Tag: Don Young

Ivan Moore Research (9/20-22, likely voters, 8/30-9/2 in parens):

Mark Begich (D): 48 (49)

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 46 (46)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

And here’s the House race:

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 49 (54)

Don Young (R-inc): 44 (37)

In other words: these races are far from over. Ivan Moore offers some candid thoughts on why neither Begich or Berkowitz have been able to put their races away:

My thinking is that Begich stayed too long on his cutesy advertising message: He started off in the car wash talking about minimum wage and congressional pay increases, then segued to a charming No Child Left Behind ad featuring his son Jacob. Nice ads, both of them, but the feel is wrong. They don’t set him up as being strong, decisive and dominant, they don’t give him weight and gravitas, they don’t establish him in effective contrast to Stevens, and I think therein lies the fall in numbers. All this while Ted’s growling about how he’s never going to get taken alive.

Begich needs something strong, something that portrays him as someone who can go to DC and kick ass. He needs to rely less on attack ads from the DSCC, which I don’t think are doing him any good, and more on convincing people that he’s got the balls to do this job.

I’m inclined to agree with his note on the DSCC’s ads being counter-productive in this race. Look, you won’t find a bigger booster of the party committees in the blogosphere than us, but the DSCC injecting itself into this contest allows Ted Stevens to frame the race around “enemies of Alaska” trying to “take him down”. This stuff does not play well in Alaska. Just ask the Club For Growth, who learned their lesson the hard way.

And here’s Moore on Berkowitz:

Berkowitz, on the other hand, has a problem. In the last two months, his positive hasn’t moved anywhere and his negative’s gone up nearly ten points. That despite a bunch of pre-primary advertising and a solid win in the primary. He needs to catch fire and he’s not going about it the right way to make it happen. So far, we’ve seen him doing the walking and talking thing on his ads, and having a little love-in on his deck with people hanging on his every word. But for goodness sakes, he’s running against Don Young! Where’s the feistiness, where’s the strength, where’s the toughness, where’s the courage that he had in Juneau to stand up to the powerbrokers and the lobbyists and the corruption? It hasn’t appeared yet, and as a result, the race has narrowed to just five points.

Berkowitz and Begich both have the same problem. Both these races set up perceptually as contests between a couple of intellectual, wishy-washy, weak-kneed, liberal Ds (and that’s not me talking, I’m channeling voter thoughts out there) and a couple of tough, grizzled, possibly corrupt but otherwise experienced old warhorses who know how to get the job done. It’s incumbent on the Ds to show that the perception of them is false, and that they can stand toe-to-toe with Stevens and Young. But time is running out.

Food for thought.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin just declined to endorse Ted Stevens. That can’t help.

In the diaries, Andy Dufresne makes a nice catch — if GOP Rep. Don Young loses his primary bid to Sean Parnell, he won’t rule out an Independent run in November:

Asked if he would consider running as an Independent if he lost the primary, Young said he hadn’t considered it.

“It’s a good idea; I might,” he said. “But I don’t expect him to win the primary.”

Now, the next logical question is: Is it possible for Young to get on the ballot as an Indie?

A quick legal analysis of Alaska electoral statutes by the Law Offices of Crumb & Bum, LLC, tells us that the only path for Young would be to wage a write-in campaign. The deadline for filing petitions to get on the ballot was primary day, so the write-in option is really Young’s only choice:

If a candidate does not appear on the primary election ballot or is not successful in advancing to the general election and wishes to be a candidate in the general election, the candidate may file as a write-in candidate.

However, all of this may be moot, as Young still holds a 152-vote lead with one precinct — but several thousand absentee and questioned ballots — outstanding.

Andy cranks it up a notch by looking at the district-by-district returns in Alaska, and finds that Young has actually performed slightly better among the absentee ballots counted so far than he has in the overall vote. That seems to be a good sign that the outstanding absentee ballots will help The Donald pad his preciously narrow margin.

We still likely won’t have a final answer for another couple of weeks, which is fantastic news for Ethan Berkowitz. According to Roll Call, the state will take another 10 to 15 days to count absentee and provisional ballots, and a winner will be certified on Sept. 17th or 18th. But that’s not all:

If the final difference between the two candidates is less than a half percentage point, a defeated candidate or 10 voters can petition a recount with the state footing the bill. If the difference between Parnell and Young is more than a half percentage point, a recount could be implemented at their own expense to the tune of about $15,000.

The recount would take an additional three to five days, pushing the GOP tension and uncertainty all the way into late September.

This may sting a little:

After softening up scandal-encrusted GOP Rep. Don Young (FL-AL AK-AL) with a $100,000 ad buy in July, the Club For Growth is going in for what it hopes is the killing stroke: a massive $350,000 negative ad campaign for the last two weeks of his primary campaign against Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux.

A buy of this size is gargantuan for Alaska’s dirt cheap media market, and the ads will likely saturate broadcast and cable to an extreme degree. I’d love to see the point size of this buy, because I bet it’s eye-popping.

Basswood Research for Sean Parnell (8/5, likely voters):

Sean Parnell (R): 42

Don Young (R-inc): 38

Gabrielle LeDoux (R): 8

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Last week we saw a poll for the GOP primary in the Alaska House race from Ivan Moore that had Young up by a solid 8-point margin. The Parnell camp counters with its own internal poll showing him beating Young by 4 points. The sample was taken on Aug. 5, so this is post-Trooper-gate.

The poll doesn’t appear to test the various configurations for the general election. The primary will be held Aug. 26.

In other somewhat-related grumpy-old-corrupt-guys-from-Alaska news, the feds are fighting Ted Stevens’ attempts to change the venue of his trial from Washington DC to Alaska, claiming the unlikelihood of finding an impartial jury. This is important, because a) any delay makes it less likely the trial will be resolved before Election Day, and b) Stevens will be able to campaign in his off-hours if the trial is in Alaska, while he can’t if he’s stuck in DC.

Ivan Moore Research (7/18-22, likely voters):

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 52

Don Young (R-inc.): 37

Don Wright (I): 7

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 40

Sean Parnell (R): 43

Don Wright (I): 5

(n=505)

Lost in all the hubbub from a couple weeks ago when several polls showed Mark Begich opening up a huge lead on Ted Stevens (even before the Stevens indictment) was that, in the fine print, Ivan Moore also polled Alaska’s House seat as well. Former state House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz leads corruption-scented incumbent Don Young by a sizable margin but barely loses to comparatively clean Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

The good news for Berkowitz: the primary matchups are also polled, and this shows Young with an edge over Parnell. The poll was taken just as Trooper-gate was breaking (in fact, that’s one of the problems with polling over multiple days: Trooper-gate was significantly more broken on the 22nd than on the 18th), so it may show Parnell getting hit with some Palin blowback. He may be in an even worse position now, as he’s taken a decidedly low-profile approach since the scandal surfaced. The primary is August 26.

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 54

Diane Benson (D): 25

Don Wright (D?): 5

(n=284)

Don Young (R-inc.): 46

Sean Parnell (R): 38

Gabrielle LeDoux (R): 6

(n=250)

Special thanks to Ivan Moore for sharing these numbers with the Swing State Project. The full results are available below the fold.

Hot on the heels of the news that Don Young was outraised in Q2 by both primary opponent Sean Parnell and likely general election opponent Ethan Berkowitz is one more thing Young’s gotta worry about: the Club for Growth just made a $100,000 TV ad buy targeting him. (And in Alaska’s cheapo media market, $100,000 goes a long, long way.)

The 15-second ads hit Alaska’s avuncular, blustery, corrupt GOP representative over seemingly out-of-context comments in favor of a higher gas tax.

“I’d suggest we raise the taxes to a dollar a gallon,” Young says in a clip in one of the ads. “That makes you put your money where your mouth is.”

The Club for Growth has endorsed Parnell over Young’s addiction to pork. Unfortunately (for our pickup chances), while polls show Young losing to Berkowitz, they show the ostensibly ‘clean’ Parnell beating Berkowitz, and CFG’s moneybomb makes its likelier than Parnell wins the Aug. 26 primary. As I’ve said before, it’s a case of “Vote for the crook, it’s important!”

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire has an excellent piece up about a leaked unofficial document entitled “The 2111: An Intern’s Survival Guide” that was authored by interns of scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Don Young in 2007. The whole thing is worth a read if only to get a sense of what it’s like to work with the cantankerous Young and his wife.

One juicy detail is the so-called “A Team” — a group of lobbyists that interns are instructed to give unrestricted access to anyone in the office they like:

The A Team: Rick Alcalde, Colin Chapman, Randy DeLay, Billy Lee Evans, Jack Ferguson, Mike Henry, Duncan Smith, C.J. Zane, and Jay Dickey. These people can talk to whomever they want, normally Mike or Sara. Tell them who it is and transfer over unless they say otherwise. I recommend looking up who they are.

A good recommendation — one that the WSJ followed up on:

Some, like Alcalde, are tied to an ongoing investigation into a $10 million earmark Young secured for Coconut Road in Florida. Alcalde, a transportation lobbyist, worked for a real estate developer who sought the earmark and was a major financial contributor to Young’s campaign. DeLay is the Houston-based lobbyist brother of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Ferguson is a former chief of staff to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who is also under federal investigation. Evans and Dickey are former congressmen, and Henry, Smith, Zane, and Chapman are former Young staffers.

When not bending over backwards for Young’s lobbyist pals, the congressman’s interns work hard to accommodate their boss’ personality quirks:

When he calls put him straight through. If whoever he wants is not her [sic] give it to Mike, if Mike is not here: Sara. You will not get this right, there is no way to. He does not introduce himself, should you realize who he is you will find another way to get it wrong. Rise above it.

Does not like facial piercings.

Keep your hands out of your pockets.

Expects you to open doors for him (particularly tricky when he does not specify where he is going, make a guess)

And Mrs. Young:

Wants Pumpkin Seeds when she says sunflower seeds

Don’t stand in her way-don’t stand anywhere I would suggest. Sit down or hide in the broom cupboard.

Does not tolerate noise from the computers.

Does not like Cologne

Eat what she tells you to eat.

If you sneeze it’s always allergies or pressure changes; stick strong to your case.

Wild.

According to some new polls from Hellenthal (5/6-10), we've got some mixed news coming to us out of Alaska.  First, the good news:

AK-Sen:

Mark Begich (D): 51  

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 44

(MoE: ±6%)

      Now, the tricky stuff:

 AK-AL:

Sean Parnell (R): 37

Don Young (R-inc): 34

Gabrielle LeDoux (R): 8

Sean Parnell (R): 43

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 38

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 58

Don Young (R-inc): 38

So apparently, it's not the GOP "brand" itself that is suffering in Alaska; it's the corruption of two particular elected officials.  Luckily, Stevens has no primary challenge (thus far!). [UPDATE: See below.]  As far as Young is concerned . . . I guess we've got to hope he beats Parnell in the primary, or else our chances of taking that House seat are significantly diminished.

UPDATE (James): While the article doesn’t offer any head-to-heads, the same poll tested Stevens’ strength against his GOP primary challenger, Dave Cuddy, and found Stevens ahead by 15%. Weak.

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.

Don Young filed for re-election as Alaska’s deadline neared opening up a knock down drag out battle with Sean Parnell for the GOP nod.  Young’s announcement was frankly weird.  He admitted to be aggressive and a bully in Washington but said he got along with Alaskans unless they crossed him.  It sounded like bad dialogue from one of those really old westerns.

Young’s campaign site is further testament to his overblown ego.  While he uses the headline “Congressman for All Alaska”, Young freely admits that he only represents the people who vote for him and not those who voted for the other candidates.  I guess he’s not the Congressman for All Alaskans.

Then new headlines emerge: “No one has done more.  No one can do more.” All this while some truly magnificent pictures of Alaska scenery stream by in the background.  Folks, the site is borderline delusional and has just a hint of borderline blasphemy to it.  Don Young did not create mountains and glaciers and all these neat thins.  IIRC, no people either.  Guess he gets along better with the scenery than with the people.

Young’s announcement was expected and it may not have been the craziest item over the wekend. That probably goes to Amendment 48, a proposed set of changes to the Colorado Constitutionthat would change the definition of “person” to include “any human being from the moment of fertilization.”  The Amendment will be on the November 4 ballot having already survived a Colorado Court challenge and received 103,000 valid signatures.

Prominent backers of the Amendment include the Colorado Springs based Focus on the Family and the Catholic Church.  The Amendment would allow what the Denver Post blithely called the “preborn” to due and be sued just like real or corporate persons. The Denver Post says it “would guarantee the pre-born the right to life, liberty sand due process of law.”

Clearly, the Amendment would jeopardize the status of abortion and abortion providers within Colorado while opening up mew forms of employment for Colorado lawyers.  Mom, Dad, and the pre-born plus the prosecutor.  How expensive and nuts.  In the hands of a zealous prosecutor or a wingnut lawyer the number of suits against mom-to-be (or is it mom?) who drinks, drives fast or even over indulges on junk food is clearly in the cards.

I also wonder whether “pre-borns” would count in Colorado’s census and reapportionment (local) issues.  In 2006 Colorado had 70,737 borths giving the “pre-born” a population of 53,000.  Averaging over 5 years, the number would be 51,000.  How would you like to lose a Congressman to the pre-born? (And yes it sounds like the pre-cogs from that Tom Cruise picture of a few years ago).

The strategy is to make abortion this year’s anti-gun or anti-gay theme to turn out fundies in Colorado.  The state’s three Republican Congress critters are Tom Tancredo, Marilyn Musgrave and Doug Lamborn who flirts with the lowest score in the country on the Progressive Punch scale.  Lamborn may not be sufficiently colorful enough as he seems to be generating some serious opposition.

Colorado and Alaska are tied in, of course, by the use of Mt. denali as photo footage background by Senate candidate Bob Schaffer.

The Boston Globe is reporting that top Republican recruit Jim Ogonowski fell 82 valid signatures short of the required number to place on the primary ballot. Ogo’s spokesman says he has the signatures but they haven;t been reported yet.  Ogo’s opponent says he’ll mount a challenge if Ogo breaks the barrier. Fun, fun, fun.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, New Mexico’s Pajamas Pete Domenici is endorsing his protege, Heather Wilson, for the Senate calling Wilson one of the smartest people he knows.  A few years ago, this would have been a touching and meaningful tribute.  Now?  Who knows.

Background on the Staten Island situation.  A City Council member makes $112,000 for a part time job.  State Senators make an official $79,500 that expands routinely to $92,000.  Assembly members are more likely to take home $79,500 although many bring home $92 K

.  Given the costs of a second home or the possibility of part time legal work, the $165 salary really is not too attractive.