Eleven days ago, Markos posted an announcement of a United 2000 poll, commissioned by DailyKos on the two 2008 Alaska U.S. legislative races.
Here’s how he put the scenarios:
If 2008 election for Congress were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Ethan Berkowitz, the Democrat, and Don Young, the Republican?
Young (R) 42
Berkowitz (D) 49
If 2008 election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Mark Begich, the Democrat, and Ted Stevens, the Republican?
Stevens (R) 41
Begich (D) 47
That’s fine. Actually, that’s friggin’ GREAT! But the way this information has played out since has led me to think that Kos is as unprepared to enter the wilderness of Alaska politics as Christopher McCandless was to enter the Denali wilds when he hiked out to that abandoned bus on the wrong side of a fickle creek at the end of a long-abandoned road to nowhere.
Progressive Alaskans are sick and tired of the jokes we’ve been made the brunt of in the lower 48 through the demise of Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. Although there had already been two published polls on the race for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat, the United 2000 poll was the first credible poll that put a hypothetical opponent up against Alaska’s patron saint, Sen. Stevens. The current mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich, who has been wooed by the DSCC for this race, was the logical choice for the matchup.
And Kos’ poll and short accompanying article spread the word of the vulnerability of Alaska’s tainted duo far more than had the previous polls similarly showing a probable end of Don Young’s long tenure. Because of the reputation of DailyKos in the realm of trend predictor, dozens of sources picked the story up within hours. By last Friday more Google feedback related to Kos’ poll was out there than all articles about these two races combined up to that point.
And that’s fine too, but fundamental errors of omission and an error of commission need to be corrected. Markos’ article stated, "Wow, wow, wow. Berkowitz is already running hard, and it's clear his will be a top pickup opportunity as Young is weighed down with his corruption."
I doubt that Kos intentionally misled readers with that statement. But several political blogs picking up the story and hundreds of commenters assumed from this unfortunate statement that Ethan Berkowitz is running against Don Young, and "running hard." Wow, wow, wow!
Ethan Berkowitz is running againstJake Metcalfe and Diane Benson and any other Democrat who files by June 1 of next year for a spot on the August 26, 2008 Alaska Democratic Primary. The winner of that late-season primary will have ten weeks to get his or her act together to face the GOP candidate, who will most likely not be Don Young. The three already in the Democratic primary race have already raised at least $300,000 to run against each other. That’s more than was raised by all the Democratic candidates put together who ran against Don Young between 1996 and 2004.
The Alaska Democratic primary is open to any registered voter. The GOP primary is open only to registered Republicans. Just who the final GOP candidates on the primary ticket are will be a determining factor in how tens of thousands of voters choose which of two ballots to pick.
Last year, in her bid to unseat Rep. Young, Benson raised almost $200,000 with little help from the state Democratic Party organization, and none from the DCCC or DLC. She came closer to Young than had any candidate since 1992. Benson filed for the 2006 race when it became apparent that then-Alaska Democratic Party Chairman Jake Metcalfe didn’t contemplate fielding any candidate to run against Young. He was too busy funneling money into the failing Knowles-Berkowitz gubernatorial race. And, as he stated at a Democratic Party event in September of 2007, Rep. Rahm Emanuel advised him against supporting Benson.
Diane Benson, a longtime Democrat who was fed up with a succession of Democratic Party scandals in the 1980s, culminating with their enabling of the regulatory regime that led to the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, became a member of the Green Party of Alaska in the late 1990s. It was and is the most vibrant Green organization in the USA. But after her son Latseen, a trooper with the 101st Airborne Division, was severely wounded by an IED near Kirkuk, losing both legs, in November 2005, she became more pragmatic in her already outspoken opposition to this wasteful war.
She ran a grassroots campaign. At the same time her campaign played out, the beginnings of the public aspects of the ongoing series of GOP-big oil political corruption indictments, trials and convictions unrolled. Although Don Young had been one of the biggest beneficiaries of political contributions from Veco, the oilfield service company and big oil cutout behind the scandals, he hasn’t even yet been directly linked to the illegal aspects of their largesse. Nor has Ethan Berkowitz, another past recipient of political contributions from the extinct, tainted corporation.
Berkowitz stepped down from his office as five-term Democratic Representative for Anchorage’s wealthy District 26, and from his post as Minority Leader of the Alaska House in 2006. He did so to run for the Democratic nomination as Lieutenant Governor, which he won.
Ex-Governor Tony Knowles stood for the top spot on that ticket. His eight years from 1996 to 2002 as Alaska’s governor had been particularly undistinguished. Beginning with Knowles’ appointment of now-convicted Veco CEO Bill Allen to a prominent spot on his 1996 transition team, Knowles was a captive of big oil and to a GOP-dominated legislature. The elevation of Berkowitz to house minority leader in 1999 did nothing to smooth relations between Knowles and lawmakers, as one special session after another attempting to attack problems like subsistence hunting and fishing, oil mineral extraction fees and education funding foundered on the reefs of non-compromise. During Knowles’ administrations the positions of unions, of education funding and road net infrastructure underwent their biggest degradation in state history.
In 2004, Knowles narrowly lost a U.S. Senate race to Lisa Murkowski, the daughter of the least popular governor in Alaska history. After winning the 2002 gubernatorial race, her father had appointed her to his own senate seat, a highly unpopular move in Alaska, to say the least. Knowles’ loss to Murkowski should have put the nails in his political coffin, but he placed himself out in the middle of the road in front of another, far more remarkable woman, Sarah Palin.
Palin is an excellent example of why an outsider like Markos Moulitsas might not be able to fathom Alaska politics. How could this woman, in an alpha male state, go up against the strongest, most doctrinaire GOP political machine in the Pacific Northwest, and beat it time after time?
Palin also beat Knowles handily, in a three-way race, between Knowles, Republican Palin, and Andrew Halcro, a quasi-Republican. Knowles’ political career is largely seen here as over. For instance, Knowles and Berkowitz, who spent $1.1 million to Sarah Palin’s $880,000 in the gubernatorial general campaign, garnered just over 97,000 votes. Diane Benson, running against Don Young for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat, received about 94,000 votes statewide, while spending $192,000 to Young’s $2 million in the campaign.
Going back to the three candidates in the AK-AL U.S. House Democratic Primary: Since the 2006 race, Benson has extended her contacts with the Wounded Warrior network, with Veterans groups, with military families, and with Native American organizations in Alaska, and nationwide. She has also remained highly critical of Don Young's conduct in the U.S. House. Diane Benson was the first to call, back in early September, for an ethics investigation by that legislative body, of his conduct during the passage of the 2005 U.S. transportation bill. She has gained the endorsement of the Alaska Women’s Caucus, and is being closely watched by Emily’s List and other women’s rights groups nationwide.
Benson has recently been acknowledged for her longtime work fighting racial discrimination in Alaska, and for her advocacy efforts in the realms of domestic violence and sexual abuse.
Jake Metcalfe, who has retained his day job as Chief Counsel for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, is being backed in the primary race by that same union. That union’s head, Vince Beltrani, is also head honcho for Alaska’s AFL-CIO, and Metcalfe’s platform is carefully crafted to gain as much support as possible from organized labor.
Both Berkowitz and Benson have issued earlier and more comprehensive polls than the one published by Kos on December 10. At the beginning of his campaign, Berkowitz issued a poll showing him not only beating Young in a general election, but whipping both Benson and Metcalfe in the primary by seemingly insurmountable margins. But, the poll was conducted by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore, who is an unabashed Berkowitz supporter, having most recently, held a fundraiser for Berkowitz in Anchorage this past week.
In mid-November, Diane Benson issued a poll conducted by the Craciun Group of Anchorage. Here are the three matchups:
Moore October 13:
Berkowitz 51%
Young 46.5%
Craciun November 2:
Benson 45.3
Young 36.7%
United 2000 December 7:
Berkowitz 49%
Young 42%
Craciun’s was the only poll that didn’t ask the loaded "if you had to vote today" kind of questions. Here’s Craciun’s Democratic Primary contest result:
Diane Benson 21.1%
Ethan Berkowitz 28.6%
Jake Metcalfe 8.3%
There are going to be joint appearances, panels and debates scheduled between or among these three liberal candidates over the winter and spring. Just yesterday, GOP Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn introduced a proposal to form a select committee of both houses of Congress to investigate Don Young’s unconstitutional change of the 2005 Transportation bill, after the document had been passed by both houses of congress. Until yesterday, Diane Benson was the only political player to have requested an investigation into this matter.
There has never been this much interest in the Democratic Primary for the AK-AL U.S. House seat. Seeing as the Alaska Democratic Party has not been growing, and that the preponderance of voters here have no party affiliation, the idea of this race being an opportunity to grow the party is one I have stressed when speaking to all three candidates over the course of the fall and early winter. Each of the three has a different constituency, and combined with the ongoing populist and progressive upsurges in activist Alaska politics, Markos’ poll possibly had a negative effect.
Additionally, Alaskans don’t like it when people from outside insinuate themselves inaccurately and ostentatiously on our way-beyond-quirky political scene. A bit of a case in point can be found in Robert Dillon’s Sunday article for the Fairbanks New-Miner, where he points to Moulitsas’ error of commission:
"Daily Kos incorrectly reported last week that Begich would announce by the end of the year if he was not running to give other Democrats time to gear up before the June 2 filing deadline. However, Begich's spokeswoman, Julie Hasquet, said the mayor has never made such a statement publicly."
Anyone interested in learning more about these two races should read Dillon’s excellent article, which concentrates on possible GOP challenges to Stevens and Young. I wrote an overview of the current in-flux state of politics in Alaska for Howie Klein at Down With Tyranny last month.