By DAN FAGAN
If you’ve lost all hope Alaska’s largest city will ever return to the bustling, prosperous, and mostly safe town it once was, consider Michelle Bryant.
Bryant drives a big truck all around Anchorage delivering fresh produce to restaurants. All day she works with restaurant workers and owners. They have become her friends.
Her job gives her a front row seat to the economic devastation that the unconstitutional lockdowns employed by the Marxists running the city have callously mandated, while ignoring public testimony. Their tyranny has hit Anchorage’s eateries like a tidal wave, washing away jobs, and forcing businesses to close permanently.
Bryant has witnessed up close – maybe more than anyone in Anchorage – the destructive potential of a power-hungry, micro-managing government to destroy lives. The experience has changed her profoundly.
But Bryant didn’t just belly ache and complain about what she witnessed in such an up-close and personal way. She took action.
Bryant began to show up at Assembly meetings to testify. She boldly faced the tyrants ruining so many of her friend’s jobs and businesses.
Bryant describes herself as someone who never had much interest in politics most of her life. But now she’s at the front lines of the battle.
At one meeting Bryant confronted the thin-skinned Assemblyman Christopher Constant for not giving respect and attention to those who came to testify. Constant whined to Assembly Chairman Felix Rivera that Bryant had the audacity to publicly say Constant’s name on the record.
“She called out my name Mr. Chair,” screeched Constant like a four-year-old crying about being teased on a playground.
The big question is how many other Michelle Bryant’s are out there. The non-political turned political, engaged, involved, angry. The ones who can’t wait to vote the bums out.
Disgraced and former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, the current illegal mayor, Austin Quinn-Davidson, and the Marxist six remaining on the Anchorage Assembly transformed Anchorage into a city that’s barely recognizable. Especially downtown.
The newly engaged and impassioned may not go to the lengths of Bryant, who has taken the time to show up at Assembly meetings, but they certainly determined in their hearts to vote.
I received an email from someone recently telling me his wife, for the first time in years, will vote in the mayor’s race after seeing what’s happened to Anchorage under current leadership.
She’s also hosting gatherings with many of her friends hoping to educate them on who to vote for.
There’s no candidate that embodies the current direction the city is heading than uber-Leftist Forrest Dunbar. Dunbar is such a radical, he could potentially be worse than Berkowitz, if you can even imagine that.
What if establishment types underestimated the pure rage brewing among the public over the failed leadership in Anchorage. What if Anchorage isn’t quite as blue as supporters of “Bathroom” Bill Evans think it is? They’re banking on a mushy middle candidate.
There is no mushy middle constituency.
Conservative heavy weights like Andy Clary, Dave Stieren, Rick Rydell, Rebecca Logan, and former Mayor Dan Sullivan have thrown their considerable influence behind Evans, assuming a conservative is no longer electable in Alaska’s most populated city.
But have they factored in the Michelle Bryants of the world and the many others like her? I doubt it.
As much as Dunbar is the face of the hard left turn the city’s recently taken, Dave Bronson is clearly the most formidable opposition.
Bronson told publisher of this website, Suzanne Downing, during their latest recorded podcast, the polls show he’s the guy to beat, with all other candidates polling at 8% or below, with the exception of Dunbar.
Is it possible conservative candidate Dave Bronson could get 45% plus 1 of the votes and avoid a runoff with Dunbar?
Don’t rule it out. Once conservatives realize Mike Robbins and Evans have little or no chance, they most likely will go with Bronson.
I’m not predicting Bronson avoids the runoff. But I wouldn’t be shocked if he does.
Dan Fagan hosts the #1 rated morning drive talk show in Alaska on Newsradio 650 KENI.
