Ray Metcalfe, the former Alaskan legislator who tirelessly probed evidence for years and reported it to the FBI, resulting in the ongoing investigations into the Veco scandal, has announced that he will run as a Democrat for US Senator Ted Stevens seat.
Ray is not a Democratic Party insider, nor has he been courted by the national party organization, like Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. However, this doesn't make Ray a dark horse, by any means.
Ray Metcalfe (not to be confused with Jake Metcalfe, the recent head of the Alaska Democratic Party who has entered the race for US Rep. Don Young's seat) served in the Alaska legislature as a Republican. He left the Republican Party years ago due to the influences of business and religion, later founding the Republican Moderate Party of Alaska.
With the issues on paper, you wouldn't be able to tell Ray from a moderate Democrat. Liberal would be going to far, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any electable progressive liberals in Alaska.
Since the mid-1990s, Ray has been the loudest voice about the corruption that plagues the state's political system, and it was he who gathered the information that prompted the FBI's investigation into Veco.
In case you hadn't heard, that investigation has led to the guilty pleas of the owner and a top executive of oil services contractor Veco, Inc.; to the conviction of a prominent lobbyist; the conviction of three former legislators; and an ongoing investigation that implicates US Sen. Ted Stevens, his son Ben, US Rep. Don Young, and several other former and current legislators.
Ray is riding high on a wave of vindication at the moment -- for several years, he lost credibility in the public for pursuing what turned out to be, in the end, the truth about the corrupt Alaskan system. This could make for an interesting race.
When asked by KTUU TV in Anchorage about running against Mark Begich, the Anchorage mayor who is being heavily courted by the DSCC, Ray stated:
I think if things play out that the public is going to see that if they want a system that is clean of any corruption and clean of deals that are above board and making sure that there aren't deals going on with people that are a little less than stellar in their business dealings. I think that it will play out that the way to go is to stick with the guy that has shown the track record of cleaning up the system. Dirty deals with dirty developers, I don't have those, and he does.
You can see more about the history of this development in my first three entries here.
Enjoy.
[Edit: Added link to Ray's allegation of Mark's "dirty dealings."]