By CRAIG E. CAMPBELL
Some of you may remember the 1960’s television ads for RiceARoni, with the cute jingle, “Rice A Roni – The San Francisco Treat.”
That was then, this is now. The San Francisco treat for Anchorage consists of a group of politicos bent on destroying civil liberties and our free market system, replacing them with neo-socialist principles. And one of them is in the run-off to possibly become our next mayor.
Just to refresh – socialism is the economic system of social, not individual, ownership and management of the economy. Government controls the who, how, when, and where. Some bureaucratic central planner, who probably never ran a business, knows best how to manage the economy for society.
Socialism hasn’t worked so well in the past. Here in America, San Francisco, arguably one of the most once-beautiful and prosperous cities of the 20th Century, is now a socialist Mecca, a miserable mess overrun by vagrants, drug addicts, class inequality, and crime, all caused by socialists under the pretext of social equity. The 21st Century jingle should be: “San Francisco – The Socialistic Treat.”
This brings me to our mayoral election run-off between Dave Bronson and Forrest Dunbar on May 11. The April 6 election will be certified April 20 and ballot will be in the mail shortly after that. The two are within a couple of percentage points of each other.
The choice cannot be more stark: Do we elect Dave Bronson, who believes in individual responsibility and an economic free market system, or Dunbar, who has embraced the draconian mandates that suffocated business by government manifesto, taxation and regulations, and snuffs out individual freedom with laws, rules, and regulations?
Do we elect Dave Bronson, who will tackle the homeless and vagrancy problem with treatment and compassion, or do we elect Dunbar who will continue enabling and warehousing these people?
Do we really want Anchorage to look like that cesspool San Francisco with homeless tents on public sidewalks, defecation on the street, pandering at every street corner, trash in our parks, and a general uncompassionate neglect?
How about crime? During the time Dunbar has been on the Assembly, Anchorage has continued to have one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, while he and his colleagues made direct attempts to undermine law enforcement and pass resolutions to “oversee” police policies and procedures.
Don’t forget Dunbar supported his sister and cousin as they joined the Portland Wall of Mom’s to block police from stopping Antifa and Black Lives Matter from burning buildings during the “peaceful” protests of 2020.
“Peaceful” protesters are at it again in Minnesota, this time burning the federal ICE building while agents were blockaded inside, laying siege to police buildings, and instigating anarchy.
Is this what we want Anchorage to become from more liberal leadership in City Hall?
It’s time we elect a mayor who will support law enforcement and confront the crime in our city. Dave Bronson will provide the police protection necessary to reduce crime and support healthy neighborhoods. Dunbar does not support strong law enforcement, no matter what his campaign propaganda may say.
The current devastation of Anchorage is being fueled by elitists. Ethan Berkowitz, the mayor who resigned in disgrace, came from San Francisco. Acting Mayor Quinn-Davidson, also from California, clearly has played politics with the Covid pandemic to keep government control over our lives and businesses. The downward spiral of our city rests directly from their actions.
What a waste. Businesses closed forever. They really needed CARES Act money to survive, yet received very little by these highbrow despots. This central planning of our economy by government bureaucrats to reward their friends and punish their enemies has got to stop.
Back to our current mayor’s race. To be fair, not all radical socialists come from San Francisco. Dunbar was born and raised in Alaska, but he cultivated his radical socialist ideas while studying at privileged liberal Ivy League institutions like Harvard University and Yale College. Dunbar is the sweetheart candidate of the uber-liberal Left, emboldened with an arrogant attitude exhibited by his openly coercive actions of picking and choosing winners and losers. That is not the role of government or any mayor.
To Dunbar, government must prop-up the arts, build trails, fund non-essential activities, accommodate the burgeoning vagrancy problem in Anchorage that he helped create, and heavily tax and regulate the private sector. He supported using CARES Act funds to provide free housing for his favorite social justice entrepreneurs and to fund privately owned ventures that advance his agenda. That’s not capitalism, that’s government control straight out of the book on Marxism. What a perfect formula for destroying Anchorage.
If mayor, Dunbar will increase the size and cost of government, increase taxes, create more regulations and rules to limit private sector success, handcuff our police, attempt to limit our Second Amendment rights, continue enabling the homeless population for political gain, infringe on our property rights, and take us down the road to become just another failed San Francisco. I, for one, have had enough of this socialistic garbage.
I do not believe Anchorage has embraced government central control over our lives. The combined number of votes for Dave Bronson, Bill Evans, and Mike Robbins exceeded the total liberal vote. This is not the time for people to stay home. Whether you supported Bronson, Evans, or Robbins, you must vote in this run-off election to save our city from permanent destruction at the hands of the progressive Left.
On May 11th we must elect Dave Bronson mayor. While he will have to confront a hostile Assembly, he will be able to rein in city bureaucracy, submit a conservative budget, veto bad ordinances and resolutions passed by the Assembly lunatics, and lead an economic recovery for Anchorage. Changing the political landscape takes time, but we can make a huge difference in the future of Anchorage by electing Dave Bronson mayor. Are you with me?
Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor. He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation. He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).
