The mailer was done by an outfit calling itself the American Leadership Committee – Alaska, based out of Washington DC.  Its top contributor is the Democrat Legislative Campaign Committee. 

This is dark Outside money being spent by an outside political PAC mucking around in a local election.  I thought ranked-choice voting was supposed to stop all that. Apparently not.

And what does list as his top priority as he “will always protect our families?” Once again, protecting us, unasked and uninvited. Wells claims “protecting access to reproductive care, including abortion, birth control and IVF.”  While his opponent Mia Costello is lambasted for “banning abortion and restricting our bodily autonomy.”

Here is the problem with one size fits all campaigns funded out of Washington DC by democrat PACs. They are completely clueless about the state of play for abortion here in Alaska.

Due to the actions of the Alaska Supremes, elevating the right of privacy above all other rights in the Alaska constitution, the Legislature has no play in abortion at all. The judicial victory for the pro-abort side is so complete that Democrats don’t even bother to propose constitutional amendments to ensconce it in the state constitution. It’s a done deal already. 

What are these Outside Democrats and their carefully selected lap dog Denny Wells talking about? Nothing useful, as they completely misread the legal landscape here in Alaska.

Other issues of interest to Wells per the flyer are “lowering costs for families and creating new, good-paying jobs.”  He then goes on to blast away at Costello for “opposing job-creating initiatives and threatening our livelihoods.”

Once again, a lot of political Strum und Drang without any supporting information. How so?  

Follow the money with Wells. As I pointed out in an earlier column, his single largest contributor is anti-oil mouthpiece Robin Brena. When you take money from the anti-oilies, you will quickly become a reliable anti-oil vote, and in turn, an anti-resource development advocate. 

It’s tough to create jobs in a resource development state without developing resources, such as mining, drilling, fracking, cutting trees, farming fish, etc.  

No resources = no jobs and the economic death of the state.  This is of little interest to either Wells or his dark money backers.  It should be of great interest to the rest of us.  

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.