That Sarah Palin. She has a wicked sense of humor. After Donald Trump canned his campaign chair because of his squishy ties to Russia, Palin tweeted this:
Note the Russian flag emoji. Palin was referring to Paul Manafort’s work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and possible work on behalf of the Russian annexation of Crimea. That was Putin the pink slip on Manafort (insert your own smirk emoji).
Trump issued a statement from Louisiana on Friday, accepting Manafort’s resignation: “This morning, Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,” Trump said.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN MATERIALS
Alaska’s Trump/Pence headquarters is located at 11610 Old Seward Hwy, near Klatt Road, and is open normal business hours. It has 5,000 rally signs, (card stock — not yard signs), 10,000 bumper stickers, and yard signs will arrive soon. Contact Jerry Ward at jward at donaldtrump dot com. Ward, a former state senator, is the Trump campaign director for Alaska.
You can also get Trump shirts, mugs, and whatnots at Dooley’s Athletics in Anchorage, 230 Center Court. 907-272-5660.
Coulter, a prolific New York Times bestselling author, will appear Sept. 17 at the Egan Center. The book release date is this Tuesday.
Tickets are going fast, says Mike Robbins, who is the event organizer. While Coulter is in Alaska, she’ll likely do at least one book signing and Robbins is organizing a reception. There also may be an event in the Mat-Su, we hear.
Coulter is the author of 12 New York Times bestsellers, including her most recent, Adios America. She writes a nationally syndicated column and has more than a million fans on Twitter and Facebook. This
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ HAS BEEN SERVED
More than 100 Bernie Sanders supporters have sued the Democratic National Committee and its former chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for fraud.
The suit, which has been served on Wasserman Schultz and the DNC, says the Florida congresswoman made “knowingly made false statements and omissions” that undermined the 2016 Democratic primary process, while serving as the DNC chairwoman.
Anyone who donated to the Democratic National Committee after Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for president as a Democrat, can be part of the class action lawsuit, even if they donated through third-party payment platforms like ActBlue, or if they donated directly to the Bernie campaign. More background from the attorneys leading the charge is here.
To see a video of the lawsuit being served, go here. The young lawyer who is featured serving the suit is said to have died mysteriously a few weeks later.
Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott / James Brooks photo from Wikipedia
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR FAILS HIS FIRST ELECTION
In all of Alaska, when voters go into the polling place, they are given just one ballot.
They get to vote a Republican ballot or an ADL ballot, which is an “everything else” ballot – Alaskan Independence Party, Democrats, Libertarians, etc.
Alaskans on Tuesday had to pick, as they do. If they are registered Republican, they could pick either ballot, but if they were Democrat, they could not vote the Republican ballot.
That is because Alaska Republicans have a closed ballot system, which simply means if you are registered with another party, you cannot vote that ballot.
You can, however, vote the Republican ballot if you are undeclared or nonpartisan or not saying what you are. Democrats have an open ballot; anyone can ask for it.
In District 18, for instance, Republican voters did not get to choose the Republican ballot and then also be allowed to vote the ADL ballot for Rep. Harriet Drummond, who is a Democrat running against Republican challenger Mike Gordon.
Voters on Tuesday could decide they wanted to vote for the top of the ticket for Republican incumbents Rep. Don Young and Lisa Murkowski (or their Republican challengers), or they could ask for the ADL ballot and see what was available there (Steve Lindbeck for Congress, Edgar Blatchford and Ray Metcalfe for Senate or Libertarian Cean Stevens for Senate). Their decision had strong down-ballot consequences.
Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott has badly mangled his first election. His Division of Elections is looking the other way while local officials stuff the ballot box, allowing at least one community, and perhaps others, to vote two ballots.
LT. GOV. BYRON MALLOTT ALLOWING BALLOT BOX STUFFING IN SHUNGNAK
When the Division of Elections Director Josie Bahnke told the Alaska Dispatch News that it really didn’t matter that people in Shungnak voted both ballots, she was wrong.
If people had only chosen the Republican ballot, they would not have been able to vote in the House race between Dean Westlake and Ben Nageak. That race is now five votes apart districtwide. The election has effectively been rigged by the local government, and now the state government.
Bahnke and the clerk in charge in Shungnak knew — as data exists from the last election — that the village was safely Westlake country, and they’ve determined that everyone should vote that Democratic ballot, even if they asked for a Republican one.
In that village, 48 votes went to Westlake and 2 went to Nageak. The results of that precinct also were not reported for 22 hours, long after all the other votes in the district had been reported and were known.
Who is aggrieved by this? Not just Ben Nageak, but every voter in District 40 who did not get to vote two ballots. Indeed, every other voter in Alaska who had to choose one ballot or the other has a legal case that they were not treated equally at the ballot box.
The buck stops with the lieutenant governor. Will anyone hold him accountable?
Relevant section of Alaska law:
AS 15.25.060. Preparation and Distribution of Ballots; Appropriate Ballot.
(b) A voter may vote only one primary election ballot. A voter may vote a political party ballot only if the voter is registered as affiliated with that party, is allowed to participate in the party primary under the party’s bylaws, or is registered as nonpartisan or undeclared rather than as affiliated with a particular political party and the party’s bylaws do not restrict participation by nonpartisan or undeclared voters in the party’s primary. For the purpose of determining which primary election ballot a voter may use, a voter’s party affiliation is considered to be the affiliation registered with the director as of the 30th day before the primary election. If a voter changes party affiliation within the 30 days before the primary election, the voter’s previous party affiliation shall be used for the determination under this subsection.
FiveThirtyEight podcaster comes to Juneau. Gets stuck on mountain. Is rescued. Tweets about it: “It was quite an ordeal. We can’t say enough about how impressive the rescue operations folks were. Ever grateful.”
Jody Avirgan, who is a broadcasting host for the political pollster and prognosticator website of Nat Silver, was in Juneau this week for kayaking and other soft adventures that probably involved folks from KTOO, the local NPR station.
Avirgan was hiking with a companion from New York, who apparently left the trail on Mount Roberts, which is Juneau’s most accessible climb. The companion could not navigate the steep terrain, so Juneau Mountain Rescue and the SEADOGS were flown to the area by Temsco Helicopters. The two New Yorkers were escorted to safety.
Argivan has that NPR voice on his podcasts; we know this because we stuck with one of the tapings for a full four minutes before it became too intellectually steep and we had to be rescued by our dogs.
JOBLESS IN ALASKA
Alaska’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in July, unchanged from June. The national unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, same as the previous month, and Alaska has the highest unemployment rate of the 50 states.
The highest area of unemployment in the state is in the Kusilvak Census Area, formerly known as the Wade Hampton Census Area, where more than 23 percent of the employable population is jobless.
Alaska employment dropped 1.3 percent in July compared to 2015. Oil, gas, construction and professional services took the biggest hit. Health care jobs grew substantially. State jobs are reported to be down, but Juneau’s joblessness actually decreased from 4.2 percent in July, 2015, to 4 percent in July, 2016.
Alaska has highest unemployment in nation.
NO VOTES TURNED IN YET FOR MEKORYUK PRECINCT
Nearly three days after the polls closed, the small village of Mekoryuk has yet to turn in its vote totals to the Division of Elections. Of the 31 precincts in House District 38, 30 of them have reported and have given Zach Fansler a huge lead over incumbent Bob Herron, 1099 to 839 votes. Both are Democrats.
The Alaska Democratic Party targeted Herron for removal because he was part of the bipartisan majority, which is mainly Republicans.
Mekoryuk has 147 registered voters. No results are listed on the Division of Elections web site as of 3 pm Friday.
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sotomayor, right, walks through the Ted Stevens International Airport this morning on her way to her flight leaving Alaska. Steve Strait photo
POWERFUL, PROTECTED PUBLIC SERVANTS
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor arrived in Alaska earlier last week. She gave some speeches, met with some attorneys, had some rainy vacation time, and then left early this morning on a flight out of Anchorage.
Citizen journalist Steve Strait of Strait Media spotted her at the Ted Stevens International Airport, where she was being watched over by three federal agents. Strait snapped the photo above before being told by one of her agents, (the one directly behind her), “No more pictures.”
Strait had remained at a distance and had not approached the Supreme Court justice, but took the warning to heart and put away his camera phone.
Being told by a federal employee that a person cannot take a photo of a federal employee who is on public property (an airport) is not just odd — it’s illegal.
The agent gave no rationale for why a citizen could not take a photo of a judge who happened to be traveling through an open airport.
While Sotomayor visited Alaska as part of her “bucket list” of traveling to all of the states, she had an entourage of several Secret Service agents with her most of the time. They were seen scanning the crowd at the Dena’ina Center, where she spoke to the Alaska Bar Association and others. She also spoke at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Social media has very few photos of her trip to Alaska, indicting that audiences may have been instructed the same way: “No photos.”
Sotomayor was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. During her remarks this week, she noted that although the Supreme Court is accused of being more politicized, it is simply a function of being asked to judge increasingly complicated questions in a rapidly changing society.
One of those complicated questions might be: When is it illegal to take a photo on taxpayer-funded property that is used by tens of thousands of people every day?
Read about one of Sotomayor’s most recent dissenting opinions here.
Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott on a site visit to Manakotok on Election Day. Turnout was 33 percent.
BUSY WITH YUP’IK BALLOTS; NOT SO MUCH WITH BALLOT INTEGRITY
Lieutenant Gov. Byron Mallott visited three villages on primary election day, and he reported witnessing no real problems. The U.S. Department of Justice also had people on the ground to observe the election, after last year’s settlement of a lawsuit over the lack of Yup’ik language ballots. They were also satisfied.
Yet while Mallott was visiting three villages and Dillingham in Western Alaska, in District 40 things were going haywire.
In one village, Shungnak, it appears that all who voted were given both the Republican Party ballot, where Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young were listed, and the Democratic Party ballot, where the state House race of Dean Westlake and Rep. Ben Nageak were available.
PROBLEM MAY BE MORE WIDESPREAD: 105% TURNOUT?
Normally in an election in America, it’s one ballot per voter. Shungnak ended up with a 63 percent voter turnout. 50 ballots went Republican and 50 went Democrat. More troubling was that the results were not turned in until all the other precincts were counted and announced.
The irregularities have now put into question the results from all outlier results, such as Newtok, where registered voters total 215, but the Division of Elections shows there were 227 ballots cast, for a 105% turnout. Newtok uses digital voting machines.
Education reporter Mareesa Nicosia shot this photo of voters in Newtok casting their ballots.
In Shaktoolik, the turnout was 81 percent. 125 of 154 registered voters cast ballots there, even though their legislator, Rep. Neal Foster, had no competition.
But the areas where Mallott visited had more expected results.
Lt. Gov. Mallott observed voting in Togiak. Turnout was 11.86 percent
“There was nothing substantive that either the DOJ or our own folks saw,” Mallott said of his observation visits to New Stuyahok, Manakotok, and Togiak. “And so it’s just continuing the process, making it work, being responsive to those issues that are raised,” Mallott said, as reported by the Associated Press’ Juneau reporter Becky Bohrer.
A five vote difference between Nageak and Westlake in District 40 brings up the importance of adequate training and oversight for elections. If the election process has failed under Lt. Gov. Mallott’s watch, he must be held accountable, particularly since ballot access has been one of the areas about which he has been most outspoken.
WESTLAKE OUTRAISED, OUTSPENT NAGEAK
Westlake, a Democrat, is the candidate backed by the Alaska Democratic Party, which decided that Democrat Rep. Nageak’s participation in the bipartisan majority that holds the power was detrimental to their goals of taking control of the House.
The Alaska Democratic Party gave nearly $10,000 to the Westlake campaign. The Democrats raised a total of $40,000 for Westlake, much of it through a major fundraising event at the home of Governor Walker’s surrogate, lawyer Robin Brena. There were also major checks from public employee unions.
In contrast, the Nageak campaign raised about $15,000 and he had no help from his party. Most of his funds came from individual checks.
Westlake spent at least $6,000 with the Ship Creek Group, a new political consultancy whose principal, newcomer John Henry Heckendorn, is also listed as an employee of Lottsfeldt Strategies, which runs an organized labor-funded political blog MidnightSunAK. Ship Creek Group and Lottsfeldt work for Democratic candidates and left-leaning causes.
SHUNGNAK TURNOUT PATTERN HAS BEEN HIGH, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS
Looking at primaries for 2010, 2012, and 2014, Shungnak outperformed the rest of the district by 11, 13, and 8 percent.
However, this primary result shows this year the community outperformed the entire district by 41 percent.
Lieutenant Governor Mallott, a Democrat, has run a sloppy election with multiple integrity problems. In the case of District 40, it could be that his operational neglect has led to a result that is entirely unbelievable.
Questioned ballots have yet to be counted in this district, and they number close to 100.
(This story has been updated at the end to reflect a working theory on how the numbers in Shungnak might be explained.)
On election night, all results in Alaska were slow to be posted. But the results from District 40 were the slowest to arrive. In fact, they never did arrive that night after the polls closed at 8 pm. This was the first time since pre-internet days that election observers can remember such delays.
Election watchers monitoring the postings by the Division of Elections were scanning the website for updates, to no avail.
There were precincts missing and it was too close to call. At one point Ben Nageak was up by 30 votes, and then he was down by just 5.
The three villages missing were Shungnak, Kaktovik, and Point Hope.
Because it’s the North Slope, one can expect things to be a bit slower. But 22 hours late in reporting results from a village? That’s dog-sled speed. And this was a summer day.
SHUNGNAK DID NOT REPORT UNTIL ALL OTHER VOTES WERE IN
Dean Westlake / Division of Elections file photo
What is unusual about the Shungnak reporting is that it came in well after all the other results were posted, and the votes went 48 for Dean Westlake, and 2 for Ben Nageak.
Westlake has been heavily favored by the Alaska Democratic Party over their incumbent Nageak, also a Democrat. Vast sums of money, including a big fundraiser by the Alaska Governor Bill Walker’s surrogate Robin Brena, have poured into the Westlake race.
The governor wants to get rid of Nageak, because he caucuses with the bipartisan majority that the governor does not control.
SHUNGNAK TURNOUT: 62.9 PERCENT
Even more unusual is that the voter turnout in Shungnak was nearly 63 percent, with the turnout for Democrats nearly 30 percent, making it either the most civic-minded community in Alaska…or perhaps there’s another explanation.
Shungnak has 159 registered voters, with 46 of them registered Democrats, 17 registered Republicans, and the rest fall into the “variety pack” categories. Fully 100 Shungnak voters actually cast a ballot.
Rep. Ben Nageak
It took 22 hours for the Shungnak results to be reported, leading observers to wonder if someone had withheld the ballots until all the others were reported.
As of this writing, Rep. Ben Nageak is trailing behind challenger Dean Westlake, with just five votes separating them. Districtwide, Westlake has 765 votes to Nageak’s 760 for the District 40 House seat.
We’re not ready to call this race, but if there was ever an example of how every vote counts, this is it. It also may be an example of voter fraud.
REPUBLICAN VOTERS WERE DISCOURAGED BY ELECTION WORKERS
Yesterday, Must Read Alaska received reports that for registered Republicans in District 40, voting was not a civic breeze. They tell us that election workers told them that if they wanted to vote the Democrats’ ballot, where Westlake and Nageak faced off, their ballot would be put into the “questioned ballot” stack.
Our sources are reporting that there are at least 40 of these questioned ballots in Barrow.
All of this raises questions about ballot custody, ballot security, and a possibly rigged election.
As for the other two villages that reported late, they are:
Kaktovik, where of the 33 votes, 4 went to Dean Westlake and 29 went to Benjamin Nageak. (The result is not surprising because this is Nageak’s hometown.)
Point Hope, where of the 19 votes, 6 went to Westlake and 13 went to Nageak.
Here’s a snapshot of the District 40 results:
Final results for District 40.
HISTORIC RESULTS: LOTS OF VOTING IN SHUNGNAK
An analysis of voter history in Shungnak shows that they know how to turn out the vote.
ONE THEORY: BOTH BALLOTS
If 100 actually people voted, we see that 50 voters in Shungnak picked the Republican ballot, and 50 picked the Democratic ballot, according to the precinct results. In every other village in that region, the breakdown was much more weighted toward the Democratic ballot.
With a total of 100 cards cast, it appears that the election officials allowed 50 voters to vote two ballots — both the Democratic and Republican ballots.
For example, they could vote for Lisa Murkowski for Senate on one ballot, and Cean Stevens on the other. But only one of those ballots had the Westlake-Nageak matchup on it, which is why there are only 50 votes recorded for that race.
Not only does Shungnak have an extraordinarily high turnout, but the numbers simply don’t add up.
Barrow’s Rep. Ben Nageak is behind challenger Dean Westlake, with just five votes separating them. Westlake has 765 votes to Nageak’s 760.
We’re not ready to call this race, but if there was ever an example of how every vote counts, this is it.
Our understanding from the field is there are three villages that have not been counted and there is a looming question about many questioned ballots. Reports have come in to Must Read Alaska that in District 40, election workers made voters who requested a Democratic ballot vote a questioned ballot if they were registered as Republicans; the questioned ballots could make a difference for Rep. Nageak.
Stephen Bannon / YouTube
TRUMP CAMPAIGN PICKS A STREET FIGHTER FOR CEO
Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, is the new CEO for the Donald Trump campaign, while Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Trump, is the campaign manager.
ASRC Energy Services CEO Jeff Kinneeveauk has resigned effective this Thursday. Doug Smith will become the new president and CEO. Smith is president and CEO of Little Red Services and ASRC Construction Holding Co. Kinneeveauk, born in Point Hope, became CEO in 2011.
SHIP OF FOOLS?
The Celebrity Serenity left Seward and is motoring west and north with 1,000 passengers and 600 crew members to cross over the Northwest Passage. The trip cost passengers between $21,000 and $120,000, depending on your stateroom and amenities, and is billed as the adventure of a lifetime as the itinerary stops in 14 places before reaching New York City….
…Or as Slate magazine puts it: “It is also an abomination—a massive, diesel-burning, waste-dumping, ice-destroying, golf-ball-smacking middle finger to what remains of the planet, courtesy of precisely 1,089 of its richest and most destructive inhabitants. And it’s all made possible by runaway climate change, the existential global crisis that these same people and their ilk have disproportionately helped to create.”
Kill joy.
The Celebrity Serenity will arrive in Nome on Aug. 21, and will be the largest ship of its kind to ever stop there, and just in time for the Nome Berry Festival.
MARGARET STOCK GOES UNION
There was a big fundraiser at the IBEW building tonight and it was for self-described nonpartisan candidate Margaret Stock, running for U.S. Senate. We missed getting the invite, but it looked like a union made in heaven.
RACE FOR SITKA MAYOR
Then there were three: Former Sitka city administrator Gary Paxton, has withdrawn from the race for mayor of Sitka, which leaves Deputy Mayor Matthew Hunter, Assembly member Ben Miyasato, and local civic leader Mary Magnuson vying for the job.
Magnuson is ready for the heat of politics because last year she got into politically incorrect trouble as she defended the honor of the Alaska Day charity “slave” auction, whereby you can bid on two hours of household chores from willing volunteers.
The 30-year-old traditional event ran into the buzzsaw of the Anchorage chapter of NAACP, which called it “inflammatory and insensitive” and ordered a name change. Politically thin-skinned Sitkans (can we still say that?) complied.
In an interview with the Alaska Dispatch last year, Magnuson said the slave auction had raised $3,000 for the local fire department, and those who wanted the name changed were just blowing it up. “There were no shackles, no oppression, just raising money for the first responders we all love. I’m offended that this political correctness is trying to be pushed on us and making us look like jerks.”
This year and forever more it will be known as the “Alaska Day Auction,” but locals will probably cluck at being bullied by Anchorage pc police. What is the world coming to? They already had to ditch the wet T-shirt contest.
The Municipal Election will be held on Oct 4. No big controversies are planned.
Alaska Day in Sitka is October 10-18, with the Alaska Day Ball on Oct. 17. The people of Sitka will endeavor to not offend non-Sitkans by having any non-politically correct fun.
Democratic minority leader Chris Tuck and House Democrat Matt Claman during Tuesday night’s election returns at IBEW Hall in Anchorage. / Twitter photo by Travis Khachatoorian of KTUU news. Follow @ReporterTravisK
NO COMFORT FOR THE AFFLICTED BIG LABOR BOSSES
The Aug. 16 election was a bellweather event for Alaska conservatives.
Would the state drift toward the Musk-Ox Model of a Democratically controlled bipartisan House leadership, or would conservatives stand strong?
The prognosticators had their money on Governor Walker’s blue ponies. They were wrong. The mainstream media says this was an anti-incumbent result. They are also wrong.
The 3-B Team (Bill Walker, Big Labor, and Mark Begich), spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to unseat key Republicans in an attempt to turn the state blue. That did not happen. What they got were even more conservatives.
But with all the money Big Labor political action committees threw at this campaign, it was the one thing Big Labor has actually done to help the private economy this year.
GOVERNOR WALKER AND BIG LABOR = BIG FAIL
By and large, the 3-B Team effort was unsuccessful, and Big Labor is having one heck of a hangover today. Let’s take a look at which way voters went, when given a choice between liberal and conservative:
George Rauscher
District 9: In the much-watched race between left-leaning Rep. Jim Colver and conservative George Rauscher, voters in District 9 chose the conservative Rauscher over the “Repo-Democrat” incumbent in sheep’s clothing, Colver. The Big Labor money spent — and it was tens of thousands of dollars on this particular race — was great for the economy of District 9, but might have hurt Colver, who ended up looking bought and paid for.
David and Jennifer Eastman / from his website.
District 10: Both incumbent Rep. Wes Keller and his challenger David Eastman are well-matched conservatives. But Eastman comes out of more of a tea party tradition, thus this district is leaning even more conservative with a clear Eastman win. This would not be a win that brings comfort to Democrats, as Eastman is a keen strategist, a hard worker, studies and learns, and sticks to his guns.
District 11: DeLena Johnson and Richard Best were both solid conservatives for this valley district, and Johnson’s win continues the winning streak for Republicans. She is an experienced local politician who understands her district well and will not want to burn her popularity by aligning with the shrinking moderate outliers known as “musk oxen.”
District 14: Eagle River/Chugiak were given a choice between a very conservative incumbent and a more moderate Republican, and they chose their existing champion, Lora Reinbold, over challenger Crystal Kennedy. Again, a lean to the right, rather than tacking toward the middle.
Chris and Pam Birch / from Chris’ website
District 26: Bob Lynn, the Republican incumbent, had leaned toward Big Labor support for years, and the more conservative name on the ballot, Chris Birch, was heavily favored by voters.
District 28: Jennifer Johnston, the fiscal conservative, and Ross Beiling, the social and fiscal conservative, were untouched by Big Labor in this race for the seat vacated by Rep. Mike Hawker. In this case, a better known Johnston ran on her record, and Beiling could not make the case to voters that he could do better. But both of them are probably more conservative than Hawker.
District 31: Incumbent Paul Seaton, a well-liked moderate Republican, was actually beat by the combined votes for his two more conservative challengers, Mary Beth Wythe and John Cox. Had their been just one challenger in the race, Seaton would have been in a real race, as Wythe and Cox took 51 percent of the vote.
District 38 and 40: In the governor’s attempt to unseat District 40’s Rep. Ben Nageak of Barrow, the race is too close to call, although they did chalked up a win in rural Alaska by taking out District 38’s Rep. Bob Herron. Governor Walker and the Democrats will have a more malleable Zach Fansler to work with there. But those in the know in the Bethel region say that Fansler has a lot of problems and this could prove troublesome for them.
David Wilson / from his website
Senate Seat D: Lynn Gattis is a conservative legislator, but David Wilson has equally conservative views. Neither was the incumbent and the 3-B Team left this race alone. Could it be that Wilson, who is backed by the even more conservative Republican Assembly, is getting even more conservative.
Natasha von Imhof / from her website
Senate District F: Voters had three solid conservative to choose from and they stuck with Shelley Hughes in the seat being vacated by Republican Bill Stoltze. Big Labor stayed out of this race.
Senate District L: The 3-B Team went after Rep. Craig Johnson in a big way, as he threw his name in on the last day possible for the Senate seat vacated by Lesil McGuire.
Johnson looked strong, but in the final days of the campaign, the 3-B Team was demanding that voters cast their ballot for anyone but conservative warhorse. Their literature savaged him as one of the big spenders.
That worked to an extent, but the Democrats and Big Labor backed Jeff Landfield — and ended up hurting him more than helping him in that district, which went for the more conservative choice, Natasha von Imhof. Landfield landed third, beat out by two more conservative choices.
OVERALL, SOLID VICTORY FOR REPUBLICANS
Across the state, conservative Republicans swept to victory: Reps. Mark Neuman, Lance Pruitt, Liz Vazquez, Tammy Wilson, Dan Saddler, and Lora Reinbold. All incumbents with strong credentials; all easily won against challengers.
At the top of the ticket, there was no “throw the bums out” mood — Rep. Don Young and Sen. Lisa Murkowski blew past their challengers.
Although this isn’t what is being reported by the main media venues, one final piece of good news for Republicans is the number of voters who chose the Republican ballot over the other one — it was nearly two times better for the Republicans this election, again proving that Alaska is a red state, and that the Walker effort to unseat the Republican majority failed in this round.
WHEN JIM COLVER GOT IN TROUBLE, IT TOOK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN TO BAIL HIM OUT
Back when Jim Colver was sitting on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, he ran into some trouble, caused possibly by his own misdeeds.
Allegations were made that Colver had used confidential information available to Assembly members to steer public money to his own surveying firm. A criminal investigation was launched. Kelly Turney, the Palmer police detective at the time, sent the report to the State Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, which is where it eventually died.
During the investigation, Colver said it was all politically motivated and he hired a lawyer. That lawyer was none other than Big Lake Democrat Attorney Scott Sterling, who was also the immediate past chair of the district’s Democratic Party.
Colver wouldn’t talk to the detective and he wouldn’t talk to the Frontiersman reporter. He clammed up.
He was asked to resign his Assembly seat by resident Tammy Miller, who told the Assembly: “It only takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel, and with the two of you on the assembly things are rotten. Colver is worse … because he intimidates people and is a bully. He uses his position to garner business for himself.”
Colver went on to win a seat on the school board after deciding that he wasn’t going to win his race for mayor. But not before these headlines dominated his life:
For the record, the tips on these news stories did not come from The Frontiersman reporter himself, who is no longer with the newspaper, but were sent to us by a former television reporter, who could not fathom why today’s reporters had not dug into Colver’s past.
Must Read performed a cursory search but didn’t uncover the scandal, and no other reporter has brought them to light during the highly contested race between Colver and his challenger, George Rauscher.
Jim Colver
Greg Waisanen, owner of Collins Construction in Wasilla, claimed at the time that he felt Colver pressured him to award Colver Surveying a subcontract, and that Colver used his assembly position to access design information that wasn’t available to other bidders regarding a school project.
The investigation focused on two misdemeanor offenses: Official misconduct and misuse of confidential information.
The police detective at the time said there were many unanswered questions in the case. But without Colver talking to the investigator, he turned it all over to the state.
None of these news stories is easy to find in the archives, and the scandal has been scrubbed from Colver’s Wikipedia entry. It took a former television news reporter to bring it to light and ask why the news media was not doing its job in at letting voters know about the question of character.
Earlier this month, Colver lashed out at his fellow lawmakers, accusing them of being part of “another VECO-like scandal with a bought-and-paid-for legislature.” His piece was published in the Alaska Dispatch News.
Coming soon to Anchorage, Ann Coulter, who will be here as part of the launch of her newest book: “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”
