Sean Parnell

                                           It is quite difficult to say who is or isn’t running for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2010. I suspect that Mitt Romney is. By all historic measures he is next in line and current levels of activity make it likely that he is running.  I also suspect that Mississippi’s Governor, Haley Barbour is seriously looking at the nomination. John Ensign of Nevada was running. That is until an extramarital affair of his could no longer be hidden and the secret attempts by his mommy and daddy to pay off his mistress all came to light and put an end to that ridiculous notion. 

Some sectors were already campaigning for South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford. With “Draft Sanford” web site’s and rampant prognostications, Sanford was riding a wave of public enthusiasm for a run at the Republican nomination. Then he disappeared from sight for more than 5 days, leaving everyone to wonder what happened to Governor Sanford and where in the world is Mark? The answer to that quickly brought down those “Draft Sanford for President” sites. He was in Argentina with his “soul mate”, a pretty young thing he met some years ago and fell  more in love with her than he was with his wife.

But still riding high as potential candidates in 2010 are Mitt Romney, who trailed McCain in the delegate count in 2008, and Sarah Palin, who McCain chose for Vice President.

Such speculation about Romney can be made out of the level and type of activity that he is wading into.

With his political action committee, Free and Strong America PAC, he is actively involved in critical races throughout the nation, including this years gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and gaining the favor of future elected officials who will be crucial supporters in the future.

He has also become a part of the National Council for a New America, a group of leaders that include Republicans such as former Florida Governor Jeb, Bush, Congressman Eric Cantor and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. This group intends to have a serious national discussion about the challenges facing America, small businesses and working families and they are taking the discussion on the road all across the nation.

Additionally, Romney is bringing in the mother’s milk of political campaigning…….money. His fundraising is constant, consistent and high.

So all are indications that in 2012, Romney will be running for the nomination that he was denied by the Republican establishment in 2008.

As for Sarah Palin, she confused pundits with her surprise resignation as Governor of Alaska and confounded the status quo. Opponents of Palin do not take the reasons she gave for resigning at face value. Instead they claim she is a quitter or that she can’t take the heat. What they neglect to realize is that Sarah Palin is not your average politician. They can’t seem to comprehend that Sarah Palin is genuine. She is a real person with personal beliefs and convictions that are not affected by political ambition, opinion polls or inside the beltway political games. They also fail to realize that Sarah Palin does not live for politics or allow  politics to change her life or principles. To the contrary she stands for her life changing politics.

As such, Sarah Palin made it clear that as a national target of liberal antics geared at attacking her, her agenda for Alaska was being hampered by frivolous legal challenges against every breathe she took, word she muttered and garment she wore. Therefore Sarah Palin decided to circumvent these tactics. Confident that her Lieutenant Governor was dedicated to the agenda that she has taken to this point, she took away the target that hampered its further expeditious advancement . Herself.

Now, no longer an available official government target for the hate-based liberal establishment, Sarah Palin is free and what the left does not realize is that freedom is much more powerful than any government office or liberal government program. With the power of freedom now in her hands, Sarah Palin just might be more of a threat to the left than she ever was and as she uses that freedom, she just might take them on by starting a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Former Vice Presidents and Vice Presidential nominees don’t always have the best shot at being elected President or at getting their parties presidential nomination.

Al Gore got the nomination in 2000 but lost the election. Lieberman was his VP nominee but failed to get the presidential nomination in 2004.

John Edwards got the VP slot in 2004 but failed to get his parties presidential nomination in ’08.

Before them George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon before him, where the only contemporary Vice President’s to eventually move on and win their parties nomination for President, in their own right, and then the presidency itself.

In 1984 Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale won the Democrat’s nomination in ‘84 but lost and Bush 41’s vice president, Dan Quayle, fell off the radar before the Iowa Caucuses took place during his brief attempt to win the Republican nomination in 2000.

So vice presidents and vice presidential nominees don’t necessarily have the inside track to their party’s nomination for President and as we look toward 2012, Sarah Palin will not be on the fast track for it either. If she seeks the nomination, she will still be the target of liberal hypocrisy and their fear driven propaganda and attacks and she will have to fight hard and truly earn the nomination amidst a field that will have a number of formidable choices. Only now the left will not be able to bog her down with frivolous and unwarranted government ethics charges and lawsuits.

Now that Palin has just officially resigned as Governor, she could easily enjoin that race and begin to lace up her running shoes for a long marathon to the White House.

It is hard to tell though.

Sarah could be so pissed at those who have tried to destroy her and her family and who have tried to impede progress in Alaska, that she is either fed up and leaving politics for a more civil path for the promotion of her beliefs or she may simply be reloading her ideological guns as she prepares to take aim at the liberal philosophy and its purveyors who have run amuck and now control government.

So far, there are no concrete indications that make it clear either way. At least there are no indications of the likes that we see with Mitt Romney.

But there is one little clue that could be telling.

The domain names sarahpalinforpresident.com and sarahpalin2012 have recently been claimed and registered.

Normally that could simply be the doing of some dreamy eyed, entrepreneurial, get rich quick minded person who figures on selling those domains to Sarah Palin for big bucks if she does make it official.

However a closer look reveals that these two domain names were registered by Jay Griffin of Anchorage Alaska. Where he is from is not half as important as the fact that he is a close confidant of Sarah Palin and that, along with Palin, he is a member of the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee.

Could Griffin be hoping to make some money off of his friend Sarah Palin if she does run for President? Or, is he and his new domain names just the start of a long campaign to evict Barack Obama from the White House and to take back America from the Pelosi/Reid liberal mentality that is currently infecting our government in flu-like fashion?

Odds are that an exploratory committee for that possibility are in the works.

Click below for more from

The final numbers are in. Congressman Don Young has won the highest turnout primary (40.6%) in Alaska's history by 304 votes. Because the margin is less than 0.5%, Sean Parnell was afforded the right to a state-funded recount. Instead, the lieutenant governor conceded today and said in a statement that because his campaign was based on "treating taxpayer dollars with more respect and greater care," the margin does not justify "an expenditure of taxpayer funds." Here's exactly how close it was:

• LEDOUX, Gabrielle: 9901 votes - 9.34%
• PARNELL, Sean: 47891 votes - 45.19%
• YOUNG, Don: 48195 votes - 45.47%

While I still won't disclose who I voted for because of my previous position within the Alaska Republican Party, I do know there are a lot of readers and writers on The Next Right that were fans and supporters of Sean Parnell. I've made some of the following points before, but they need to be made again in order to give a full analysis of why I believe Sean Parnell lost. And, yes, like a fellow Alaskan political operative repeated to me today, "Don didn't win. Sean lost."

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 day of reckoning is here for candidates and four ballot measures in the Last Frontier. Polls are open from 7 AM to 8 PM local (11 AM to 12 AM EST). The first results come in at 9 PM local (1 AM EST) ... you bet I'm staying up for this one. I might even nap through dinner time and get up to catch Hillary's speech beforehand.

Here's a summary of the races to watch ... I won't be endorsing candidates, but I will speak out against three of the initiatives. If you want to see a smattering of Alaskan ads, here they are.

U.S. Senate - Republican Primary: With a trial coming up in late September, Ted Stevens is still the favorite in this primary among six other candidates. Former legislator and bank president David Cuddy, who ran against Stevens in 1996, has been seen as the alternative; but his campaign has been quite unexciting. Vic Vickers moved up from Florida and claimed residency starting this January and started running anti-corruption ads; rumor has it that he was a Democrat plant. Think what you may of him, but after the indictment, Stevens came out swinging and the amount of positive response to Ted was nothing short of amazing.

U.S. Senate - Democratic Primary: Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich will run away with this one, but not without getting bruised by former GOP legislator, Alaska Republican Moderate Party leader and now registered Democrat Ray Metcalfe who has been exposing Begich's ties with local real estate developers.

Congress At-Large - Republican Primary: This is the race to watch! Lt. Governor Sean Parnell had been the early favorite, but Kodiak State Rep. Gabrielle Ledoux has run three admittedly good ads which put her from 1% to 10% of the vote in the latest polls. It might be because of that that Don Young and Sean Parnell are within the margin of error. While Sean has received the endorsement of Gov. Sarah Palin, I tend not to put a lot of stock into any endorsement, no matter how popular the endorser. Plus, I'm actually more impressed with Don's ads than I am with Sean's. The Anchorage Daily News' gossip column called Don vs. Sean "Mr. Bluster vs. Mr. Bland."

Congress At-Large - Democratic Primary: This pits establishment candidate Ethan Berkowitz against Diane Benson, who received 40% of the vote against Don Young two years ago. Berkowitz was minority leader for many years in the State House, and ran for Governor two years ago before dropping down before the filing deadline to be Tony Knowles' lite gov candidate. Haven't seen any polling, but Berkowitz seems to be the favorite. I won't be surprised if Benson keeps it close.

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!

Good news from Alaska. A Hays Research poll has Sean Parnell slightly ahead, though the sample size is not quite where you'd like it to be:

Hays Research, 400 respondents (175 GOPers), Republican Primary, 7/24-25

Sean Parnell 45.7%
Don Young 42.3%

Kos made a fairly big deal about a Sarah Palin "scandal" a few days back, but the poll still shows Palin with sky-high favorability: 80-16% fav/unfav. And Don Young? He's upside down 41-55%.

The one warning cloud here is that the Parnell general matchup with Democrat Ethan Berkowitz is a tossup, and Young wasn't tested. But you can bet that Young is down by double digits. Alaska has a tendency to close for Republicans in the final days. It did for Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin in 2004 and 2006. Parnell is likely to pull it out. Young isn't.

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: