Firstly, we're waiting because the votes haven't been counted yet. Lots of them. Here's Bethany Lesser, from the Alaska Democratic Party:Mark Begich is down only just over 3,300 votes, with up to 60,000 absentee / early votes out, and around 6,000 provisional ballots. Based on the total turnout from last night, it appears that up to 20 percent of the total vote has not been counted. We are waiting for the House District and Precinct totals from the Division of Elections to determine where the outstanding votes are from, but I will send along our analysis as soon as we receive the data.
We ran an aggressive campaign statewide to bring out early and absentee voters. At the University yesterday, we had volunteers helping to get out the vote with good results, and those are considered absentee ballots. There have been long lines for weeks at City Hall and other early voting locations which haven’t been counted yet, including votes from this past weekend. Many Alaska Natives voted in Anchorage during AFN, which will be included in the absentee ballots. Begich did very well in the Bush yesterday, and we expect that trend to continue in the absentee and early votes.
How Remaining Votes Will Be Counted:
The Alaska statute says that all votes are to be counted within ten days of the election, but we are clarifying whether or not that includes weekends. At the latest, we expect the count to be completed no later than November 21 based on the 10-day review statute previously mentioned. Ballots had to be postmarked yesterday (Election Day). The 10 day waiting period was put in place to ensure that all votes in Alaska are counted. With the makeup of the state, the 10 day period ensures the maximum number of Alaska votes to be counted.
We are still waiting for final counts from the Department of Elections. As we understand it, people who voted absentee, absentee in person, and some portion of the early vote was not counted last night. Each regional department of elections had a different cut-off date for the counting of early votes on election night.
Secondly, Mark Begich is waiting because Diane Benson wasn't running once again for the AK-AL U.S. House seat, representing the Alaska Democratic Party. Progressive Alaska wrote about this several times in early 2008, here, and at Down With Tyranny! and at DailyKos. I had hoped my predictions would be wrong. They weren't.
Had Diane Benson been on the November ticket, the non-Anchorage numbers she brought to the Democrats in 2006, and in the 2008 primary election would have been there in the 2008 general election for her, and for Begich. They weren't, from what I've been able to glean. Berkowitz drew - so far - just over 6,000 less votes than did Begich yesterday. I believe Benson would have pulled more votes than did Berkowitz, across party lines, and the same number of Democrats as did Berkowitz.
Benson, running as a female who has challenged her own party, wouldn't have had to remain neutered, as was Berkowitz, during late September and October, once the negative fallout around Palin's doomed candidacy became obvious to Americans, less obvious to Alaskans. As seen by Palin's 15-plus-point slide in popularity in Alaska over the past nine weeks, Benson's story of success against adversity might have been crafted into an ad campaign narrative that could have been used as a force multiplier by Alaska Democrats.
I'm not sure whether Don Young understood that part of the unrealized aspects of a Benson candidacy in November, when he said this last night:
"Ethan did me a favor. He made me work a little harder. And, it's hard to have a race, very honestly, when you're not very challenged. Now, I will say this: Diane Benson would have been a much stronger candidate. Now, I say that right up front."
"She had a cause that you'd have to really work on."
Was he sincere, or was this a Don Young wedgie to Ethan?
In 2006, Young barely campaigned. But Benson's fight then made him realize - along with a lot of help between 2006 and 2008 from the FBI - that this year would be different. It was.
And it is - it isn't over.
22 comments:
There are a lot of Republicans, fed up with Don's excesses, that might have voted for Benson that would NEVER even consider voting for Berkowitz. This too could have been a deciding factor. Overall, I think that the Dems were very shortsighted and do not understand Don Young, and his appeal, at all.
anon @ #1 - nor do many of my fellow AK Dems yet understand the national stature of Diane Benson.
Don Young can be brutally honest at times.
Benson in Ten
anon @ #3 - I'm not pushing Diane Benson's political future here.
She is an important civil rights figure and artist, whose gifts in those areas are attenuated by the hours it takes to fucking raise money to be a House candidate. What a sad loss.
I get frustrated, seeing so much energy from any candidate - Diane, Ethan, Don, Mark, Ted - even our hilarious Sarah - at what our campaign financing prison does to their creative dreams, their organizing time, their ability to triage complex documents they are supposed to understand before they approve.
No time - gotta raise some $$$$$....
Lost the Governor's race. Lost the Lt. Governor's race. Now he's lost to Yon Dung. Ethan is now officially a 100% three time loser Californian carpet bagger. What are the odds he'll pack up and leave now that he has no political future here?
Maybe Rahm can get him a political appointment in DC so that the money Ethan put down on that Bethesda townhouse doesn't go to waste!
I saw Diane Benson speak at a Anti Iraq occupation and a Mother's Day rally. That's all it took. She is a real Alaskan with a real story to tell. She has all the home state appeal of Palin with 10 times the brain power and character. I voted Burkowitz because it was the only choice.
That said, wasn't Burkowitz polling way ahead of Don Young?
Begich doesn't excite me either.
"Don Young's appeal" is now officially placed on my list of oxymorons.
sorry, peter, Ted has an appeal ongoing, not Don...
Let's not be apologists for all those Don Young voters. Diane may possibly have been a better candidate than Ethan, but Ethan is still a million times better than Don Young to any sane individual, so let's not keep our finger-pointing solely in-party. The biggest problem is that this is a low voter information state. Maybe I'm giving folks the benefit of the doubt, but it needs to be clearly demonstrated to every Alaskan how insane the Republican Party truly is. Then if Don Young gets reelected in 2010 after he runs his campaign from a penitentiary, it'll be time to start calling Alaska a low voter intelligence state and pander like crazy.
"Benson's story of success against adversity might have been crafted into an ad campaign narrative that could have been used as a force multiplier by Alaska Democrats"
and i'm sorry, ak dems, but my friend said it all here, while barely scratching the surface. he gets at the heart of what ails the democrats in this state.
i hesitate to criticize her very much ['cause she's been my friend for half my life and 2/3 of hers] but democratic party operative peggy wilcox announced at the caucus on feb 5th that george w. bush was responsible for the door-busting, recordbreaking crowd. and she was dead wrong about it. if that were true they would have shown up four years before.
it was personal. it was barack himself that brought that crowd. and he brought with him a natural constituency that the AK dems should already have been speaking to but they didn't connect with, for spurious reasons that were nevertheless real. not because they didn't want to. but because the democratic candidates didn't resonate and relate intimately.
benson, like obama would have brought those people -- not part of the establishment who would have come to the polls and voted democratic anyway -- people who had never been part of the system before because they naturally assumed the deck was stacked against them.
i don't have the hard evidence, but i know in my heart it's true.
you can say that don young was just talking smack against ethan if you want [and you might be correct] but i see some authenticity in his comments.
I feel fairly certain that Don's comments were sincere as Diane told me that he expressed the same sentiments to her privately after the primary. Some serious changes need to occur within the party hierarchy if we're to make any progress at all here.
clark,
I'd like to be more frank on my feeling's of the failings of our AK Dem structure, but I'm a party officer. I hope to help change our party, make it the first true 21st century political party in Alaska. We need to reach out to young people and to union members who vote GOP, and to people of faith who question the anti-environmentalism of the AK GOP and many of the evangelical churches.
More on this later.
yeah... i didn't necessarily want to dredge all those feelings up at this point either.
it's under the bridge, eh.
Count me in, Phil. It's time for some change.
Peter:
Again, don't underestimate Don's appeal and the appeal of his wife in the Bush communities. It is VERY real and the sooner we acknowledge it and plan accordingly, Don will keep winning.
"Palin's 15-plus-point slide in popularity in Alaska over the past nine weeks"
...which still resulted in a 25 point margin of victory for McCain/Palin.
This campaign was never about the Democratic candidates. It should have been a referendum on Stevens and Young. But it ended up being a referendum on Palin, with Don and Ted along for the ride. I don't think any Democratic candidate could have changed that dynamic.
Palin still had enough overwhelming support to provide long coattails for Ted and Don. Our criminal congressional contingent won the lottery when Palin got the VP nod. Without her, the Republicans don't turn out the vote.
i managed to convince myself yesterday that i was overreacting about the differences between '08 turnout and '04 [272,000 this time vs. 314,000 in '04] -- attributing it to the glitch in '04 that showed more votes than registered voters in most anchorage districts, and other anomalies. but i just read shannyn moore and bradblog and now i'm concerned again! how could the polls have been so wrong? did mc cain really beat obama in mt. view?
all of this is getting hard to swallow. hopefully the AK dems will get access to the full results pretty soon....
Diane still has many strong supporters outside of Alaska who never understood why she didn't get more support from the Alaska Democrats. I talked to a supporter from Connecticut this past weekend who will strongly support ($$) Diane's next run. I agree with you Phil - she would have taken more votes from Don Young, with a message that resonated statewide, not just in Anchorage. Some of the women who voted for Sarah Palin would have voted for Diane over Ethan. Often times, Stories are what win hearts and ultimately votes.
I'm sure you've seen that President-Elect Obama has named Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Considering some of your diatribes against Ethan and Rahm in the past, I fully expect you to unleash a misinformed rant accusing Barack of being in bed with Fox News Executives and Neo-nazis. It's only fair.
C'mon Phil! Lets see some of your fair and balanced approach to the progressive agenda!
there's a silver lining there, anon. it means maybe he won't be messing with as many local primary races in '10.
Ain't that the truth.
last anon - I've never accused Rahm of being in bed with neo-Nazis. He's got WH experience. Obama can get his own guy appointed to Rahm's IL seat. The prez can watch and control the guy.
And, best of all, when Howard Dean comes to the WH for coffee, Obama can ask Rahm to get Howard and Obama a cuppa...
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