The enthusiasm across Alaska is unlike any seen for a candidate for president in years. Even in Homer, where liberals control city government, the Trump support is so strong that another parade is planned.
On Sunday, at 1:30 pm, organizers welcome parade participants to meet at deep water port on the Homer Spit, at the end of Freight Dock Road. They’re encouraging people to decorate their trucks and vans — large work trucks welcome — and join in the convoy that will drive from the Spit, down to Homer Bypass Road, up Pioneer Street, then out East End Road until Kachemak Drive, and then back to the base of the Spit.
From the Spit, they’ll go back through town and up to the top of Baycrest, and finish at the lot next to the Homer Maintenance Station (Maintainance Rd.) The group has permission to use the Dibble Creek yard for overflow.
“From there you are free to go wherever you like. Some people will be going back out to Lands End to continue the party. This is a peacful parade to support President Donald Trump, and all are welcome. Trump flags/signs are encouraged but you can still be in the parade without one,” organizers said.
This Parade is primarily for large vehicles, but smaller vehicles are welcome and will follow the large vehicles.
From an airplane flying overhead with “Trump” spelled out on its wings, to truck convoys rolling the Old Steese Highway and a get-out-the-vote rally at the Event Center, Fairbanks was electric with energy today for the conservatives who intend to take charge in Juneau and in the U.S. Capitol.
The weather was about 15 degrees with wisps of snow, and participants in the truck rally were happy with the weather.
The festively decorated trucks gathered in the parking lot of Regal Cinemas and then drove around Fairbanks, ending up at the Event Center, where Gov. Mike Dunleavy, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Congressman Don Young were the keynote speakers for a crowd of 225.
It was a who’s who of conservative politicos and candidates in Fairbanks. Spotted were Rep. Mike Prax, Rep. Steve Thompson, Rep. Bart LeBon, candidates Keith Kurber, Mike Cronk, Kevin McKinley, and Robert Myers.
Also, former State Sen. Pete Kelly, former Rep. Dick Randolph and retiring Rep. Dave Talerico were present, along with Hugh Fate, father-in-law of Sen. Dan Sullivan. The event was emceed by National Committeewoman Cynthia Henry.
Pilot Jeff Raymond decorated his plane and joined in the truck convoy from above.
Sen. Sullivan ignited the crowd when he said he would go through a checklist of everything President Trump had delivered for Alaska. As he read off the list of accomplishments (Opening ANWR, appointing justices, refunding the military, etc.) the crowd shouted “Check!!” after each item on the checklist.
Gov. Dunleavy also spoke about how the president has taken an interest in Alaska, a state with just 730,000 residents and a measly three electoral votes.
Dunleavy noted that he has met more times with Trump than any probably other governor and that the president’s interest in Alaska comes from a genuine place, in no small part due to his grandfather’s business ventures in the Yukon during the Gold Rush era, but also because he just cares about Alaska.
Dunleavy got a huge ovation for his speech, during which he pulled out a Trump mask and put it on his face to ham it up for the crowd on Halloween afternoon.
The organizers passed out surgical face masks that were numbered, and door prizes were given out based on the number on a person’s face mask. They also had gloves and hand sanitizer in supply.
After the rally, several of the trucks continued the parade to North Pole.
One of the largest parades Cordova has seen in years occurred on Saturday, with dozens of trucks decorated with Trump flags and American flags rolling through this fishing town on Prince William Sound on the last day of October, with three days to go before the General Election.
MRAK citizen reporters said the enthusiasm was high, and people appreciated that President Trump helped the town through the coronavirus pandemic, and didn’t shut down the economy.
“Hundreds of people are involved it’s hard to get them all in one photo. I think this is the biggest parade I have ever seen and Cordova easily 100+ vehicles,” according to an MRAK citizen reporter, who provided these photos:
Cordova is a town of about 2,160 people, most of whom are involved in the commercial fishing industry. Located near the mouth of the Copper River, it is represented by Sen. Gary Stevens and Rep. Louise Stutes, Republicans.
In 2016, Donald Trump won a tight race in Cordova, 286 to 246 on election and early voting, not counting absentees. It’s a precinct to watch.
Last week, a similar Trump truck parade took place in equally working-class Valdez, Alaska, as provided by an MRAK citizen journalist:
In an editorial published Saturday that slapped Alaskans in the face, the Anchorage Daily News turned its back on “one person, one vote,” and endorsed the machinations of Ballot Measure 2, which most analysts say will help liberal candidates get a stronger toehold in the state.
Critics say ranked choice voting gives some voters more votes than others, depending on how many they rank on the ballot and whether their ballot becomes “exhausted” during the counting process, which is all done by computer programmed to sort and reassign votes.
The measure on the Nov. 3 ballot also destroys the ability of Alaskans to effectively form political parties and platforms, because it takes primaries wide open.
The measure is backed by nearly 100 percent of funds from Outside liberal groups to set up an election system that clearly favors liberals. Or, as the editorial board of the ADN benignly describes it “most of the money financing the ‘yes’ side of the campaign has itself come from Outside.”
“Our elections are not serving us well,” the editorial board waxed.
That’s because radical leftists and promise-breakers are not competing well. Democrats are competing so poorly that they now try to run away from the Democrat Party just to get people to vote for them.
That’s not the system that’s broken — that is the Alaska Democratic Party, now so radical that even clearly Democrat candidates for U.S. Senate and House try to trick voters into thinking they are independents.
The editorial board believes Alaskans are stupid, and don’t vote for the candidates that the newspaper thinks they should be voting for. The paper clearly believes the new system will produce the kind of results the elites in the news business want to see, not the results Alaskans want.
Ballot Measure 2 is three paragraphs long but represents 25 pages and 75 sections of legislation that its liberal backers say would improve Alaska’s election system.
Those 25 pages were written by two Alaskans: Scott Kendall and Libby Bakalar. On Friday during a recorded debate, Kendall for the first time disclosed the name of the co-author of the measure.
Bakalar was fired by the Dunleavy Administration and has an active lawsuit against the administration for wrongful termination. She runs a far left blog and is an overachieving Twitter commenter who espouses leftist positions.
The entire selling point of the measure by these two liberal lawyers is to eliminate dark money, but it wasn’t until four days before the election that the group calling itself Alaskans for Better Elections disclosed who actually wrote the ballot measure. Not very transparent.
The ranked choice voting idea is so bad that even California Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed a bill that would have expanded it, calling it “overly complicated and confusing” because it “deprives voters of genuinely informed choice.”
In ranked-choice voting, you don’t vote just for the candidate you want. You rank the candidates according to who you can settle for, from 1-4.
If no candidate wins a majority of #1 votes, all the ballots get reshuffled, and those with the fewest votes drop off, and that vote gets reassigned, according to a complicated formula. If you don’t pick a second choice, your ballot is exhausted and thrown out. Those who did pick a second, third, and fourth choice get to vote more than once.
On Friday,Defend Alaska Electionsissued their own editorial, in the form of a YouTube video, demonstrating how Alaskans are being outspent and outplayed by Outsiders trying to take over the state and how they are fighting back:
The acting mayor of Anchorage intends to keep people in line in Anchorage, during the coronavirus outbreak.
Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson is hiring three more code enforcers for the municipality to enforce the emergency orders and to “determine if violations exist; initiate enforcement actions to correct violations through negotiated compliance and/or administrative actions. Gather evidence, prepare and present enforcement cases and defend appeals before various judicial, quasi-judicial and administrative bodies, such as court proceedings, the Administrative Hearing Office and Zoning Board of Examiners and Appeals.”
The enforcers will also review plans and applications and conduct business inspections, and … related duties as assigned.
A high school diploma and three years of code enforcement or public contact experience, such as debt collections, is all it takes to become a Senior Code Enforcement Officer in Anchorage, Range 11, making $21.54 to $27.40 an hour.
The Anchorage Assembly is discussing how to keep its emergency orders in place, even if the governor’s emergency declaration is not extended or if a new emergency declaration isn’t in place after Nov. 15, when the current state emergency declaration is set to expire.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Chief of Staff Ben Stevens this week asked Senate President Cathy Giessel and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon if they plan to extend the health emergency declaration the Legislature passed in March.
The Declaration of Public Health Emergency Disaster, authorized by SB 241, ends on Nov. 15, and it takes legislative action to extend it.
The emergency powers allowed the governor to create orders that at times shut down parts of the economy, as he did early in the COVID-19 outbreak; enact safety measures, such as mobilizing resources to Bristol Bay for the fishing season; and move health resources where they need to go to meet the challenge of the highly contagious virus.
The Dunleavy Administration, for instance, was able to relax regulations so that people on public assistance health programs can access their doctors through telemedicine, something that is normally prohibited.
In a letter exchange between Stevens and the legislative leaders, Stevens reminded them that in two weeks the emergency declaration expire, and asked if they had polled their members to consider convening a Special Session on extending the declaration.
“If so, the Office of the Governor would like to know the outcome of that poll,” Stevens wrote.
They had not. But they shot a letter back immediately saying that that was only because he had not asked them to.
Giessel and Edgmon also wrote they would be “happy” to poll their members but would need the governor’s help to get to the 40-vote threshold needed to call the members back to Juneau.
That’s unlikely to happen. A number of Republicans are not interested in going back to Juneau to allow Democrats to use the time to try to override vetoes.
And it doesn’t appear the governor, by calling for a special session himself, would want to force legislators to travel to Juneau in the middle of November, with COVID-19 cases surging at numbers not seen before in Alaska.
That leaves another option: The governor can let the disaster declaration expire, and then issue a 30-day emergency declaration without the Legislature, which would extend his authority to mobilize resources on a month-to-month basis. This could continue for a while, or at least until the Legislature is back in session in mid-January.
In the original bill for the declaration of public health emergency disaster, the governor asked the Disaster Declaration be extended to March 12, 2021 — a full year. That didn’t fly with the Legislature. The Senate’s version of the bill, under Senate President Giessel, cut the emergency delegation short to Sept. 1, 2020. But Speaker Bryce Edgmon said there were too many unknowns, and the declaration was ultimately extended to Nov. 15.
A new disaster declaration, handled in 30-day increments, could help maintain what is currently in place to slow the spread of the virus, and allow the medical community to meet the needs of patients who need critical care. It would allow the governor to maintain the Emergency Operations Center, testing at airports, and getting testing kits, equipment, masks and gloves to where they are needed most.
Most Must Read Alaska readers don’t follow MSNBC on a regular basis, but we do, so you don’t have to.
On Meet the Press, Jessica Taylor of Cook Political Report commented that the race for U.S. Senate in Alaska is one to watch:
“This is a race that we, I think, don’t know on election night because literally they have to bring in some of the ballots by dog sled.”
Uh, no. Not really. These are the experts?
“Popping in here…we do not bring in ballots by dog sled. Confirmed this with our Region IV supervisor and also with the division’s Director of Dog Relations, Gary Bark Jr,.” quipped the Division of Elections on Twitter, where the Division runs what is arguably the most entertaining Twitter feed in Alaska.
Most prognosticators believe U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is ahead, even though Alan Gross has spent $25 million to unseat him. Like any other race, it matters that conservative voters show up and not take it for granted.
Cook Political Report has rated this race “Lean Republican.”
Glenda Ledford won the runoff election for mayor of the City of Wasilla. The election is being certified tonight, Oct. 30.
The final tally was Ledford 411, and Doug Holler 350.
“This is my opportunity to serve my community,” Ledford said. “We will stay open for business, keep our neighborhoods safe, and support jobs in our community.”
It appears to be an open-and-shut case of photo-doctoring.
An earlier version of the door-hanger showing Senate candidate Alan Gross walking on a dock in the photoshopped rain caught the eye of several Alaskans: His zipper was down. Really down — as seen on the photo at left, above.
These things happen, but rarely in political campaign advertising. Gross, a millionaire doctor, has a multi-million-dollar campaign going, one of the most expensive in state history, and the best ad agencies money can buy.
Now, through the miracle of Photoshop tools, the jeans are zipped up in the current version of the flyer.
Gross’ ad doctoring is one example of just how easy it is to make things right — or at least better than reality — with tools available to designers.
“Pity the poor ad guy who had to zip up Gross’ pants,” noted one eagle-eyed critic. “But at least, unlike [Mayor] Ethan Berkowitz, he had pants on, even if they weren’t zipped.”
