Tag: AK-AL

Huge news out of Alaska: former Democratic State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz has announced that he will run against the muck-encrusted GOP Rep. Don Young.  Berkowitz, considered a rising star within the state party, served five terms in the state House from 1996-2006 and ran for Lt. Governor on the ticket led by Tony Knowles last year.  You can check out his campaign website here.

Berkowitz has been heavily courted by the DCCC to run for the seat, but his name has also been mentioned as a potential opponent to Internet guru and Senator Ted Stevens if Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich passed on that race.  This is a pretty big development, as Begich and Berkowitz have been in contact with each other during the past few months to co-ordinate their potential campaigns and each settle on a target (Stevens or Young).  With Berkowitz formally in the ring against Young, we can safely assume that it’s a Senate bid or nothing for Begich.

Berkowitz faces former Alaska Democratic Party Chairman Jake Metcalfe and 2006 nominee Diane Benson in the Democratic primary.

UPDATE: It looks like Young will have a primary opponent–state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, a former Democrat.

Race Tracker: AK-AL

From the Anchorage Daily News:

Jake Metcalfe, former Anchorage School Board president and former head of the state Democratic Party, announced late Sunday that he plans to run against Don Young in the 2008 congressional election.

“All this stuff has been coming out, there's been a barrage of new information about the corruption and the ethics violations, and I thought, 'You know, somebody's got to run against him,' ” he said.

“I just figured I'd do it.”

Metcalfe, an attorney for IBEW, grew up in Southeast Alaska in a large, well-known Juneau family. He worked previously as a prosecutor in Bethel. He said by cell phone from Washington, D.C., Sunday night that he plans to file the paperwork today.

Metcalfe joins 2006 nominee Diane Benson in the primary for the Democratic nomination.  And I suspect that those two won't have the race to themselves, considering that the DCCC and DSCC have been courting the likes of former state Rep. (and 2006 Lt.-Gov. nominee) Ethan Berkowitz and Anchorage mayor Mark Begich to take on the embattled Young and Senator Ted Stevens (who had his home raided today by the FBI and the IRS, incidentally).  If there are Democrats who ever wanted to move on up in Alaska and aim for statewide federal office, 2008 could very well be their best shot in decades, with corruption investigations heating up against the once-popular incumbents and the Club For Growth making suggestions that it might finance a primary or two in the state.

Metcalfe, for his part, seems to have gotten tired of watching the courted candidates wait as Stevens and Young implode:

Metcalfe said that former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz and Mayor Mark Begich have also been considering a run against Young. Neither could be reached.

Young has a large campaign war chest and any candidate who runs against him needs to start early raising money and making connections across the state, Metcalfe said.

“People have to quit waiting for other people to make up their minds,” he said.

“The Democrats are in the majority, and we've got a back-bencher for an incumbent,” he said. “He's no longer powerful. …We need someone that's in the majority.”

With Republicans mired in scandal upon scandal, Berkowitz and Begich would be utterly insane not to run in 2008.  Perhaps Metcalfe's entry in the race will bump up the timeline for one of them.

First Stevens, and now Don Young (FL-AL, by the way).  How long will these geezers be able to hold off the sharks?

(H/T: TPM Muckraker and RandySF) 

In two successive election cycles, Alaska voters have shown signs of discontent with statewide politics as usual.  In 2004, newly-appointed Sen. Lisa Murkowski narrowly survived a challenge from Democrat Tony Knowles, while Bush crushed Kerry in the state.  Less than two years later, Murkowski's father, Frank, was ejected from the Governor's office by collecting a stunning 19% of the Republican primary vote amid charges of arrogance, nepotism, and wasteful spending.  At the same time, Alaska's long-serving Representative Don Young won re-election by his smallest margin in years, garnering 57% of the vote against underfunded, unknown Democratic challenger Diane Benson.

On top of it all, once invincible incumbents like Young (FL-AL) and Senator Ted Stevens are appearing much more mortal lately, with FBI investigations swirling around Stevens and his son regarding unethical transactions with the VECO Corporation (including a generous remodeling of the elder Stevens' home), and revelations that Young is not only wasting taxpayers' dollars in Alaska, he's doing it in Florida, too, with pleasant “side-effects” for a major contributor to his campaign (but no apparent benefit for Alaska, of course).

According to Roll Call, the Club For Growth, an organization always eager to intervene in Republican primaries in order to advance its Lochner Era economic agenda, is sniffing blood in the water.  In a poll commissioned by the CFG, 66% of likely Republican primary voters disapproved of the $223 million “bridge to nowhere” (a project vigorously defended by Stevens and Young), 71% believe that federal pork to Alaska should be cut, and 47% believe that it is time for a new Senator to replace Stevens.

Roll Call adds that such a salvo is well-timed, as some state Republicans are weighing challenges to Stevens or Young:

At least seven Republicans reportedly are mulling bids. Former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman is on the list, as is former state Senate President Mike Miller, who challenged Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) for the GOP nod when she sought a full term in 2004

While the Club For Growth has yet to commit to funding a primary challenge to either of these incumbents, I fully welcome their involvement.  Given the Club's dubious track record of backing candidates who struggle with mainstream appeal in solidly Republican districts (Bill Sali in ID-01, Doug Lamborn in CO-05, Tim Walberg in MI-07, Adrian Smith in NE-03, etc.), and the assist that they could provide Democrats by raising Stevens and Young's negatives while helping to drain the incumbents' cash reserves before the general election, a pair of primaries could be a very entertaining sideshow on the way to 2008.  It would be especially entertaining, of course, if the DSCC and the DCCC get their way and Anchorage mayor Mark Begich and 2006 Lt. Gov. nominee Ethan Berkowitz enter the races under the Democratic banner.

In the meantime, you've gotta love money quotes like this one from CFG wingnut extraordinaire Pat Toomey:

“Like the rest of the country, Alaska taxpayers are fed up with runaway spending, wasteful projects, and the corruption that they can breed,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. “Defending his pork career in 2001, Ted Stevens told National Public Radio, ‘I am guilty of asking the Senate for pork and proud of the Senate for giving it to me.’ Clearly, the sentiment isn’t shared by Republican primary voters back home.”

According to The Hill, the DCCC has targeted 14 Republican incumbents for web/phone/radio hits starting on Monday. Here’s the full list, including each district’s Presidential vote in the last two cycles:

State	CD	Incumbent	Kerry ’04	Bush ’04	Gore ’00	Bush ’00
AK	AL	Young	36	61	28	59
CO	4	Musgrave	41	58	37	57
IL	10	Kirk	53	47	51	47
MI	9	Knollenberg	49	51	47	51
MO	6	Graves	42	57	44	53
NC	8	Hayes	45	54	46	54
NJ	7	Ferguson	47	53	48	49
NM	1	Wilson	51	48	48	47
NV	3	Porter	49	50	49	48
NY	25	Walsh	50	48	51	45
NY	29	Kuhl	42	56	43	53
PA	3	English	47	53	47	51
VA	2	Drake	42	58	43	55
WV	2	Capito	42	57	44	54

However, only seven districts (NC-08, MI-09, AK-AL, NV-03, NY-25, WV-02 and MO-06) are getting the radio ads. But this is a good indicator, perhaps, of the districts that the DCCC plans to aggressively contest next year. While many of these look tough, dynamite candidates in State Senator John Unger and Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes (MO-06) could very well be map changers.

MyDD’s Jonathan Singer recently had an excellent pair of posts chronicling the ethics controversies currently swirling around two of Alaska’s Republican federal statewide officeholders: Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens.  While the FBI is sniffing around Stevens and his son, Young has been catching heat for inserting a $10 million dollar earmark in a 2006 transportation bill that just so happened to boost the fortunes of a local real estate developer–and Don Young fundraiser–over the objections of local officials:

The Republican congressman whose district does include Coconut Road says he did not seek the money. County authorities have twice voted not to use it, until Mr. Young and the district congressman wrote letters warning that a refusal could jeopardize future federal money for the county. […]

Mr. Young’s role, first reported by The Naples Daily News, has escalated objections to the project. Environmentalists say the interchange would threaten wetlands. And a Republican commissioner of Lee County, Ray Judah, is campaigning against the interchange, calling it an example of Congressional corruption that is “a cancer on the federal government.”

“It would appear that Don Young was doing a favor for a major contributor,” Mr. Judah said.

With former Governor Tony Knowles having flamed out in two successive elections, Democrats are setting their eyes on recruiting who they believe will be their party’s next great hope to take on one of these highly-entrenched incumbents next year:

With a trio of stories today involving ethical allegations against Alaska Republicans, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich’s phone started ringing early with calls from Capitol Hill.

Begich, a popular mayor who won his second three-year term a year ago, is being courted to challenge one or the other of Alaska’s longtime Republican incumbents, who have more than 73 years of combined congressional experience. He’s the son of the late Rep. Nick Begich (D-Alaska), who died in a 1972 plane crash with the late Rep. Hale Boggs (D-La.), in a remote part of the Frontier State. Begich, now 44, was 10 at the time.

Facing a term limit in the spring of 2009, Begich is in a minor bidding war between the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which wants him to challenge Rep. Don Young (R), who took his father’s seat after the crash — and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — seeking a challenger to Sen. Ted Stevens (R), 83, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history.

Now, if you were Begich, which race would you prefer to take a crack at?  Barring a retirement by either of these geezers (which is not outside the realm of possibility), I’d lean in favor of a Begich vs. Young match-up.  Both Young and Stevens are institutions within Alaska, but Stevens moreso, what with his seniority and his curious tie collection.  And while Young has cruised to comfortable re-election margins after a couple of scares in the early 1990s, the luster was removed after his relatively humble performance against little-known Democrat Diane Benson in 2006, where Young only won by a 57-40 margin despite outspending Benson by a nearly 10-to-1 ratio.  (Compare that to his 2002 and 2004 wins of 75-17 and 71-23, respectively.)

On top of that, the potential negative campaign narrative against Young could be devastating.  The last time I checked, Alaska and Florida are on polar opposite ends of the United States, and that could be especially damning if Begich and the DCCC slam Young for being “the unofficial representative of Florida.”   “Don Young (FL-AL)” has a pretty good ring to it, wouldn’t you say?

Race Tracker: AK-Sen | AK-AL