Diane Benson Featured in Article About Women Candidates

AK-AL U.S. House candidate, Democrat Diane Benson, is one of the woman candidates featured in an article published on the progressive web site, Truthout, late last week. The article, by Maya Schenwar, is titled Women in the Running.

Although the article starts out by stating the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination has opened doors of perception and acceptability for other woman candidates as well, Schenwar notes that "the struggle for women's voices to be heard in the political sphere will be far from over.

"Despite all the focus on Clinton's gender over the course of her campaign," Schenwar continues, "there's been surprisingly little discussion of the gender makeup of the political system as a whole."

The author briefly mentions the ongoing campaigns of Maryland activist Donna Edwards and former Kansas City, Missouri Mayor, Kay Barnes. But it centers around Benson's Alaska campaign, and old-school Democratic Party perceptions that men are more electable than women. Schenwar cites a Gallup poll, taken before the 2000 election, that found "more than three-quarters of Americans reject the idea that, 'On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do.'"

Alaska's Diane Benson, who garnered about 94,000 votes against Don Young in 2006, while spending only something over $200,000 in a grassroots campaign, compared then rather favorably against the gubernatorial campaign of Tony Knowles and Ethan Berkowitz. The latter males, while spending well over $1,000,000 on their campaign against a woman they outspent by over $300,000, pulled in only about 97,000 votes. And they lost in a three-way race against two Republican-oriented tickets.

In 2006, the Alaska Democratic Party was discouraged by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's then-chair, Rahm Emanuel, from supporting Benson's campaign against Young. Emanuel's strategy of concentrating on supporting male candidates who favored anti-union free trade treaties, lax regulation of the mortgage industry, and were willing to rubber-stamp George Bush's war policies, was contrasted in 2006, by Democratic National Committee Chairman, Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, which tended to back more progressive candidates, and far more females than did Emanuel.

After the 2006 elections, as the corporate media credited Emanuel's strategy as having brought control of the U.S. House to the Democrats, more savvy observers wrote that had Dean's strategy been followed more fervently, the Democratic Party's pickups would have been more considerable. And far less likely to enable George Bush's failing, flailing policies.

The now-disgraced Jake Metcalfe's fervent support of Rahm Emanuel and his anti-progressive policies in 2006, have been replaced in 2008's Alaska campaign map, by Emanuel's warm embrace of Ethan Berkowitz's campaign. Emanuel has emerged as the most fervent member of the Joe Lieberman-founded, anti-net neutrality, anti-union, pro-international deregulation group, the New Democrat Coalition. The NDC is, in reality, a kind of Blue Dog Democrat lite. Though Berkowitz has stated to me, that "under no circumstances will he feel obligated to Emanuel for the [Emanuel's] largesse," that's not likely, though, for any freshman member of the house. Berkowitz has to sound tough, though, to face off against the considerably tougher, considerably taller, Benson.

Benson has pulled in endorsements from the National Organization of Women, the National Women's Caucus, the Alaska Women's Caucus, and is garnishing increasing material support from Emily's List, one of the country's most effective PACs. Recently, when two Alaska state-level functionaries of the National Womens' Caucus participated in a fundraiser for Berkowitz, they were admonished by the national organization.

Benson's support in Alaska's Native community is growing rapidly. There are several reasons for this, not least of which was the Native and women's rights communities' responses to Anchorage Daily News reporter Lisa Demer's May 1 article, Native Women Address Violence Rates. Benson, who before the article, had participated in scores of such confidential conferences in Alaska and elsewhere, once the horrific specifics of her years in foster care as a child became public, decided to use the scrutiny this violence is now getting as an opportunity to bring more attention to this important issue.

This Friday, Benson and Berkowitz will be attending the Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska's candidate forum. Don Young, Gabrielle LeDoux and Sean Parnell are also invited, but will probably be phoning in to the forum. The questions, to be handled by Mat-Su Valley Democratic Party activist, Erick Corduro, will be on immigration, education, healthcare and the economy.

images: top - Alaska's long-standing peace activist, Ruth Sheridan, military mom-peace activist Diane Benson, WWII U.S. Navy Veteran and transportation visionary, Lorna Kanus; middle - Diane Benson on her Harley at the 2006 Memorial Day commemoration at Byers Lake; bottom - Diane Benson - not in heels - and Ethan Berkowitz at this winter's AFN Convention in Fairbanks