Everybody’s favorite group of Republican purity trolls, the Club for Growth, has weighed in in the primary for the Alaska at-large house race, and they’re supporting the challenger, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.
Club President Pat Rooney made the case in a Wall Street Journal commentary today entitled simply “Don Young Embodies What’s Wrong With the GOP:”
Mr. Parnell is a solid conservative who led the fight for lower taxes and spending in the state legislature, and joined Gov. Sarah Palin in pushing for reform in the state. The man he is hoping to replace isn’t economically conservative in the least. Mr. Young is actually a poster child for what has gone wrong with the Republican Party in Washington.
Toomey’s commentary, interestingly, steers clear of the fact that Young is under Justice Dept. investigation for ties to Veco, and is armpit-deep in legal fees. Instead, it just focuses on the great right-wing walkback of 2008: that the GOP brand has failed because Republicans haven’t been conservative enough. They’re addicted to earmarks and subsidies (like the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the Coconut Road interchange in Young’s case), and if we just remove those, the clouds will lift and St. Reagan will return to walk the earth again.
But instead of using his power to steer Republicans down a principled, conservative track, he helped derail the GOP train in 2006. Mr. Young spends taxpayer money so wastefully he could make a liberal Democrat blush.
It’s worth noting this is a convenient way for Club for Growth to claim the scalp of one of the less conservative GOP representatives (for all his bluster and corruption, Young was in fact a vote for minimum wage increase, for SCHIP, and for stem cell research)… even though Young’s impending loss has little to do with bedrock conservatism and more to do with Alaska finally being ready to turn the page on its tradition of corruption.
Unfortunately, a Parnell victory in the primary might make our pickup of AK-AL more difficult in the fall, as Parnell is perceived as ‘clean,’ and an ally of popular GOP governor Sarah Palin. Here’s hoping Don Young can survive CfG intervention in the Aug. 26 primary and forestall his demise until November!
SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.
What with their primaries against the corrupt incumbents.
Bah. If Parnell wins, I think this race becomes extremely unlikely, a la Palin-Knowles.
Yeah! Im no fan of the CFG because of their tactics, but I certainly can not help but be excited to see such a large group be working against Young like this. IF only Stevens had a strong primary Republican running against him, but knocking out Young will just have to do, the Democrats will probably take care of Stevens in November.
This election is not even about Young v. Parnell; it is Young v. Palin, and with Palin’s approvals probably 40+ points above Young’s I would be very surprised if Young survived. Parnell is an empty vessel, but as Palin’s proxy he is in pretty great shape to win statewide. I think the general will be close even if it is Berkowitz v. Parnell, but I think it would be tough to win in the end, which is unfortunate.
What we have to hope for is that State Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux runs a very vigorous campaign and is able to siphon enough anti-Young voters away from Parnell to save Young’s behind. I do not see this as LeDoux seems to be a pretty weak candidate, but it is possible. If I were Young, I would hammer Parnell on leaving the state less than two years after being swept into Juneau on a platform of reforming the state. It is hard to believe he accomplished that already. Maybe I should send a strategy memo to Young for Congress :-).
We have discussed this before, but my fear is that if Young is ousted in the primary, a lot of voters looking for change may be satisfied enough and decide to keep Stevens. This would be the worst of both worlds.