Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell emerges from his hidey hole to announce that he won’t be switching from the state’s at-large House race to make a run for the Senate:
Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R) has no intention of running for Senate – and he doesn’t expect his boss, Gov. Sarah Palin (R), to run in place of Sen. Ted Stevens (R), who has been indicted on seven counts and is awaiting trial.
“From my perspective, [a Senate bid is] not something that I’m considering, nor would I consider,” Parnell said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.
Of course, as Crisitunity explained, the only way that Parnell would be able to run for Senate is if Stevens wins the primary and then drops out (or is disqualified by being convicted, which is not likely to happen this soon) 48 days or more before the general election. Nah gonna happen.
Because I thought Parnell was the only only with a shot at winning. But with Stevens’ trial starting on September 24th, 40 days before the election this possibility seems very unlikely.
What will Parnell say if for some reason Young wins the House primary? What will Palin say if somehow Young wins the primary? Then they’ll assume the House seat is lost and then they’ll push Stevens out so Palin can nominate Parnell for the Senate race.
If Palin would even hint that she’d nominate Parnell for the Senate seat after the primary, the Alaska GOP could kiss the House seat good-bye.
Stevens won’t find some loophole or way to torricelli his way out of this race. I can’t possibly imagine the Alaska GOP letting him get slaughtered and losing the seat. It’s not a House seat they can pick up again in 2 years. Begich will be represented Alaska for six years.
Looks like a friend of Bob Keller is in the running. The rich guy, Vic Vickers!
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs…
A anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-Republican Republican. Hilarious! We might even be better off if he wins because while there is a possibility that Stevens would withdraw and make things easier for the Republicans Vickers isn’t going to spend close to a million dollars of his money and then turn around and drop out for a party he hates.
Can we get this added to the “Timeline of GOP Disasters” please?
Say what you want about Don Young — and I’ve said it all — but at least he is actually running some sort of campaign. This joker Parnell knows he has zero merits for the job, and he running on the Club for Growth’s dime solely as Queen Sarah’s gofer. This guy is an embarrassment, but sadly he is going to be their nominee.
Still, I really like Ethan Berkowtiz’s chances to beat this empty suit.
“he only way that Parnell would be able to run for Senate is if Stevens wins the primary and then drops out…”
There is another possibility, and that would be a write in candidacy against Stevens.
If the Republicans in Alaska don’t want to be stuck with a criminal leading their ticket, their options in the Senate race are limited — Stevens’ opposition is a mess — Vic Vickers is a self funded nutcase who has only lived in Alaska for 6 months, 2 of the others are fundamentalist pastors, 1 is a perennial candidate. The only even remotely serious candidate is David Cuddy, who served in the state legislature 25 year ago and dumped a million of his own money into a dismal primary challenge to Stevens 12 years ago — and he has absolutely no support among party leaders or grassroots activists.
With that kind of split opposition, Stevens is a near shoo-in for renomination. And Ted Stevens is an SOB who is not going to step aside in the interest of his party or state unless it is part of a plea bargain.
If the state Republican leadership would want to actually hold this seat, their best option would be ditch Stevens now and convince either Parnell or LeDoux to mount a write in challenge, rally the entire state party structure and the media around the challenger , and take Stevens out.
The good news is that isn’t going to happen — the Republican chances for holding this seat get worse every day… and Mark Begich looks like he will end up as the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the Senate in 34 years…. and that is damn good news