Saturday Progressive Blog Roundup - August 16, 2008

Part One - PTSD (Post Ted Stress Disorder) in Alaska Continues:

Steve at What Do I Know? takes a close look at ex-head of the Alaska GOP, Jim Crawford's op-eds in the Anchorage Daily News and Fairbanks News-Miner (the earlier Fairbanks version, as Steve notes, is slightly different). Crawford has a real estate background, and tries to lay out two false arguments regarding the US DOJ indictment of Stevens on failure to report substantial gifts.

Crawford calls the indictment "partisan." I agree with Steve, that watching the prosecutors handle some of these cases already in the courtroom (I've only watched the Kohring case, but Steve has been following all the Anchorage Corrupt Bastard cases closely), one does not come away feeling that this is a "partisan" machine. These are some very conservative, highly professional law enforcement attorneys.

Once again, Steve has written a detailed, reasoned and highly readable analysis that is blog writing at its very best. And, Steve is more passionate pissed than he usually gets.

By the Way, Crawford's two headlines are:

Anchorage --- Girdwood Numbers Just Don't Add Up

Fairbanks --- Stevens Under Political Attack

Mudflats shows a cool aerial photograph of Ted's sweet deal, short-term ownership condo on the Florida Gold Coast.

Howie Klein, at Down With Tyranny! has written a lot about Alaska politics recently. Friday, he covered the addition of the Florida deal to the Feds' case against St. Ted. And Talking Points Memo Muckraker has been back onto Ted a lot recently. At 3:45 p.m. Eastern time yesterday, they posted an article called Ted Stevens Talked To Grand Jury Witness - Feds.

To the best of my googling, this hasn't been picked up in Alaska yet. Here's what Ted said to a grand jury witness, before he or she testified, "I hope we can work something out to make sure you aren't led astray on this occasion."

The Ester Republic blog covered aspects of the Stevens case multiple times this past week. Deirdre is good at discovering what the foreign press writes about Alaska politics.

Steve Heimel at APRN will have Sen. Stevens on his statewide call-in program, Talk of Alaska, this coming Tuesday, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. I hope Steve asks Ted about Wally Hickel's statement, last week, as reported in the brand new Alaska Dispatch, that "[Stevens'] has served Alaska for 40 years, but his time is over.”

Part Two - Parnell vs Young:

This race is going to be close. Nationally, the GOP wants Parnell to win. Statewide, the GOP machine is reluctant to help anyone tied to Sarah Palin, but they must be having remorse at some levels. Young's campaign's strength has surprised me. This is more than a bit due to Parnell's pasty, lackluster performance in all the campaign forums.

Young has a chance to really nail Parnell in this coming week's KSKA/KAKM/APRN Running episode. Sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. KAKM will run the U.S. Senate candidates, the AK-AL U.S. House candidates, State House Districts 33, 34 and 35, and State Senate District Q.

Good fucking grief!!! It is really difficult to size up these people on the issues in the KAKM format. It goes so fast, and is usually so utterly predictable.

Going back through the various forums and debates in their varied presentation venues, it seems to me the two best involving U.S. House candidates were the Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska candidate forum in May, and the Diane Benson-Ethan Berkowitz matchup on KUDO earlier this month.

Progressive Alaska covered the silliness of Sean Parnell's and his Club for Growth backers' Coconut Grove assertions earlier this week.

Part Three - Benson vs Berkowitz:

Even by Ivan Moore's sometimes marginal political poll accuracy history, his Benson-Berkowitz poll, giving Ethan Berkowitz more than twice as many votes in the August 26 Democratic primary is somewhat startling. Looking into its details, it does look sound, though.

Moore's announcement on Thursday and Friday that he is now working for KTUU TV, the Frontiersman, The Anchorage Press and KENI-AM Radio is interesting. Moore makes no disclosures about his current campaign activities in the article about his new role at the Anchorage Press, or at KTUU's web site. It seems to me, though, that he should have disclosed his currently active role in the Ethan Berkowitz campaign, as donor, ActBlue fundraiser, and as host at his home during this cycle for at least one Ethan Berkowitz fundraiser.

I can't find any information indicating Moore has created any fundraising tools on the web for any candidate but Mr. Berkowitz. If anyone knows of any, please let me know so PA can correct the matter.

And, how do you feel about Mr. Moore's lack of disclosure of his direct involvement in Mr. Berkowitz's fundraising?

Disclosure (posted from time to time): The author has volunteered for and donated to the 2006 and 2008 campaigns for Diane Benson (multiple donations), and to the 2008 Ethan Berkowitz campaign (multiple donations).

images:

Ted Stevens - Joe Conason
Ted Stevens' Florida condo - via Mudflats
Ivan Moore - KTUU TV