GROSS CAMPAIGN BEHAVES LIKE IT IS LOSING
In a scenario reminiscent of a stunt that State Sen. Jessie Kiehl and Juneau Democrats pulled on Republican Women of Juneau in 2018, U.S. Senate hopeful Alan Gross is playing the “anti-semitic” card and going after Sen. Dan Sullivan, calling him a racist.
Gross is accusing Sen. Dan Sullivan in what appears to be a desperate attempt to curry favor with Alaska voters. It may backfire, since most voters in Alaska will not be sympathetic to such a ploy.
Gross says a photo of him that depicts him holding money is an “anti-semitic trope,” the same terminology that Sen. Kiehl used in 2018 when the Republican women published a flyer saying he would tax Alaskans. In that flyer, the women said if you give Kiehl your vote, you may as well give him your wallet.
In this instance, the response from the Gross campaign comes comes from a hired publicity gun in Washington, D.C., as a cover for the campaign.
Andrew Feldman Strategies is carrying the spear, issuing a press release that says the picture is dark, and that having Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the background is also what it makes it anti-Jewish.
But Gross himself got into the act, calling the ad “disgusting.”
“This ad has disgusting anti-Semitic tropes but it’s what we should expect from a candidate who has hidden how his family does business with communist China and has voted time and again to benefit their bottom line. They should take the ad down,” Gross huffed in the press release. So did a few others who are clearly in the Democrat camp, such as J Street, a liberal advocacy group, and the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
In recent weeks, Gross has called Sullivan a number of names, (lapdog, corrupt, communist Chinese sympathizer, and has made numerous there unfounded accusations, such as blaming him for the coronavirus pandemic.
Gross is the son of the late Avrum Gross, who was a Jew from New York City. It’s unclear if Alan’s mother is Jewish; her maiden name was Teeple, a Germanic name, typically. In her time, Shari Gross was a significant political player in Juneau, and was a founder of the Alaska League of Women Voters, a known liberal group that pretend to be neutral.
It’s unclear why Alan Gross believes that the depiction of him with Schumer and dark money is anything but accurate, since his campaign has been built on $25 million in Outside dark money, and since he has met with Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and pledged his loyalty. Schumer’s political action committee has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Gross’ campaign.
In 2016, Democrats in Juneau savaged Republican women for an ad that was fair game for criticizing Democrats and their spendthrift ways. The Republican Women of Juneau found the “anti-Semitic” claim against them to be so hateful and unworthy, they simply didn’t respond, although through actors such as former Gov. Walker chief of staff Scott Kendall, the abuse against the Juneau Republican women made it to the Washington Post, which happily continued the accusation.
