AK-AL

Almost two weeks after election day in Alaska, incumbent Congressman Don Young's lead over Lt. Governor Sean Parnell narrowed to 129 votes for the Republican nomination to the state's lone seat in the House. Here's the latest count as of 9:15 PM EST on Friday after most of the 25,000 absentee and question ballots were counted today:

• LEDOUX, Gabrielle: 9575 votes - 9.32%
• PARNELL, Sean: 46514 votes - 45.28%
• YOUNG, Don: 46643 votes - 45.40%

Alaska has 40 state house districts, and the director of the Division of Elections says that about a dozen house districts' absentee and question ballots are yet to be counted. Additionally, absentee ballots sent from overseas will be accepted until next Wednesday, when they will be counted. It's looking more and more likely that a recount will happen ... which means another two week wait.

[By the way, if there's a tie, the election is decided by coin flip. Yes, a coin flip. It happened two years ago in the Democrat primary in Alaska State House District 39, where both candidates were tied with 767 votes, and the incumbent Democrat was knocked off by a challenger when he called tails. Ridiculous ... right?]

I originally predicted a 35 to 40% turnout in the Alaska primary back in March. With these votes in, the turnout is now 39.3%. Looks like my expectations will be exceeded ... this, along with Palin at the top of the ticket, should make every Democrat candidate, statewide to legislative, afraid for massive Republican and conservative-independent turnout in November.

# MY LAST UPDATE FOR THIS POST (I PROMISE) @ 1:35 PM Alaska, 5:35 PM Eastern #

99.77% of precincts reporting. 1 precinct left from the rural interior. Young has a 152 vote lead:

• LEDOUX, Gabrielle: 8618 votes - 9.21%
• PARNELL, Sean: 42387 votes - 45.31%
• YOUNG, Don: 42539 votes - 45.47%

--------------------

***** READING THE ABSENTEE TEA LEAVES @ 12:45 PM Alaska, 4:45 PM Eastern *****

Just talked to an operative in Alaska that was on neither side of the race, and he agreed with the previous analysis: "If Don pulls this one off, Don didn't win. Sean lost." Apparently, Parnell had around an 8 to 10 point lead this time one week ago, and then the DCCC sent out an attack mailer on Sean, as Jeff Roberts points out, and Don's campaign put out some well done TV and radio ads, like this one attacking the Club for Growth endorsement and support of the Lt. Governor.

Some on this post have blamed Gov. Huckabee and his PAC for endorsing Young, and even Ron Paul can out in support of Young. But the overestimated benefits of endorsements go both ways here. The Parnell campaign might have overestimated the power of Sarah Palin's endorsement, and the commenters below might be overestimating the power of Huckabee's endorsements. Endorsements are overrated!

But on to the future. This Anchorage Daily News item describes how the post-election day process will work in this race:

"There are also the 16,000 absentee ballots the division of elections mailed out. It has received back 7,600 of them and Gail Fenumiai, director of the state division of elections, said she didn't know how many of those have been counted. As long as the absentee ballots were postmarked Tuesday, the division will continue to count them for the next 10 days. Questioned ballots will be counted on Sept. 5."

If most of the absentee ballots haven't been counted, I would tend to give the advantage to Parnell because people have been able to send in their ballots over the past couple months, and the absentee electorate usually reflects people's opinions at the time of their vote (in these instances, when Parnell had a solid lead.) But who knows. The word is both campaigns are digging in their heels for a recount.

--------------------

**** YOUNG TAKES LEAD @ 5:15 AM Alaska, 9:15 AM Eastern ****

9 precincts left to go from rural Alaska, 97.95% reporting, and Young has taken a 145 vote lead:

• LEDOUX, Gabrielle: 8589 votes - 9.20%
• PARNELL, Sean: 42316 votes - 45.32%
• YOUNG, Don: 42461 votes - 45.48%

Unbelievable race! Ironman asks what Parnell could have done. As I say below, candidates need to introduce themselves (their story, their accomplishments, their unique qualities) rather than having a campaign based on your opponent being "Mr. Bluster" and the support of an extremely popular governor. I won't reveal who I voted for, but when you contrast yourself with your opponents, you can't just define your opponent and stop there; you have to define yourself as well.

The Club for Growth just dropped a huge amount of coin in Alaska to help Sean Parnell. $350k for 2 weeks, the largest independent expenditure in a federal race in Alaska history, according to one AK operative. Here's the ad:

CfG has taken care of the negative. Now go help Sean Parnell with the positive. Give money to Sean Parnell.

Last night, KTUU (the NBC affilliate in Anchorage) held two separate primary election debates for Alaska's lone congressional seat, one for the two Democrats and the other for the three Republicans. I don't have the whole debate yet, but you can see some detailed coverage from the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU. (Sidenote: The ADN and KTUU essentially have a media duopoly in Alaska, and both are as liberal as you get in a red state.)

By now everybody knows two of the three Republican candidates: incumbent Don Young and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell. The unknown factor is Gabrielle Ledoux, a former mayor of Kodiak and currently a state legislator. Although she's a long shot, and has been known to have liberal tendencies in the state legislature, Ledoux is a very good fundraiser and has been running ads statewide for three weeks. After a couple weeks of ads, her poll numbers jumped from 1% to 10% in the horserace, with most of that vote probably coming from the "anti-Don" crowd. Those who are supporting Sean Parnell are concerned.

The two Democrats who are running couldn't be any more different. Diane Benson is a Native Alaskan who has a son who was injured in Iraq. She ran against Don last year and received 40% of the vote. Although she was the former standard-bearer of the Alaska Green Party, which opposed drilling in ANWR (something that the Alaska Democratic Party won't go near), she has now modified her position. Benson seems to have a solid constituency with rural Alaskans and those within the party that feels that she deserves the nomination based on the last cycle's result.

Ethan Berkowitz is a former five-term legislator, four of those terms as Democratic Minority Leader in the State House. He is the odds on favorite. When I was talking to a reporter whose family is involved in the Alaska Democratic Party, she described Ethan Berkowitz as essentially a carbon copy of former Governor Tony Knowles and current senate candidate Mark Begich: someone who comes off as a right-leaning moderate Democrat in order to be pragmatic, but is actually very liberal at heart.

The primary is on August 26th. Sarah Palin's primary victory two years ago produced a 35% turnout, one of the highest primary turnouts in state history. Two contested house races as well as plenty of ballot initiatives will probably get 35-40% out again. Watch closely!

A bad day for Don Young is a good day for America. Thank you to Grover Norquist for helping to deliver a bad day to Young by declaring him a Tax Pledge Violator

Don Young (R-Alaska) violated the solemn oath he took to his constituents by voting for H.R. 2642, the Blue Dog Tax Hike. [...] “Republicans that vote for tax increases are like rat heads in Coke bottles,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “They ruin the Republican brand for all members. It should be readily apparent to a former ’Hero of the Taxpayer Award’ recipient that you don’t vote for tax hikes.”

Bless Grover's heart. And give money to Sean Parnell.

Turns out that Don Young is lying with a new ad claiming the endorsement from a group that has not given it. From the Anchorage Daily News

Now, Young has been running radio ads boasting that he landed an award from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group that combs through appropriations bills to root out government waste.

As the article noted, TCS has tried to shame them:

Taxpayers for Common Sense did give Young an award in 2003 -- but it isn't the kind of honor most members of Congress brag about. The group awarded Young their Golden Fleece Award for his backing of the Ketchikan-to-Gravina Island bridge, which became a powerful symbol of out-of-control spending and associated many Republicans with the worst excesses of earmarking.

 Get this clown out of Congress. Give money to Sean Parnell.

Also, we are gratified to note that Young won't be getting a "Hero of the Taxpayer" award from ATR in 2008:

Meanwhile, Norquist points out that even though Young achieved hero status for his 2007 votes, he will not for his 2008 votes. Young voted to support a war supplemental funding bill that includes an expansion of the GI Bill and additional unemployment benefits adding up to more than $71 billion over the next decade.

Two :15 spots from ClubforGrowth.net on Don Young and the gas tax. If Young had his way, it would be $5 gas.

Time to give the boot to the AFL-CIO's favorite Republican by supporting Sean Parnell. And if you need some more convincing, watch this:

It turns out that the written instruction for Don Young's interns included directions to, basically, give free reins to certain lobbyists. From The Hill:

The guidelines designate several lobbyists as members of the “A Team.” Interns who answered the phone were instructed to let these lobbyists speak to any staff member requested. ...

Members of the so-called A Team include Rick Alcalde of Potomac Partners, Colin Chapman of Chapman Capitol Consulting Group, Randy DeLay of Public/Private Strategies Consult, Billy Lee Evans of Kessler & Associates Business Services, former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) of JD Consulting, C.J. Zane of Blank Rome Government Relations and Jack Ferguson of Jack Ferguson Associates. Randy DeLay is former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) brother.

TPM Muckraker, which has the original documents, notes that Rick Alcade is also "the lobbyist on the notorious Coconut Road earmark."

Great. Let's please get rid of this guy. Go help Sean Parnell and get crooks like Don Young out of office.

A Democratic consultant in Alaska told me that the politics up there are fascinating. You have a civil war in the Republican Party between the old guard and new reformists. And you have a Democratic Party that is targeting the old guard. The consultant admitted that if Governor Sarah Palin continue to box them out on reform, ethics, and a degree of populism, it will be very hard for the Democrats to win any races. The News-Miner has a great wrap of these races.

The good news is at the House level, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell is looking to defeat incumbent Rep. Don Young (R) in the primary. Parnell is up 37-34 over Young in the primary. In addition, Parnell defeats the likely Democratic challenger, 43-38, while Young loses 58-38.

On the other hand, the Senate seat is looking quite bad. Democratic candidate Mark Begich is up 51-44 over Ted Stevens. I have heard that Begich's advisors biggest fear is that Stevens would get out and be replaced by a young, less-crooked Republican. They don't think that they could beat a generic Republican.

I think that these polls bear a lesson for us. If Republicans are serious about small government, clean government, and reform, we can win. John McCain is showing life in a horrific environment with precisely this formula. And it is working in Alaska. Will anyone in Washington notice?