By ALEX GIMARC
Here in South Anchorage, District 15, we are treated to three candidates.
Two of them are Democrats. There’s perennial candidate Dustin Dardin and another perennial, Denny Wells, who has run for the past few cycles. They are running against Republican Mia Costello to replace incumbent Tom McKay, who won the last two times around.
Wells is the prototypical Democrat candidate, surrounding himself with happy, joyful photos of his young family in an attempt to convince us all that he is something other than what he is.
I received his campaign mailer last week. It is large format, 8 x 12”, full color printed on card stock — an expensive piece of work.
On the mailer, he claims he understands the issues that matter most to us. In his own words, the issues include the following:
- Protecting abortion rights and ensuring Alaskans have access to birth control and IVF treatments
- Supporting strong public schools so all our kids can succeed
- Lowering costs for families and creating new, good paying jobs
- Keeping our communities and families safe
- Making healthcare and prescription drugs more affordable
Looking at his bio, his website and his campaign literature, he has done nothing in his entire life to deal with any of these important priorities, making this list little more than standard Democrat campaign rhetoric. But words are indeed important, so let’s at least look at a few of them in an attempt to predict what he is truly about.
In his campaign mailer, Wells posts a photo of a happy family with three young daughters. If you have three daughters at a young age, abortion rights are simply not important. Whose babies is he proposing to terminate?
As for IVF, Alaska had under 9,400 total births in 2022 among the entire population, meaning IVF is at best less than 100 of that total. This means IVF as an issue in Alaska is nonexistent, making Wells interest in it little more than a current Democrat talking point.
He claims to support strong public schools, while ignoring the complete meltdown of those very same public schools, infestation by Critical Race Theory and the trans craze. Worse, he refuses to acknowledge that Anchorage School District hired an unqualified superintendent who pledged to further both CRT and trans while the Anchorage School Board hides that commitment from the general public. Thank you, Margo Belamy.
Want to fix the public schools? Put control of the money as close to the students as humanly possible. Yes, that means vouchers.
There are other examples, but you get the idea. This boy is a committed lefty, saying and doing whatever he needs to say and do to get elected.
An analysis of his campaign donations is also instructive. If you go into APOC and search under Denmar Wells (his actual name), you end up with a list of over 1,150 donations by Aug 10, 2024 is most instructive.
Sort the list by largest donations, and you first come up with Robin Brena, former Gov. Bill Walker’s bag man, anti-oil jihadi with a cool $20,000 to start the campaign.
The list of $1,000 donations goes on to a murderer’s row of unions and union PACs, along with strong support from Andrew Halcro, who’s never seen a Republican he didn’t want to knife in the back. These donations total $77,000 of his $190,000. Who do you think is going to be driving his legislative bus should he be elected?
From this, Denny Wells is the next iteration of Young Master Jason Grenn, who bounced Rep. Liz Vazquez out of the Legislature in 2016 because he was young and fresh. Rep. Grenn ended up being a Democrat tool, a legislative disaster who most recently helped saddle Alaska with ranked-choice voting. Wells looks like him, campaigns like him, and will have a similar negative impact to our wallets and livelihoods.
I would think long and hard before considering any of Denmar Wells’ empty promises.
Mia Costello is proven, reliable, and has delivered for years in this part of town. It’s time to return her to the House. It’s time to ignore, once again, the unions and their Trojan Horse candidates.
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.
Alex, your comment about Andy Halcro made me giggle. True that!
Seriously, when I see your articles, I put aside a few important moments to digest your good writing.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about this race. Mia is a level headed, hard working and reasonable Alaskan woman. She deserves to represent district 15 and has a solid record of center right voting.
You are so kind, Kim. Thank you. Cheers –
Nicely done!
.
Point well taken.
This hit piece will not move the needle. Danny is running on increasing the BSA for public education. Long time residents remember Mia opposing Medicaid expansion because the Republicans have a better plan. We now know the Republicans have concepts of a plan and that Mia is a Dunleavy tool.
Ty for your informative article.
No one wants government schools to steal more of our money and indoctrinate more childrten. Plus more then a few “teachers” are sexual deviants and should never be around children.
Did you ever figure out how to do math, Frank?
One of the reasons those of us on the political right opposed Medicaid expansion was because Walker was about to dump another 60,000 Alaskans in an already financially distressed system. The O’Bamaoids who proposed expansion included additional funding for the first two years. But that funding decreased by half the subsequent two years, meaning that the new people were fully covered the first year. halfway covered the second year, and by the third year, when Walker left office, Alaska was on its own.
Today, as a result of Walker’s perfidy, the entire system is at risk of a fiscal collapse, which will impact the entire handicapper community. Yet you choose this fiscal disaster to bash Dunleavy. How very Frank Rast of you. Cheers –
Denny is just another reason NONE of my grandchildren will EVER step foot in a public school.
One final observation about Denny Wells: With the donation to his campaign from Robin Brenna a whopping $20,000, I can safely predict that Wells will be a reliable anti-oil vote for whatever time he infests the legislature. Brenna / Walker are purchasing anti-oil votes. Cheers –
It’s Denmer Wells, not Denmar. I clicked on the link, then clicked the search button without entering anything in the dialog box. It gave me Dave Bronson’s contributors for 2022. I don’t know whether or not that’s something you need to fix.
While the APOC filings were worth checking out, here’s an overlooked detail. I commented a while back on the patterns inherent in Democrat (-friendly) candidates’ (deputy) treasurers. Wells is no exception, with Matt Claman and Erik Gunderson serving as deputy treasurers.
Speaking of overlooked details, let’s not forget the role he and Yarrow Silvers (currently Alyse Galvin’s legislative aide) played behind the scenes in the Assembly redistricting process. Reading his website, he makes it appear as if this was purely happenstance. I followed that process myself, though probably not as intensively. As it occurred during an Assembly campaign season, Constant and Dunbar were manipulating the process in real time depending on how polling was going. Of course, let’s not forget about writing Randy Sulte out of the district he represents, barely beyond being newly elected.
Was the end result of redistricting a proud achievement for Wells? As the son of a career electrician in a community where the IBEW is politically powerful, is he really Mr. Smith Goes to Juneau as he attempts to claim on his website?
Seen this man’s online ads? If he doesn’t have the foresight to clip his nose hair before his most public appearance, what’s the likelihood that he’s strategic in every other area?
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