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.