In the first week, “Dunleavy for Alaska” has raised $560,000 in pledged donations.
The group announced its launch last week as an entity that is a separate effort from the Dunleavy campaign itself. It is what is known as an “independent expenditure group” that cannot coordinate with the campaign.
Dunleavy for Alaska may be the largest political action committee to take part in a governor’s race in Alaska, certainly this early in the cycle.
The group also launched its website.
Bob Penney, Josh Pepperd, Bob Griffin, and Francis Dunleavy pledged the cash, and other donors have stepped forward, said Terre Gales, the chair of the group. Francis is Mike Dunleavy’s brother.
The political action committee will roll out ads on Super Bowl Sunday in Fairbanks, Mat-Su and Anchorage. The ads will show during the game, and will also be seen on television during the Winter Olympic Games.
Anchorage-based Porcaro Communications was hired to place the television and radio advertisements.
Mike Dunleavy announced his race for governor and resigned from the Alaska Senate this month to devote his time to his campaign. He is from Wasilla.
This is encouraging news. The Walker recession has strangled the private sector in Alaska and put investment on hold. Crazy ideas for taxing everything that moves or stands still, issuing state debt against past-due pension obligations, past due oil tax credits, and yes, even the Permanent Fund have scared capital away from Alaska. Trying to use the state credit to leverage natural gas owned by oil companies has confused entrepreneurs, rightfully so. And state credit ratings have suffered in the bargain, all without any of the proposed bond issues even coming close to being ready for any fixed-income market. Confusion on the part of a governor sends capital running for cover, and that has been the root cause of the current Alaska recession. From this day on every time there are news reports that are optimistic in the outlook for Dunleavy defeating Walker we will see private sector jobs created by that positive outlook alone. By the November election Walker-Mallott will seem like a very bad dream. Dunleavy will put Alaska back to work producing goods and commodities the world needs. The comparatively high wages that Alaskans received until relatively recently will soon return.
WELL WRITTEN and true !
Love your optimism! So many people are fed up with Walker and his destruction of our great state. I, and, so many others hope Dunleavy wins this race and can get us back on track, back to work and make Alaska great again.
Mike Dunleavy certainly has a better shot at beating Walker in November than does any other candidate, declared or speculated. No one now or earlier has been more consistently on point with the values Alaskans hold dear. No one has expressed nearly as well the common sense remedies necessary to overcome the Walker economic woes. But not even Dunleavy can do this alone. This will be nothing less than an exhaustive, unbounded battle to determine the future of Alaska in the 21st Century, and the dissimilarities between the two men could not be more clear. In his address to the Legislature last month Walker most touted how many people he has been able to put on Medicaid and other programs whereas we can all expect Governor Dunleavy to talk about the number of people leaving programs to take new jobs. Here in Juneau there is a huge Bernie Sanders contingent. The 1050 people who marched on the Capitol Building Saturday before last haven’t disowned a now much disgraced legislator who marched with them, quite possibly because that legislator is not a Republican. Some of those people will be knocking on doors this election year. I expect to once again see Planned Parenthood going door to door in the Mendenhall Valley this election season. We need to work right through Monday, November 5!
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