Okay, so it's no surprise to hear about Republicans turning to attack ads because they have nothing left, but the fact that they are lashing out at each other and doing the Democrats' legwork for them is absolutely astonishing.
As this FP story from a while back notes, Murkowski is garnering under 20% support at this point, and it would make sense for him to simply give up. I don't know whether it's his incumbency or his idiocy, but he's decided to join John Binkley in his attacks against Sarah Palin.
The primary is this coming Tuesday, so follow me below for snippets, a bombshell, a hilarious closing quote and insights straight from Anchorage, AK!
Background: The Republican primary candidates for governor are John Binkley, Frank Murkowski, and Sarah Palin; the Democratic candidates are Eric Croft and Tony Knowles. sedrik39
The article basically says that the final push is on, and since Sarah Palin has a sizeable lead in a lot of polls, the other two candidates are pulling out all the stops. There's some info about typical dirt being slung at the candidates, like this segment that includes some Alaskana to boot:
Binkley took aim at Palin with his own commercial earlier this week, saying she's not experienced enough for the job and throwing in an endorsement from popular Iditarod musher DeeDee Jonrowe for good measure. Palin countered with a commercial featuring four-time Iditarod champ Martin Buser holding a puppy and saying attack ads have "no place in a fair race."
Everything that I have heard from Sarah Palin in this campaign has been statements casting her as the underdog. It's a rather odd tactic since she's leading the polls, but it helps her 'outsider' theme since she outed Randy Reudrich and could be viewed as a blacklisted Republican.
(From my point of view, I'm shocked that Republicans aren't facing questions about scandals on a weekly basis. There have been so many scandals involving so many different members of the state GOP that I can't believe a lot of them are still in office, though the tide is starting to turn. However, an editorial cartoon in our paper summed it up best: "We're sending them back into office, and we're going to keep sending them back until they get it right!")
This brings me to the bombshell, which is almost two-thirds of the way down in the article; so much for our "liberal" paper. Anyway, it turns out that Miss Whistleblower may not be so ethical after all:
It's not a new charge -- that Palin mixed her campaign and her job as Wasilla mayor when running for lieutenant governor in 2002. Her opponents want it to stick, because one reason Palin is a household name in Alaska is that she outed Republican Party chief Randy Ruedrich for leaking a confidential document to a lobbyist, and performing political work from his state job, while both served on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The Voice of the Times, a separate [unbelievably conservative] editorial section within the opinion pages of the Daily News, made the original public records request that produced many of the documents that Murkowski's campaign handed out Thursday, including a stack of telephone records, e-mails -- such as a campaign note from her mayor e-mail address to Ruedrich -- and invoices from Wasilla city hall.
The documents appear to show, for example, that on one occasion Palin arranged campaign travel from the mayor's office. On another, her city administrative assistant printed thank-you notes to campaign donors.
This is so incredible; the Knowles campaign can just take this and run if Palin is the eventual winner. And yes, I am assuming that Knowles will win because he has an extraordinary lead (close to 50 points) and can win the primary on name recognition alone (he was Alaska's governor for two terms). I look forward to being able to make non-official Knowles items that say "Tony Knowles; The Once and Future Governor."
At any rate, that's the latest from the big AK; I hope that this diary was helpful to you Kossacks. I'll try to be around for answering comments if I can, although I've seen other knowledgeable people make comments on Alaska items so hopefully they can help out as well (I'm definitely not the end-all on this matter). Now as promised, the funny quote that speaks for itself:
"I know if Ted Stevens could speak in the Republican primary, he'd support Frank too. Can you find it in your heart to do the same?" [Barbara Andrews-Mee, a former longtime aide to U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens] said.
Stevens was in town Thursday, and when asked who he'd vote for, offered no endorsements.