Q. What’s more Democrat than downtown Chicago in August?
A. A presidential convention year, especially when there’s a controversial war going on, (like the 1968 Democratic Convention in downtown Chicago, which devolved into massive protests over the American involvement in the Vietnam War.)
The Alaska Democratic Party will be sending 20 Alaska delegates and two alternates to the 2024 Democratic presidential nominating convention in Chicago, Aug 19-22, 2024. This represents one more delegate than the Alaska Democrats had during the 2020 convention, owing to the fact that Rep. Mary Peltola is a Democrat, which gave Alaska an additional party delegate for the national convention, according to the party’s formula.
The plan for how those Alaska delegates get chosen and how they may be allocated to candidates was just approved by the Democratic National Committee.
The Alaska Democratic Party plan places an emphasis on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” also known as DEI, which takes the focus off of merit and ability and puts it into a Karl Marx socialist model of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Every Alaskan registered as a Democrat is eligible to be a national convention delegate and may participate in the delegate selection process. But the secret sauce is “identity.” There will be delegates that are from every race and sexual gender pronoun.
But first, led by ADP vice chair and 2022 Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Jessica Cook, national pledged delegates will be selected from among state delegates at the Alaska Democratic Party State Convention in Juneau on May 18, 2024. Those ADP State Convention delegates come into play after being chosen at State House district organizational meetings on April 13.
The DEI plan ensures the party will have quotas for every possible “identity.”
If more than one presidential candidate meets the Alaska Democratic Party’s ballot access requirements, 17 of the 20 pledged delegates and alternates will be allocated to the presidential candidate(s) based on the results of the party-run presidential preference primary held on April 6. Currently, the party is backing Joe Biden for president and Mary Peltola for Congress. But others are running, such as Marianne Williamson and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris are waiting in the wings in case Biden takes a turn that prevents him from continuing. Biden will be 82 next November and the actuarial tables are not in his favor.
For many years, Alaska Republicans have held private party-run preference polls during presidential election years, which allows more people to participate than gymnasium-style caucuses.
The Alaska Democrats decided the Republicans had a good plan, and ditched the gymnasium route, starting their own version of private primaries in 2020. The presidential election is not subject to Ballot Measure 2’s open primary and ranked-choice general, but is done through the parties themselves.
Democrats in Alaska interested in being an ADP national delegate, convention page, or standing convention committee member should review the plan and reach out to [email protected]. The plan is available for review at akdems.org.
On Thursday, Democrats will have their annual holiday auction in Anchorage.
Flying in from Juneau to be the guest speaker is Juneau House Rep. Sara Hannan, and the evening will be emceed by Anchorage House Rep. Genevieve Mina. Among the many live auction items are plenty of trips, including trips to Hawaii, Homer, and elsewhere.
Those trips may burn up the fossil fuel, but party is going full-tilt anti-oil behind the scenes with proposed edits to its party platform, which will be voted on at the annual convention.
The party’s Climate Caucus is recommending that the Democrats remove all perceived support for oil and gas development in Alaska and remove support for fossil fuel as part of the energy mix, as first reported by Must Read Alaska:
