Alaska Airlines opened its brand new hangar at the Ted Stevens International Airport today with a ceremony. The hangar, 105,000 square feet, holds two Boeing 737 jets side by side, allowing maintenance of those jets to be done in Anchorage, rather than be flown to Seattle.
The addition of several mechanics jobs that are going to be based in Anchorage will add opportunities in a city that has suffered from recession for four years.
The new hangar, built at a cost of $40 million, has an air-handling and heat recovery system that helps the building retain heat when the hangar doors must be opened. The building can return to 65 degrees from 25 degrees in a matter of minutes after the doors are closed.
Attending the ceremony were Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her husband Verne Martell, and Gov. Bill Walker. Murkowski and Walker both made remarks.
The House Republican majority announced the basic leadership members of its caucus today, starting with Speaker Dave Talerico. The caucus is 21 strong at this point, although it may not be complete.
Speaker: Dave Talerico, Healy
Rules Chair: Cathy Tilton, Chugiak
Majority Leader: Chuck Kopp, Anchorage
Finance Co-Chairs: Lance Pruitt, Anchorage, and Tammie Wilson, North Pole. Wilson will have the operating budget, and Pruitt will manage the capital budget.
The caucus involves all Republicans with the exception of Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux of District 15 and possibly Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak. Talerico said that he had extended an invitation to Stutes but had not received a response.
LeDoux was not invited likely because she isn’t seen as trustworthy by her colleagues.
Rep. David Eastman, District 11, was included in the caucus even though he has often been at odds with his fellow Republicans. He did not appear during the press conference, however.
As of today, Rep. Daniel Ortiz of Ketchikan has not been invited to be part of the majority caucus, and neither has Neal Foster or Bryce Edgmon, according to Talerico.
Whether it’s a “binding caucus” is still an outstanding question. “We’re a caucus in construction,” Talerico said. A binding caucus usually means that members vote together on the final budget. Controlling spending is the one area that all the Republicans agree on, Talerico said.
The brief press conference was attended by about 20 members of the press as well as staffers from legislators’ offices and a couple of lobbyists.
Like many in my generation, I grew up believing that serving our country in the military is an honor and a privilege. My grandfather served in WWI, my father in WWII, my twin brother and I served during Viet Nam.
Looking back, my military service did more to shape me as a person than any other life experience I’ve had. It affects the way I dress, the way I think, and how and why I vote. It has shaped my attitude about America, its military, and its place in the world today.
The military isn’t a place where you spend a lot of time worrying about what to do or where you were going next. Pretty much everything was decided for you.
Yet, I can think of no other endeavor where so much is expected and so much responsibility is placed on people at such a young age. Imagine getting a job in the private sector in your teens or early twenties where you are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment and the lives of fellow soldiers. You follow orders, but you are well trained, still required to think independently and make rapid decisions that can mean the difference between mission success or failure – sometimes life or death.
We trained as warriors but helped keep the peace. We performed humanitarian missions that helped other countries in time of disaster. One of the most thrilling flights I participated in was on Christmas Day, 1972, when I flew a mission of medical supplies and equipment into Nicaragua after an earthquake devastated the country’s capital city, Managua.
Similar missions have occurred in many other countries throughout the world.
During times of war, the military has the same mission – to keep the peace. That may sound strange but it’s true. No one wants war. But our country and its flag were born almost 250 years ago during a war no one wanted. There is nothing contradictory about the idea that preserving and protecting our country and its flag require vigilance and sacrifice, and sometimes, even war.
My 10 years in the Air Force occurred early in my life – four years at the Air Force Academy and six years on active duty, mostly as a C-141 pilot. I was lucky. While I flew all over the world and spent time flying in and out of combat zones in Southeast Asia, as far as I know, other than an occasional indiscriminate rocket attack, no one ever shot at me. We had our share of aircraft emergencies, but I never felt I was in any real danger.
Some of my classmates and friends were not so fortunate. Some were wounded or died in the line of duty – many demonstrated incredible bravery and courage in the face of extreme danger. Most endured hardships, financial sacrifice and family separations that are commonplace in the military.
But whether you were on the front lines or not, everyone was willing to sacrifice in some way because you were proud of your mission. I have never served with any group of men and women who were more skilled, more dedicated, or more professional than the American military.
For that reason, l believe all our men and women in uniform and their supportive families deserve our gratitude and respect.
Today, we face terror threats from an enemy whose single stated goal is to destroy us. They want to destroy our flag, our God, and our country.
It’s deeply troubling that many of our young people today exhibit little pride in being American. It raises the question: from where will the patriots come to protect our freedom in the future if our citizens don’t have that pride in their flag and their country?
Our country isn’t perfect – but it is one of the few nations on earth truly fulfilling the dream of liberty for all. Many Americans have served and died to preserve that dream. Let’s not forget them or the principles for which they stood.
On Election Night, the precinct tapes from Hoonah, Alaska said it all. Mark Begich was losing badly. The union influence over elections had slipped. And the experts were wrong.
At the Anchorage Alehouse, Alaska Republican Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock had his laptop computer propped up on a pony wall, and he and Mike Dunleavy were looking over the results coming in from volunteers who snapped photos of precinct tapes from around the state.
Then came the precinct tapes from Hoonah. It was Dunleavy-Meyer 159, and Begich-Call 136. Walker-Mallot received 9, and Toien-Clift took 8.
Tuckerman Babcock, right, and Mike Dunleavy look at election results on Election Night, as it sinks in that Hoonah has voted for Dunleavy.
“That’s it,” Babcock said to Dunleavy. “That’s all we need to know — you’ve won.”
It was just 9:15 pm and election results were not yet posted on the State’s Election website.
But a Republican candidate winning in a Democrat-heavy town like Hoonah was a bellwether. If you can win Hoonah as a Republican, you can win the state.
In the end, Mike Dunleavy took more votes in the governor’s race than all other three candidates combined. Dunleavy won 123,447 votes, Begich got 102,654.
Bill Walker, the unpopular incumbent, and Billy Toien, the Libertarian, fought for the scraps, each getting less than two percent.
WHAT HAPPENED TO MARK?
Mark Begich has more political pedigree than just about any Alaska politician since Wally Hickel. He is a highly capable and personable campaigner who loves the political battle, and thrives on retail politics.
But every time he runs for statewide office, he is doing worse.
In 2008, he won against Sen. Ted Stevens, but only because Stevens had faced an indictment by the Department of Justice, a charge later thrown out because DOJ lawyers suppressed evidence that would have exonerated him.
That race was close: 47.8 to 46.5 percent — a one point difference.
In 2014, Begich lost his Senate seat to former Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan by two points. Sullivan is Alaska’s U.S. senator and will face re-election in 2020.
Now, in 2018, running for governor, Begich lost to a rural schoolteacher and former state senator by 9 points — maybe more, after all the absentee votes are counted.
In other words, from his one-point win in 2008 to his -9 or -10 loss in 2018, there’s at least an 11-point drop in his popularity.
Begich’s drop-off in rural Alaska was pronounced. Although he won most rural areas, he lost a third of his margin in the Bethel region. Dunleavy, the governor-elect, got close to beating him in rural areas where Democrats typically do well.
The craftiest, most polished politician in the state was running against a Sasquatch — a working class guy who came to Alaska as a logger, became a school teacher in deeply rural Arctic Alaska, and who was hard to “manage” when he was in the Senate.
WALKER HAD NO FLOOR
Most polls and pundits said Gov. Bill Walker would get some votes — either protest votes or simply a mark on the ballot from voters who were not aware that he had dropped from the race. His name was still on the ballot, after all.
The election of Dunleavy was a complete rejection of the policies and results of the last four years. It was a rejection of the way the Permanent Fund dividend was calculated, a rejection of the economic recessions and a rejection of the catch-and-release criminal justice situation.
Even the votes that went to Begich were a rejection of Walker’s direction, since Begich was also mainly running against the performance of the past four years and for most of his race was running to unseat Walker.
But few people suspected that there was no floor at all for Walker. In the end, he had as much political relevancy as Toien.
BELTRAMI AND THE UNIONS
Vince Beltrami, head of the AFL-CIO, was one of the biggest losers of the election. He and his affiliates had placed all their chips on Bill Walker this summer, only to have him pull out of the race in mid-October, leaving them holding the bag. Instead of finding a path to work with Dunleavy, they immediately voted 100 percent to back Mark Begich.
Vince Beltrami, left, did badly this election cycle, in picking a governor he could control.
This isn’t a great result for the union boss and his colleague Joey Merrick, who is the business manager for Laborers Local 341. They’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars losing just about every race they backed this election cycle, with the exception of Merrick’s wife, Kelly Merrick, who is the Republican elected to represent Eagle River District 14, and Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who won with only 40 percent of the vote for Muldoon District 15.
EXPERTS GOT IT WRONG
Ivan Moore, of Alaska Survey Research said last week the race was within the margin of error. A point separated them, he said. His five-week campaign to excite Democrats and swing voters into giving Begich a chance didn’t work. Every week during Moore’s survey propaganda campaign, he showed Begich closing the gap, until it was 42-43, advantage Dunleavy on Oct. 31.
Last week, Moore did a Facebook poll, and the Facebook universe gave him an entirely different result — which turned out to be more accurate than his traditional polling:
Pollsters are only as good as their assumption is about who the electorate is. Conventional polls may not take into account the “hometown hero” affect, and in this case, that appears to have skewed the results.
Perhaps the surveys didn’t ask as many people in Mat-Su, or didn’t see the surge of voter excitement. The Mat-Su voters brought over 1,000 more voters to the polls in each district than in 2014.
And then you have these experts — the readers of Must Read Alaska on Facebook, who on Monday made the choice between how much Dunleavy would win by — over 7 or under 7, and were surprisingly intuitive:
One polling company that did not release its results was Dittman Research. This preserves the company’s record of calling every race accurately.
Dittman may not have been confident enough in its own results to release them. With so many moving parts in the governor’s race, that turned out to be the prudent decision.
But Alaskans were not impressed with Galvin’s substance or style and she lost badly. Galvin displayed a radical side, and it would have been remarkable for the same voters who brought Dunleavy to office to also allow someone like Galvin, who is to the left of Nancy Pelosi, to represent Alaska in the U.S. House of Representatives as its lone congressperson.
Young’s win was very solid for the Dean of the House, the highest since Democrat Sharon Cissna took him on in 2012, when he won by over 63 percent.
In 2014, Young won with 51 percent of the vote against Democrat Forrest Dunbar.
In 2016, he won with 50 percent of the vote against Democrat Steve Lindbeck.
This year, he won with 54 percent of the vote to earn him his 24th term in office.
OTHERS JOIN THE CLUB
There were others who might join the club, but here’s the analysis from one leftist political pundit this morning, who cast her judgment on the electorate:
Conservative voters poured to the polls on Tuesday and gave Mike Dunleavy a resounding victory against Democrat Mark Begich. Dunleavy will become Alaska’s next governor, to be sworn in on Dec. 3.
By Wednesday morning, Dunleavy and his running mate Kevin Meyer were 9 points ahead of Begich, 52.4-43.6, with 98 percent of the vote counted.
Winning over 50 percent of the vote in a race with four names to choose from is strong. Mandate strong.
Sarah Palin won with 48.3 percent in 2006, while Sean Parnell won with 59.1 percent in 2010, and Bill Walker won with 48.1 percent in 2014.
Walker, the current governor, won nearly 2 percent of the vote this time around. He withdrew from the race in mid-October. Libertarian Billy Toien won under 2 percent.
Don Young, the Dean of the House, vanquished challenger Alyse Galvin, who ran in the Democrats’ primary. Young, who is 85, has served in the House since 1973 and is the longest-serving current House member. He won 54-46 at latest count.
Ballot Measure 1 also failed decisively, 64-36.
“Today Alaskan voters made the right choice to protect our jobs, our economy and our communities,” Stand for Alaska Vote No on 1 campaign manager Kati Capozzi said. “Ballot Measure 1 was a radical overhaul of our salmon habitat protections. Voters today showed they believe our current regulations have served to protect our habitat and allow for responsible development.”
“Alaskans have sent a clear message to the global investment community that the state has high standards for development and promotes a fair process for determining if potential projects in Alaska such as Pebble can meetthose standards,” said Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier. “The outgoing administration would not publicly stand up for its robust regulatory and permitting system. In governor-elect Dunleavy, we will have a strong, fair leader for Alaska who recognizes that a level playing field for all projects is in the best interests of Alaska and an important step in attracting investment for Alaska’s economy. We look forward to working with him.”
SNAPSHOT OF RACES
Fairbanks: Sen. Pete Kelly, the Republican, is in the closest of races against Democrat Scott Kawasaki, who left his seat in the House to challenge Kelly. The race is just 11 votes in Kelly’s favor, which will likely change as more absentee votes come in.
Bart LeBon, a Republican, edged Kathryn Dodge, 51-49 for Kawasaki’s House Seat 1.
Rep. Steve Thompson, a Republican, was easily reelected to House Seat 2.
Democrat Grier Hopkins won District 4 over Jim Sackett, 51-44. That was an open seat.
Democrat Rep. Adam Wool won over Kevin McKinley, in District 5, 53-47.
Republican Rep. Dave Talerico won over Ed Alexander in District 6, 63-37.
Interior: Republican George Rauscher won District 9 with 69 percent of the vote.
Valley: Republican Rep. David Eastman easily fended off petition candidate Doyle Holmes, winning 57.77 percent of the vote.
Republican Rep. DeLena Johnson of Palmer District 11 won with nearly 73 percent.
Republican Rep. Cathy Tilton took 76 percent of the vote for District 12.
Republican Nancy Dahlstrom took 71.57 percent of the vote for District 13, Eagle River.
Republican Kelly Merrick won 66 percent in Eagle River, and will be replacing Rep. Lora Reinbold, who went to the Senate.
Anchorage: Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux won with the least amount of votes of any winning candidate, just 40 percent. Write-in candidate Jake Sloan drained off nearly 26 percent and Democrat Lyn Franks got 34 percent.
In House District 22, Sara Rasmussen upset Rep. Jason Grenn, who was a no-party candidate. She won 47-41, with Democrat Dustin Darden skimming off 11.6 percent.
In House District 25, Josh Revak won over Pat Higgins, 52.3 to 47.5, despite a last minute smear mailer by the Higgins camp.
In House District 27, Rep. Lance Pruitt hung on to his House seat with over 51 percent.
Juneau: The Capital City will continue to be represented by all Democrats, with Jesse Kiehl winning for Senate Seat Q, and Sara Hannan winning the valley seat 33, with Andi Story winning in District 34.
Homer: House District 31 went to Sarah Vance, who upset the incumbent Rep. Paul Seaton. She took 58.5 percent of the vote, administering a lower-Peninsula spanking to long-time House member Paul Seaton.
Must Read Alaska is live blogging on Election Day. Check back for updates.
5:30 pm: Doing a bit of number work on the absentee-by-mail ballots. There is a net Republican advantage of 6,000 or more statewide, and at least two thirds will be counted tonight, and the balance will be counted within 10 days.
Here’s the breakdown, according to our calculations:
· Calculated Party Total Voters
· 1 – Hard Republican 10,720
· 2 – Weak Republican 3,971
· 3 – Swing 5,356
· 4 – Weak Democrat 2,095
· 5 – Hard Democrat 3,171
Total: 25,313
Of the outstanding absentee ballots not yet received:
· Calculated Party Total Voters
· 1 – Hard Republican 3,809
· 2 – Weak Republican 2,056
· 3 – Swing 3,868
· 4 – Weak Democrat 1,360
· 5 – Hard Democrat 1,250
Total: 12,343
These remaining absentee by mail ballots may add another 1,000+ Republican votes.
Jordan Shilling
3:30 pm: We’re talking with Mike Dunleavy for Alaska “data guy” Jordan Shilling, who says that KTUU will be be here for a live broadcast at 5 pm and and all supporters are welcome at the headquarters at 400 West Northern Lights to show their support.
“We’ve exceed 100,000 calls last night,” Shilling said, speaking about calls made over the course of the campaign. The crew made more than 4,000 calls today.
Loren Leman
2:30 pm: We’re talking with former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman about the 2002 election with Frank Murkowski. Three weeks out from the election, Fran Ulmer was leading Frank Murkowski. Internal polling showed the Murkowski camp down by 11 points.
But on Election Day, the Murkowski-Leman ticket won by 15 points. Murkowski didn’t show up in state until after Oct. 1 because he was in the Senate, and it was in session.
“I was all over the state, and I worked it hard, but there’s nothing like having the gubernatorial candidate in state.
“Near Tok, we landed our plane on the Alaska Highway and pulled off to the side of the road, and we went into a community hall. There was a guy playing the guitar. He said, ‘We’ve never had a lieutenant governor before.’ The population of that town was 8.”
The moral of the story, he said, is that Alaska didn’t choose the tax plan of Fran Ulmer, but chose to grow out of its financial straits, the vision of Frank Murkowski.
“The phone banking really helped,” said Mark Davis, who remembers that campaign.
2 pm: 15 people are currently at the Alaskans for Dunleavy headquarters on Northern Lights Blvd. in Anchorage, making phone calls to encourage voters to get out and vote.
This morning, volunteers reached 30,000 phone numbers with text messages to remind voters that polls close at 8 pm.
More than 62,000 people had voted their ballots by the time the polls opened at 7 am. Those voters include absentee, fax, online, in person and special needs voters.
WAS INCIDENT PROMPTED BY CLAIRE RICHARDSON’S FACEBOOK POST?
A member of the Republican Women of Juneau was verbally accosted in a grocery story on Monday by a woman wearing a Jesse Kiehl (for Senate) button.
The Jesse Kiehl supporter called the surprised woman out as a Republican and a “racist bitch.” She also took her photo without her permission.
The incident of intimidation occurred after the Lt. Gov.’s Chief of Staff Claire Richardson had named the Republican woman specifically on Facebook. In a small town like Juneau, this type of thing gets around fast, and Richardson is one of the most influential liberals in the Capital City.
The woman who was verbally attacked is a member of a racial minority. She’s never been attacked like that in Juneau before, and the attack put her in fear for her job. She is not a board member of the Juneau Republican Women’s Club, as Richardson alleges in her Facebook post.
Richardson, in other Facebook posts, also encouraged Juneauites to contact Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski to lodge complaints about a specific member of their staff who happens to be a Republican from Juneau.
The Republican women in Juneau have hunkered down, after being accused by Richardson for being anti-semitic, and now knowing that the Leftists are going to harass them in public.
While they are determined to remain above the fray, because their mailer was a fair commentary on taxes, they have altered their behavior because some of them fear for their safety after a senior member of the Walker-Davidson Administration has dog-whistled that it’s OK to attack them.
The mailer in question arrived in voters’ mailboxes over the weekend showing a politician stuffing money into his suit jacket. That image, Richardson says, is a slur on Jewish people. Candidate Jesse Kiehl is Jewish. The intent of the mailer was to talk about the danger of electing a tax-and-spend liberal.
A CALL FOR HER DISMISSAL
Claire Richardson is a senior member of the the government and has a key oversight role in today’s election. Her role is especially important because former Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott resigned in disgrace last month and the new Lt. Gov. Valerie Davidson is probably not up to speed on election matters. She was the commissioner of Health and Social Services.
Must Read Alaska is calling for the Lt. Gov. Davidson to place Richardson on immediate administrative leave, because Richardson has compromised her role as a neutral arbitrator in this election over which she has so much influence.
Richardson has, through her actions, meddled in the election in a way far more egregious than mere Russian propaganda on Twitter. Richardson, using her bully pulpit, has created a climate of fear among conservatives in the Capital City on the eve of an election.
KTOO DOES THE STORY
The public broadcasting station in Juneau decided the mailer was worth a story, and interviewed Richardson, who said she was merely acting in her capacity as a private citizen.
However, Richardson is a political appointee in the office overseeing elections. She has now made public statements against the activities of a political party, and she has done so on the day before the elections.
KTOO illustrated its story with a doctored photo of the mailer in question, turning the hands blood red. On the left is the KTOO version posted yesterday, while on the right is what the mailer actually looked like as it was received in mailboxes:
Later Monday evening, the KTOO image redness disappeared and the image posted now is closer to the original on the mailer. Must Read Alaska has asked the KTOO newsroom for an explanation of what happened with that image over the course of several hours on Monday. We’ll post the response.
Scott Kendall, the governor’s chief of staff, was featured in the Washington Post today also criticizing the Republicans for the image of using cash to represent taxes. He sees it as a representation of stereotyping.
“I was revolted,” Kendall told the Washington Post, adding that the ad was blatantly anti-Semitic. “Jesse is proudly and prominently a member of Juneau’s Jewish community. . . . It is tough for me to process through that and not see an ill intent.”
Kendall, in a text exchange with Must Read Alaska, said he did not believe that the Republicans who approved the ad were anti-semitic, but that was an entirely different opinion than the one he gave to the Washington Post.
In an opinion printed by the Juneau Empire today, Gov. Bill Walker’s former law partner, his former attorney general, and current chairman of the Permanent Fund is supporting Mike Dunleavy for governor.
Craig Richards is going a different way than Gov. Bill Walker, who has endorsed and voted for Mark Begich (although also saying he doesn’t officially endorse him).
Richards is more direct. He’s with Mike Dunleavy.
“My personal experience serving in state government has convinced me that cutting first is the right approach, which is why I am supporting Dunleavy. But regardless of who wins, it is important that the next governor be viewed as having a mandate for their approach and that we act rapidly,” Richards wrote.
Begich and Dunleavy have different philosophies on how to tackle Alaska’s structural budget deficit, Richards wrote.
“Begich would draw 4 percent of the market value of the Permanent Fund and dedicate half to dividends and half to education, as well as transfer $14 billion from the Earning Reserve to the principle of the Fund. He also proposes bonding for $3-5 billion for a large capital budget over the next six years and to pay off the loan using a portion of the existing yearly capital budget. Loan payments will be over $200 million for twenty years if we borrow $3 billion, and the divertible capital budget is no more than $100 million, adding about $100 million to the deficit annually. However, his plan has lower dividends and produces approximately $300 million more from the Permanent Fund draw spent on government. Other than those two items, Begich’s fiscal plan is largely focused on the structure of accounts and fund flows and does not have substantial impact on the deficit.”
That is the long way of explaining that Begich’s plan would cost Alaska and produce lower dividends, but not close the deficit.
“Begich does not want major cuts. He states that if other elements of his fiscal plan are passed, he would adopt additional revenue measures as needed so long as they do not fall disproportionately on the needy. Thus taxation is a primary tool he will use to address the deficit,”
“Dunleavy is pursuing a different approach. Rather than immediately reducing the dividend and adopting taxes, Dunleavy indicates his plan is designed to rebuild the people’s trust. He intends to do that by reducing the operating budget through spending cuts. He has not identified all the cuts he will make or the total magnitude, instead committing to delve deeply into the effort once in office. Dunleavy is also a proponent of adopting a spending cap to prevent the budget from growing too fast in the future. He also believes in seeking the people’s input through a constitutional amendment or advisory vote to let Alaskans decide how to treat the dividend. If these things happen, then voters will be more open to a discussion around other fiscal options like how to use the Permanent Fund. Finally, Dunleavy is optimistic and determined to spur the development of Alaska’s resources to generate new state revenues.”
Richards says both approaches have their weaknesses.
“So where does this leave Alaska? Both plans leave a structural deficit of about $1 billion at $70 per-barrel oil that gets reduced and approaches a balanced budget north of $80 per barrel. Begich intends to address the deficit by focusing on taxes, and Dunleavy by focusing on cuts in the short term and growing Alaska’s resource economy in the long term. Neither has identified many of the details around their proposals, but the deficit is a bit of a moving target, and specifics will develop once the new governor takes office.
“However, the governor and Legislature must be prepared to act rapidly. Since oil prices fell in 2014, the structural deficit has been funded by savings. Although the Permanent Fund is now being used to contribute to government, cuts have been modest, and no tax package has been adopted. Consequently, state savings have fallen from over $10 billion when Gov. Bill Walker took office, to just over $2 billion when he will leave. That means at $70 per-barrel oil, we can only fund the deficit for about two years.
“Unless we get lucky with high oil prices, we have no option but to act. What I like about this election is the clear choice voters have about what that action looks like. Do we cut or tax?”
It appears that Richards believes more cuts are needed in State spending, and that he’ll take his chances with Gov. Dunleavy.
After months of raucous political cacophony, it is time for Alaskans to cast their ballots, and, while we would not presume to tell you how to vote, we would like to share with you a few of our picks for the gubernatorial race, the congressional contest, the House District 15 election and Ballot Measure 1.
For governor, there is no better choice than Republican Mike Dunleavy, a conservative who in the past, despite outlandish claims from the political Left, has defended the Permanent Fund dividend and voted against the notorious Senate Bill 91, which left Alaska awash in crime and criminals.
He has a vision for Alaska that includes resource development and protecting the environment and he does not support Ballot Measure 1, which would undo all of that, and he does not support an economy-busting income tax.
His main opponent, former Sen. Mark Begich, has a vision, too, It centers on bigger government. Just his record as mayor of Anchorage would seem to make him likely the worst thing that could happen to this state.
As mayor, he went through money quicker than it could be printed. The approved city budget was $289.2 million when he was elected. The next year, $309.3 million; the next, $332.8 million. In 2006, it jumped to $367.2 million; in 2007, $399.4 million; and in 2008, the revised budget topped $431 million.
