Alaska Primary Results: Don Young Race Too Close To Call

Good riddance-- now or in November?

Yesterday was primary day in Alaska. The biggest surprise was the narrowness of the Republican race between soon-to-be-indicted incumbent Don Young, thought by many to be the single most corrupt member of the U.S. House, and Lt. Governor Sean Parnell. With 429 of 438 precincts reporting the Anchorage Daily News shows Young ahead by a handful of votes.

Don Young... 42,461 (45%)
Sean Parnell... 42,316 (45%)
Gabrielle Ledoux... 8,589 (9%)

Most of the precincts that hadn't reported election results as of midnight were from rural Alaska villages. Those are "typical Young strongholds," Anderson said. But Parnell wasn't convinced Young was going to clean up in the Bush, especially given many rural residents might choose to vote in Tuesday's Democratic primary instead of Republican contest.

There are also the 16,000 absentee ballots the division of elections mailed out. It has received back 7,600 of them and Gail Fenumiai, director of the state division of elections, said she didn't know how many of those have been counted. As long as the absentee ballots were postmarked Tuesday, the division will continue to count them for the next 10 days. Questioned ballots will be counted on Sept. 5.

...Parnell was helped by the fact that Young, Alaska's lone member of the U.S. House since 1973, spent more than a million dollars of his campaign contributions on legal fees. Young refuses to say exactly what his legal fees have been paying for, but the congressman is connected to several federal investigations. They include the wide-ranging federal probe into corruption in Alaska politics, which has focused on the fundraising practices of Veco Corp.

Although Parnell, supported by the far right extremist group, Club for Growth, would be a weak candidate in November, Democrats are hoping Young will win the primary because it would be impossible for him to win the general election in November because of the mounting corruption scandal. Independent voters play a huge role in Alaska electoral politics and Young is dead meat to them.

On the Democratic side, progressive Diane Benson was swamped by institutional and Establishment money that flooded in for Rahm Emanuel crony Ethan Berkowitz. He took 53% of the vote, having reported raising (as of June 30th) $628,605 to Benson's $194,327.

On the Senate side, indicted incumbent Ted Stevens won his race against David Cuddy with a whopping 63% of the vote, showing the world exactly what Alaska Republicans are. Stevens will face Blue America-endorsed Mark Begich in November, who took 84% in his primary. Democrats were celebrating Stevens' primary win, who will be facing the voters just a few weeks after his criminal trial.


UPDATE: ALASKA HOUSE RACE STILL TOO CLOSE TO CALL

Don Young's race still too close to call at 1pm, PT. The remaining precincts are in Native American-majority areas and they are both remote and traditionally pro-Young. Meanwhile watch Ted Stevens celebrate his primary win last night. Like McCain, he's an angry old man... a very angry old man.

Alaska: Political Corruption Has Been Mostly A Republican Passtime, But Given The Opportunity, Ethan Berkowitz Will Change All That

Alaska has been a pretty red state for a pretty long time. In 2000 no one asked for a recount; Gore won only 28% of the vote. Kerry didn't do much better even after 4 years of Bush misrule; Kerry wound up with 36%. Last time Ted Stevens ran for Senate he spent $2.3 million dollars on his race (as opposed to $1,049 that the Democrat spent) and took 78% of the vote, about the same margin he had one 6 years before. In 2006 Alaskans started pulling back from the one-party state theirs had become. Diane Benson held Alaska's one member of the House, Don Young, to a 57% win (down from 2004's 71% and 2002's 75%). Still, the data published by the Hays Research Group today is hardly what anyone was expecting.

Obama... 45%
McCain... 40%
Nader...... 2%

If you don't know about the rampant corruption that has come to define the Alaska Republican Party in the last few years, you must be new to DWT (Welcome!) Yesterday, though, Bloomberg looked at the current corruption scandal in terms of Ted Steven's chances of political survival. Stevens lost his first bid for the Senate but was appointed to the job when Democratic Senator Bob Bartlett died in 1968. The Republican Governor, Walter Hickel, made the appointment. Yesterday Hickel told Bloomberg that Stevens "has served Alaska for 40 years, but his time is over."

Stevens's indictment last month on federal charges of failing to disclose more than $250,000 he received from Veco Corp., an Anchorage-based oil-services contractor, is the latest-- and the biggest-- crest in a wave of ethical controversies that has swamped Alaska's Republican politicians.

The scandals were spawned by the confluence of one-party dominance and soaring oil and gas prices in this energy-rich state, said Gerald McBeath, a political scientist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

"This has to do with big money, big corporations trying to influence public policy,'' McBeath said. "There was a lot of money awash in Alaska. Veco was a very powerful organization in state politics. It had tentacles that reached out and touched everybody.''

To date, eight Alaskans have been convicted or pleaded guilty in connection with a four-year federal corruption probe. They include three state legislators, the chief of staff to former Governor Frank Murkowski, and two former Veco executives. The most recent guilty plea was entered yesterday.

The state's congressman, Don Young, is also under investigation, though he hasn't been charged.

Separately, Alaska's junior senator, Lisa Murkowski, was the target of an ethics complaint by a watchdog group last year over a land deal. Even Governor Sarah Palin, elected in 2006 on a clean-up-the-mess platform, is facing a legislative probe over a personnel case.

Fact of the matter is, the deep corruption in Alaska politics has been making national headlines now for over two years. The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have indicted, convicted, plea bargained with, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned several high ranking legislators, lobbyists and oil company executives. Steven's is fighting his indictment, and his trial may be ending just days before the November elections. As Bloomberg indicates, others are arrested, indicted or plea copping almost weekly.

You might think that in Alaska, with so much attention being drawn toward these Republican crooks' ties to lobbyists, questionable campaign financing scams, and corporate influence, the people there would want the cleanest possible office holders in every seat up for grabs. Well, Alaska Republicans are so corrupt, they still will vote Ted Stevens in as their man in the August 26 statewide primary.

And on the Democratic Party primary ticket, one race has a progressive candidate who wants to "clean house," up against an old-school party hack, backed by the top executives of the Carlyle Group, the law firm that represented Exxon in the Exxon Valdez Supreme Court case, several backers of former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowki's campaigns and policies, national-level tobacco company lobbyists, crooked Chicago political hack Rahm Emanuel and his neo-con PAC, and the much discredited DCCC's "Red to Blue" program.

Diane Benson-- her campaign is profiled here by progressive Alaska Democratic Party activist Phil Munger-- is up against former State Representative Ethan Berkowitz.

Berkowitz, a close ally of former Alaska Governor, Tony Knowles, one of Alaska's least effective chief executives, served ten undistinguished years in the state legislature, eight of them as minority leader.

He claims he fought hard for union rights. But when he went in, Alaska's teachers were among the best paid in the United States. When he left, they were ranked sixteenth in pay.

When he went in, teachers and other employees had a well-endowed, defined benefit retirement plan. When he left, teachers' benefits had eroded to what they call "tier three" up there, which is Alaskan for a lousy 401K plan, like the one at McDonalds.

When Ethan Berkowitz went in to the Alaska legislature, Big Oil ran the place. When he left, except for the work of the FBI, they still did.

Berkowitz had been given detailed information, much of the same used by the FBI in 2006, back as early as 2004, by Alaska muckraker Ray Metcalfe. Metcalfe claims he hand-delivered packets full of incriminating information to Berkowitz. Berkowitz, in answering questions by Democratic Party activist Munger in January, said that he was paralyzed from acting upon it within the legislature, because of House rules.

In his campaigns for the Alaska State House, Berkowitz was sought after with donations by VECO, the company behind the Alaska GOP Corrupt Bastards Club. He was among the top Democratic Party recipients of donations from Bill Weimar, the privatized corrections mogul who bargained a plea with the Feds on August 11. He routinely received more donations from lobbyists than any other Democrat in the Alaska state house. (Does that make him part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party?)

And now, along with the help he's getting from Emanuel's PAC and Red to Blue, Berkowitz has started his own 2008 Republican-lite "Corrupt Bastards Club." Here's a partial list:

The Anchorage Daily News wrote a report on the 15 highest paid lobbyists in the state of Alaska in 2006. Ethan Berkowitz has received money from a third of them between his 2006 and 2008 campaigns.

Berkowitz receives money from many of the same Lobbyists who have given money to Ted Stevens and Don Young. (2008 and 2006)

Berkowitz has received money from the president of a lobbyist group whose website claims they “have experience persuading Congressman to make their clients needs priority.” (2008)

Berkowitz has received money from lawyers who work at the law firm which represented Exxon during the Exxon Valdez spill. ( Multiple Patton Boggs lawyers in 2008)

Berkowitz has been given money by lobbyist who represent Big Tobacco companies, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds.

One of Berkowitz's lobbyist friends, GOP stalwart, Robert Evans, never gives to Democrats, unless it is to Berkowitz. He gave the Alaska GOP $10,000 in the past three years.

Berkowitz has been given money by a lobbyist who represents Wal-Mart, which is now making a big play to own a stake of the more corrupt elements in the Democratic caucus.

Berkowitz, while taking money from Emanuel, the Tom DeLay of the Democratic Party, claims, rather incongruously, he will stand up to him, the second he takes his oath of office in Washington, D.C. Remember, this is the same Ethan Berkowitz who, in 2004 and 2005 did nothing with the information that could have saved Alaskans billions in revenues lost to big oil.

Berkowitz's medical care platform calls for tweaking what he calls an otherwise healthy system to maximize benefits. His lack of interest in genuine campaign finance reform is no surprise, given the cast of sordid characters who think he is the face of the Democratic Party for the 21st Century. God help us all if he is!

Our friends at Democrats.com are doing yeoman's work in both Alaska and the Lower 48 to raise consciousness-- and funds-- so that Diane Benson can get her message out and help make change in Alaska not just about exchanging one corrupt political hack for another corrupt political hack. Give Ethan Berkowitz a decade or two and he'll be approaching a Don Young level of corruption. If you want to help take the corruption out of Congress, helping Diane Benson to win this race is as good a place to start as any.


UPDATE: DIANE BENSON

Democrats.com has the most extensive story on Diane's campaign thus far. It's a great follow-up to Katrina Vanden Heuvel's Nation feature on Diane last week, Make Way For the Trucker.

ALASKA UPDATE

-by Phil Munger

The Alaska primaries will occur on August 26, the same day the Democratic National Convention opens in Denver. Since my last update for DWT on the two important statewide races, those for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Ted Stevens, and for the U.S. House seat currently held by Don Young, a lot has happened. And the Alaska Democratic Party, hoping to ride a wave of voter dissatisfaction over the combination of corruption and ineptitude exemplified by Alaska's Republican Party and legislative leadership, is working hard to at least take control of the State Senate, if not the lower chamber.

The U.S. Senate Republican primary will pit Ted Stevens against former state legislator, banker and B-grade movie producer, David Cuddy. Cuddy spent a million dollars in his unsuccessful 1996 bid, challenging Stevens in the primary. Cuddy pulled in 27% of he vote for his efforts.

His platform is far more conservative than that of Stevens. Ted Stevens, for all his support for Bush's tax proposals, war funding, and deconstruction of Federal oversight, is more liberal than the average Alaska Republican. Stevens is pro-choice, has saved both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts more than once, and has been known to make his share of bipartisan deals over the decades. The Ted Stevens platform doesn't bring any of that up, though. His platform is simple in its elegance-- "Elect me and the pork will keep coming, throw me out and it will stop colder and quicker than a door slamming in an Arctic gale."

Cuddy's platform calls for national school vouchers, making the Bush tax cuts permanent, term limits, a ban on abortion, and an ending of citizenship rights for the children of aliens born in the USA. He also calls for the end of the Patriot Act, and is against real ID. His health care plan is to tweak the system to make it more efficient, more affordable.

On the Democratic side of the U.S. Senate primary contest, popular current Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is running against ex-state representative Ray Metcalfe. Metcalfe has been lauded in Alaska since May, 2006, as one of the people responsible for the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice coming down like a hammer on several key GOP legislative leaders, and on oil company service giant, Veco (better known as the Corrupt Bastards Club), for a series of searches, arrest, trails and convictions that have made state history, and left the GOP power structure quite shaken. One Federal marshall told me last year, "this wouldn't have happened without Ray."

But Ray Metcalfe's campaign hasn't gained traction. Although he's presented sensible, fairly progressive stances on most issues at his campaign site, the party machinery is irritated by his accusations of corruption against former Alaska governor, Tony Knowles, and his primary opponent, Begich. And his campaign organization is minimalist, at best.

Mark Begich has assembled the most impressive campaign machine I recall ever seeing organized in Alaska by a Democrat. They actually have a two-story headquarters at the edge of the Spenard district in Anchorage, with several volunteers or staff in the place 18/7. Begich's internet presence goes far beyond that of any candidate in Alaska history from either party. [Mark will be a Blue America guest at FDL on Saturday, July 12 at 2pm, EST]

Begich has a reputation, going back to when he was on the Anchorage Assembly, of calling in to the local right-wing AM-Radio talk programs if a host or caller begins to complain about a government program run by or touted by Begich. In those situations, he can be very disarming, and does well. Begich's internet appearances, most notably at FDL on May 29, have been less sure-footed. Montana Senator Jon Tester was in Alaska with Begich, and the two did some live blogging at a Blue America session, hosted by Jane Hamsher. Tester became used to these appearances and the firedoglake ambiance during his 2006 campaign. Begich, in his comments, didn't show the flair he's exhibited on Anchorage talk radio, or in his comments at the Anchorage Daily News's political blogs.

The most likely outcome of the senatorial primaries will give victories to Stevens and Begich. Pollsters all around the country are interested in this contest, as a Begich victory over Alaska's patron saint would be an almost seismic shift in Alaska and presumed Red State politics. This past week, two polls came out, one or the other showing each of the two in the lead-- if the election were held "today." It is quite close, and Stevens is putting in more visits to tiny villages, and giving more speeches on "important" legislation he is backing, in the past month, than he usually pulls off in a good year.

The GOP AK-AL U.S. House race primary has Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, and Kodiak Representative Gabrielle LeDoux against Representative Don Young. Parnell announced his candidacy during the raucous first morning of the Alaska GOP convention last winter. Young, who was already losing a fundraising battle to LeDoux at the time of the announcement, jumped up for glee when Parnell declared his candidacy.

He's not nearly so happy now, as conservative groups, newspapers, magazines and blogs have come out in support of Parnell. The Club for Growth, the Wall Street Journal, National Review and their web-based NRO, are just a few of the Parnell supporters who have gotten so upset with Young, they're willing to paint a fake portrait of Parnell as some sort of conservative intellectual giant that appears quite ridiculous to Alaskans right and left, who know Sean better. But that isn't keeping conservatives from donating to Parnell.

And for Young, at least, the fundraising battle has been more of a fundraiding battle. Young's published reports from 2007 and 2008 show him spending over $1,000,000 on legal fees attendant to his being investigated for corrupt practices by various Federal agencies, including the FBI. In the last quarter of 2007, here's how the candidates' fundraising went:

Berkowitz (D) - $124,201
LeDoux (R) - $110,000
Benson (D) - $52,230
J. Metcalfe (D) - $31,000
Don Young (R) - $28,350

For Young, the first quarter of 2008 went better-- $164,000. But he continued to have to pay substantial sums to attorneys. He's probably pushing $1.2 million in legal fees for 2007 and 2008 by now [and that's just to keep from being indicted].

Polls consistently show Parnell beating Young in the August primary. And the two Democrats running in August, have published polls beating Young. The only poll throwing Parnell in against one of the two Democrats, shows Parnell narrowly beating [DLC-DCCC fave] Ethan Berkowitz in November.

The potential Parnell-Berkowitz matchup seems to worry top Alaska Democrats less than it should, for two reasons: First, during the time both Berkowitz and Parnell served in the Alaska legislature-- Berkowitz in the House from 1996 to 2006 (Minority Leader 1999-2006), Parnell in the House from 1992 to 1996, and the Senate from 1996 until he was elected Lieutenant Governor in 2006, Berkowitz and his fellow Democrats were up against one of the most tightly disciplined GOP machines in the USA. Parnell, as unimaginative as he is, was a part of that.

Secondly, in the 2006 gubernatorial race, Berkowitz was the junior partner in Tony Knowles' failed bid to once again be Alaska's governor. In a three-way race against Republican Sarah Palin, and ex-GOP state legislator Andrew Halcro, Knowles and Berkowitz lost to Palin and Parnell, despite outspending Palin's campaign by nearly $500,000, which is a lot of money in Alaska politics. During the same 2006 campaign, Diane Benson, Berkowitz's opponent in the 2008 Democratic primary, spending less than 20% of what the Knowles/Berkowitz ticket spent, pulled in almost 94,000 votes statewide, compared to Knowles' 97,000-plus.

Parnell will beat Young in August, unless Young can somehow pull a rabbit, or maybe a Polar bear, out of his hat. If I were Young, I'd be afraid to even reach into that hat. He's more likely to pull out Jack Abramoff's ghost than a rabbit.

The Alaska primary system is almost archaic, and as many polls that have been made over hypothetical matchups here, none quite seems to grasp what the reality might be on the ground on August 26. The most recent figures on statewide voter registration-- from last month, show the following:

Alaska Independence Party-- 13,338
Democratic Party-- 71,832
Libertarian Party-- 7,401
Republican Party-- 119,031
Non-Partisan-- 72,871
Undeclared-- 178,325
Green Party-- 3,050
Other-- 6,508

One way to look at this is to match it up thusly:

Democrats-- 71,832
GOP-- 119,031
The rest-- 281,493

Unaligned and small party Alaska voters outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined by almost 150%! In the primary, there will be three ballots. Voters can vote on ballot measures only. Anyone can vote on the Democratic Party ballot (which includes the ballot measures). Only GOP, nonpartisans and undeclared voters may vote on the GOP ballot (which also includes the ballot measures).

There will be four ballot initiatives, on establishing a gaming commission (Alaska is not very developed, gambling-wise), on amending same-day airborne hunting of wolves and Grizzly bears, on providing for public funding in campaigns, and one on regulation of water quality in the mining industry. None of these is likely to draw a huge crowd of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, as some measures have in the past. It is likely that the ballot measures will draw potential voters fairly evenly from across the spectrum.

Back to the Democrats running in the AK-AL primary. At the beginning of 2008, there were three viable candidates registered for this race:

Diane Benson had challenged Don Young in 2006, after beating Ray Metcalfe in the primary. She received almost 41% of the vote in a race in which she was out-spent by over 5 to 1. It was the closest any candidate had gotten to Young since the early 1990s, and all this-- in 2006-- before the seriousness of the liabilities facing Don Young had become at all clear to the average Alaska voter. She expected major challengers to notice her 2006 race's result, and to step up for the 2008 primary campaign.

In August 2007, Jake Metcalfe (no relationship to Ray Metcalfe, the U.S. Senate challenger), stepped down as chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, and announced-- from Washington, DC-- that he was filing for the AK-AL primary. His campaign failed to gain much traction. Even Diane Benson's grassroots campaign was pulling in more money and a much larger donor list than was Metcalfe's.

In early May, the Fairbanks News-Miner ran a story linking a Jake Metcalfe campaign worker to a scheme, whereby when one clicked on a web address that appeared to be connected to Ethan Berkowitz's campaign, one was redirected to one of two sites, one a LGBT site in San Francisco, another with baubles for rich kids. In the weeks before the News-Miner article, many of us had received e-mails that solicited us to check the sites.

It was a sad, almost silly way for Metcalfe's campaign to end. His campaign worker resigned, without admitting involvement in the scheme, and within five days of that, Metcalfe announced a suspension of his campaign.

At around the same time this happened, candidate Diane Benson was involved in one of many conferences she has participated in, during which Alaska Native or Native American women who have been victims of sex crimes speak out in order to help other victims, or to enlighten government functionaries on aspects of this awful problem. Up until May 1, Benson's participation in scores of these meetings, seminars and conferences in Alaska and other states had been kept confidential. But at an April 30 seminar in Anchorage, held by the Alaska Rural Justice and Law Commission, one of the organizers invited Anchorage Daily News reporter Lisa Demer to attend, without-- as is almost always the case at these non-public meetings about abuse-- letting the women who were testifying know that there was reporter present.

Demer's story featured some of Benson's testimony. The attention subsequently drawn to Benson in this regard helped her redirect part of her campaign platform toward the problems of sexual abuse in Alaska in general, and toward Alaska Native women in particular. Her campaign has received endorsements from several women's groups, including the Alaska Women's Political Caucus, The National Women's Political Caucus, and the National Organization for Women.

At the Alaska Democratic Party's state convention, held at the Alaska State Fair grounds over Memorial Day weekend, Democrats from across Alaska-- hundreds of delegates and almost 1,000 participants in all-- got a chance to compare Benson and Berkowitz. The two had appeared earlier at candidate forums that included AK-AL candidates from both parties. In March, Young, LaDoux, Benson, Berkowitz and J. Metcalfe attended a forum on Alaska fisheries issues in Kodiak. In mid-May, LaDoux, Parnell, Benson and Berkowitz attended a forum held by the Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska.

At the convention, Benson and Berowitz didn't debate, but were given two opportunities each to give speeches to the delegates. Both gave excellent accounts of themselves and what they view their campaigns to be about.

Since the convention, the Ethan Berkowitz campaign has received a couple of important endorsements. In mid-June, the moderately Blue Dog DCCC committee, Red to Blue, announced support for Berkowitz. Last week, the head of Alaska's AFL-CIO, Vince Beltrami, announced that organization's support for Berkowitz. Benson has received an important endorsement by 21st Century Democrats, a progressive PAC.

On many issues Benson and Berkowitz see eye-to-eye, particularly on the Iraq War, education, and the need for more investment around Alaska, the country and the world in renewable resource use infrastructure and delivery. Both support "responsible development" of ANWR for oil production. The most stark contrasts between the two candidates are in the realms of health care reform and in approaches to fundraising.

Benson supports major health care reforms, hoping for a strong push in the direction of a single-payer system that covers everyone. Berkowitz is more of what I call a "tweaker" on health care. His solutions to this crisis are quite similar to those of GOP candidate Sean Parnell:

Berkowitz:

Expanding medical record-keeping technology to reduce administrative costs and improve safety through information sharing.

Promote preventative care and healthy living choices.

Expanding the federal SCHIP program to cover a wider range of children.

Allow for small business insurance pooling.

Parnell:

Prevention is the best way to avoid continually escalating health care costs.

Next, early recognition and effective treatment are necessary to limit disease’s impact on the individual and on the community at large.

States need local flexibility.

Both of those primary race candidates-- in separate races-- are very health care industry-friendly in their approaches to the problem, and a scanning of both candidates' contributors will reinforce that fact.

Regarding the differences between Benson's funding approach and Berkowitz's, much of these differences are basically reflective of their political backgrounds and connections.

Benson is, as in her 2006 contest against Don Young, running a grassroots campaign. With a longer list of donors than Berkowitz, she is pulling in less money. She is relying on a lot of small in-state donations, money from Alaska Native and Native American groups, and out-of-state ActBlue donations from progressives.

Berkowitz is highly reliant on larger donations, many from people in the health care industry, attorneys, and longtime well-heeled in-state Democrats. He has been able to take advantage of the
perception held by many old-school Democrats and independents that Benson is too liberal, and not well enough connected to existing political machinery, to carry the state against Parnell or Young.

At a debate held Sunday in Fairbanks by the Fairbanks Area Democrats, both candidates seemed
to reinforce the growing perception that-- even with his greater financial and insider institutional support-- Berkowitz is in a real contest for the nomination.

There has been talk in Alaska and elsewhere of the possibility of Barack Obama carrying Alaska in November. Obama's campaign started running TV ads here over the weekend. Two of his top advisors have Alaska connections, and have all but promised that Obama will campaign here. The last Democrat to win Alaska was LBJ, the last candidate to campaign here, Richard Nixon. I've yet to see a John McCain sign in Alaska, but Obama signs-- both official and home-made-- abound. Here were the February 4th numbers, consolidating the Democratic Party caucus numbers with those of the GOP "voter preference" poll numbers:

Barack Obama-- 6,471
Mitt Romney-- 5,177
Mike Huckabee-- 2,596
Hillary Clinton-- 2,138
Ron Paul-- 2,004
John McCain-- 1,837

I heard several reports on February 5 and 6 by Ron Paul supporters, that the Romney people worked hard to disenfranchise Paul votes in the polling places, so McCain probably did even worse than that. McCain's flip-flops last week on opening ANWR to oil development-- he was against it before he was for it-- may have more than a little bit to do with concerns about our puny three electoral votes.

There is also a fair chance that Democrats will end up controlling the Alaska legislature in November. The current legislature has nine Democrats and eleven GOP in the Senate, 17 Democrats and 23 GOP in the House. The earlier 24th legislature had an 8-12/26-14 makeup. Since the 2006 election, several GOP figures have gone to jail. Others are awaiting sentencing. Just last week, the current Senate President, Wasilla's Lyda Green, announced she will not be running again for the seat she has handily held since 1994.

There will be more such announcements soon after the next round of FBI indictments comes down.

Trust me.

ALASKA: BEGICH AND BENSON BEGIN THE BEGUINE

-By Phil Munger

Begich & Benson-- Alaska dream team

As the last week of a chilly April that broke snowfall records turned into the beginning of an equally chilly May, Alaskans got to witness the first signs of negative campaigning in the important AK-AL U.S. House race, where Don Young is cornered. The first signs of spring will have to wait another week.

Young was wounded in 2006 by the Tlingit civil rights, military family and veterans' activist, Diane Benson. Her 2006 campaign used these pages to expose Don Young's close ties to Jack Abramoff, ties that Young continues to deny, despite increasing evidence.

In a unique tribute to a previously anonymous (or pseudonymous, if you want to be totally accurate) DailyKos blogger, the Anchorage Daily News' best investigative journalist, Richard Mauer teamed up with Kos' Dennis Greenia to take my October 2006 DWT article on Young's ties to Abramoff a couple steps further down Don's road to oblivion.

Mauer teamed up with Greenia, known at DailyKos as dengre, to document that "a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff's firms show that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young's personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with Young himself."

Mauer has been tailing Young's drops of blood in the snow through the late winter and spring, and when Young sees Mauer at press conferences, he does what any cornered, wounded mink does-- he goes into hiding. In Wasilla, last winter, Young cancelled a press conference when he learned Mauer would be present.

Young's fundraising is in the toilet, and has been since the 4th quarter of 2007, as more and more evidence of the extent of Federal scrutiny on his corrupt handling of earmarks comes to light. And during 2007 and early 2008, Young spent over a million dollars from what had once been a huge campaign chest, to pay his mounting legal fees.

For the first time ever, Young has two credible GOP challengers for the August 26th 2008 GOP Alaska primary. State Representative Gabrielle LeDoux, from the fishing community of Kodiak easily bested Young in a candidate debate during that town's annual commercial fishing convention.

At the Alaska GOP Convention, held at former Alaska Governor Wally Hickel's Anchorage Captain Cook Hotel, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell announced his bid against Young. Parnell has the open support of his boss, Governor Sarah Palin, arguably the most popular Republican politician in the USA right now, with ratings in the mid to high-80s.

And Don Young's partner in spending sleaze, Sen. Ted Stevens, is cornered too, but, unlike Young, might not be be mortally wounded. His only challenger so far from within the GOP is wealthy ex-banker, developer and flakey movie producer, Dave Cuddy. Cuddy lost spectacularly to Stevens in a primary contest twelve years ago, in which Cuddy spent over a million dollars to garnish 27% of the primary vote. Cuddy will once again dip into his fortune to attack Alaska's Patron Saint.

Ted Stevens reached across the aisle last Wednesday, as Hawaii's senior Senator, Daniel Inouye, threw a lunch-hour Washington, D.C. fundraiser for Ted. Inouye, who once called Stevens "the Strom Thurmond of the Arctic,"-- he meant it as a compliment-- has allied with Stevens over the years to bring large, often questionable earmarks back to their two non-contiguous states. These two kings of porks' luau was supposed to net Stevens between $50,000 and $70,000.

The Hulk is lurching from one fiscal fiasco to another, as another probe-- this one involving his ties to an illegal use of funds at the Alaska Volcano Observatory-- exploded Wednesday.

We're coming up very soon against the unwritten US DOJ rule that you're not supposed to indict a politician running in a Federal contest later than six months before a Federal election (unless you're a Democrat). That will be next Tuesday, May 6. Feds were poking around the neighborhood where Alaska's other corruptable Senator, Lisa Murkowski, tried to keep a super-sweet riverside property deal from going sour on her last year. She got the prime land for less than half price. Even after it came out in a very negative way, Murkowski kept on insisting it was all on the up-and-up. IOKIYAR, eh? Anyway, five Feds in dark suits emerged from two black SUVs and took pictures, notes and measurements in the area of the property, and along a road that had been built with-- guess what?-- another questionable GOP earmark.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic Party's side of the AK-AL race, former Alaska Democratic Party Chairman, Jake Metcalfe's campaign began to implode, as he was confronted over the week by a second collaborative effort in the Alaska media.

Metcalfe's chief campaign aide, Bill Scanell, had created a set of fake websites that threw a lot of mud in the direction of former Alaska legislator, Ethan Berkowitz, who is running, along with Metcalfe and Diane Benson, in the late-August primary to contest Young's seat. Thursday afternoon, Scannell resigned, saying, "It appears these ridiculous allegations won't go away until I leap on my own sword."

Metcalfe, who is beginning to look totally hapless, stated "This is the final comment the Metcalfe campaign will be making on this subject." Yeah, right.

Metcalfe seems to think he can repair the damage. Berkowitz's pet pollster, the often-inaccurate Ivan Moore, feels this has helped his man. Others aren't so sure.

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who kicked off his Democratic Party challenge to Stevens by holding a meetup with Veterans who are attending the University of Alaska Anchorage, appears to be creating one of the most professional campaign machines in Alaskan history. He's raking in record amounts of cash, and is building a forward-looking staff that includes notable progressives like Alaska Center for the Environment founder, Kevin Harun, and Matt Browner Hamlin, one of the leading internet figures in Ned Lamont's 2006 primary challenge to Joe Lieberman.

Begich's challenger in the Democratic Primary is Alaska's 2007 "Muckraker of the Year," Ray Metclfe-- no relationship to Jake Metcalfe. Ray is issuing one broadside after another, claiming that Begich is profiting from crooked deals with Anchorage real estate developers. Richard Mauer, the investigative reporter who looked into Don Young's Abramoff connections so thoroughly, is working on a long article about Ray Metcalfe, that will probably end up saying that, when it comes to Begich, there's "no there there," regarding Ray's claims.

The spat between the Ethan Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe campaigns hurt Jake. A lot. But, reading through comments to the newspaper and web articles about the fake web site issue, there appears to be a lot of negativity attached to Berkowitz's somewhat dim legacy as a legislator. If there was any winner among the Democrats running fo AK-AL, it was Diane Benson.

She came out with a condemnation of unethical conduct within minutes of the similar declaration by the State Democratic Party's current chair. Benson's campaign is more-or-less grassroots, and she has more contributors-- almost 2,000-- than Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe combined. Additionally, Berkowitz is taking in a lot of money from Inside the Beltway political boss, Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel's PAC donated $10,000 to Berkowitz in the first quarter of 2008. This is the largest contribution Emanuel has ever made to a non-incumbent Democrat, running against other credible Democrats in a primary.

Benson's concern for veterans, association with progressives, and promises to radically approach health care reform, mirrors Mark Begich's platform so far. Additionally, in 2006, Benson did better in parts of the state that Begich needs to carry to beat Ted Stevens, than did the Tony Knowles-Ethan Berkowitz ticket for governor, which lost in a three-way contest that had two Republican tickets in it. The two-- Begich and Benson-- may be the best one-two punch the Democrats can come up with in November. It will be up to the voters in Alaska's late August primary, which occurs the same day the National Democratic Party Convention convenes in Denver.

DESPERATE TO HOLD ALASKA'S SOLE CONGRESSIONAL SEAT, GOP LT. GOVERNOR CHALLENGING DON YOUNG, EVEN BEFORE HE'S INDICTED!

Sean Parnell, the far right Republican Lt. Governor of Alaska, isn't waiting for the Feds to indict Don Young (R-AK) on myriad corruption charges. Parnell "stunned everyone at the Republican state convention Friday, announcing he will challenge 18-term incumbent Don Young for Alaska's lone seat in the U.S. House."

"For too long, we have expected too little from our elected officials," Parnell said. "It is time for change."

Young, the subject of a federal investigation that includes his campaign finance practices, last month refused to answer questions about why his campaign has spent $845,035 on legal fees. Young said only the media, and not his constituents, had asked about the fees.

Young refused to answer again when a reporter identified himself as a constituent, but someone who had not voted for Young. Parnell seized on that detail in his announcement.

"The notion that an elected official gets to pick who his constituents are based on whether they voted for him, that is wrong," Parnell said.

Young had briefly left the room and returned to find he had just picked up a formidable primary opponent. He followed Parnell to the dais and delivered a typically feisty reply.

"Sean, congratulations," Young said. "I beat your dad and I'm going to beat you."

There is also a Republican state Rep., Gabrielle LeDoux, challenging Young in the primary. The progressive Democrat running is Diane Benson and there are a couple of better-than-Young Insider types, Ethan Berkowitz (the DLC candidate who is being pushed by the DCCC as well) and Jake Metcalfe. So basically, it's all a bunch of lawyers plus Diane, the grassroots activist.

Despite the bravado, the NY Times reported that Young was "taken aback," and reports that the only high ranking Republican in the state not involved with corruption charges, Gov. Sarah Palin, is backing Parnell. Parnell says he decided to run "because he was concerned about the state’s reputation on Capitol Hill... Other members of Congress are running away from Alaska’s congressman because they don’t want our Alaska congressman’s excess hanging ’round their necks. We have to work on mending wounds in Alaska and America.”

IN ALASKA A CORPORATE "SPECIAL PROJECT" MEANS BRIBING TED STEVENS AND DON YOUNG

I hope that by now all DWT readers know that VECO Corp. is an oil services contractor that made itself extraordinarily wealthy by purchasing the affections of the Alaska Republican Party. Now the company's managers and employees are spilling all the beans for the Grand Jury, the FBI, the IRS and other law enforcement agencies and local Republicans are being found guilty-- and turning on each other, especially Republicrooks higher up on the food chain. And at the tippy-top of that food chain are two of the biggest crooks in American politics, Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young.

One key witness in the bribery investigation is Robert Williams, the man VECO head-honcho-- and briber numero uno-- put in charge of "special projects."

the renovation of Stevens' home was one such project. Others included working three or four fundraisers for Stevens while on the clock with VECO. Federal elections laws prohibit candidates from accepting donations or free services from corporations.

Unlike other VECO employees, Williams did not itemize his time sheets with job codes so customers could be billed. When working on one of Allen's pet projects, Williams just logged his hours and VECO made sure he was paid... Williams said he also helped run annual fundraising pig roasts for Rep. Don Young, another Alaska Republican who has come under scrutiny in the VECO investigation.

...Fundraising and favors are at the heart of the corruption investigation, which has ensnared several Alaska legislators. Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers and is cooperating with the FBI. He admitted in court last week that his employees provided "some labor" on Stevens' house in 2000, but Williams recalled the job in greater detail.

This afternoon Congressional Quarterly reported on how the revelations about Young's ethical and, potentially, criminal problems are playing out politically. "Candidates are lining up for the 2008 contest to take on Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, whose current brush with ethics controversy is producing an unusually strong challenge to the political dominance he has enjoyed over more than three decades in the state’s sole House seat."

There's a grassroots progressive, last year's candidate, Diane Benson but the Inside-the-Beltway Democratic boys club is also encouraging more establishment figures to run-- ex-Democratic Party of Alaska Chairman Jake Metcalfe, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, or ex-state House minority leader Ethan Berkowitz.


UPDATE: STEVENS LIKES WIRETAPS BUT NEVER THOUGHT THEY'D USE 'EM ON HIM

You think I make this stuff up? I'm not that good. Watch:



Isn't it time for the Stevens family to leave politics and start getting ready for their well-earned lives behind bars? And what about the Senate Ethics Committee? Do any of the members have pulses?

PART II OF THE ALASKA REPORT: DIANE BENSON vs DON YOUNG

A couple days ago Phil Munger reported on why Diane Benson would make an extraordinary representative for the people of Alaska (rather than for a bunch of bloodsucking corporations). In fairness I thought I should find someone to write about Don Young, her Republican opponent. Again, I turned to my friend Phil, who has generously offered to take me halibut fishing in Alaska. Like most people who have watched Young's unscrupulous career unfold, Phil has not been too pleased with the antics his congressman has been pulling down in DC. Young's contemptible, extremist voting record is bad enough, but his consistent pattern of criminal behavior is what has Alaskans of all political stripes seriously thinking about abandoning him. Phil's report:


Don Young's Connections to Jack Abramoff

Philip Munger
October 14, 2006

Don Young and Jack Abramoff first crossed paths in 1997. Young had "sponsored a bill to hold a vote in Puerto Rico on statehood for the U.S. territory. Abramoff was a lobbyist for a group called Future of Puerto Rico that wanted the same thing." The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

Beginning in 1999, Young became involved with Abramoff in scams designed to bamboozle Americans into believing that products produced under slave labor-like conditions in the Mariana Islands were "Made in the USA." Young, as chairman of the House Resources Committee, had oversight responsibilities over working conditions in the Marianas and the Marshall Islands. In spite of this responsibility, Young neglected to raise questions regarding working conditions in either Island group while touring the Pacific Ocean territories on trips subsidized or arranged by Abramoff.

Young has never been confronted on his failure to take action on labor abuses in the Marianas at that time which included forced prostitution and abortion, harsh working conditions, a rapidly growing narcotics trade and illegal garnishment of employee wages. Throughout the period of Young's stewardship over the islands, working conditions worsened as sweatshops erected there replaced the American textile and clothing industry one shop at a time.

Chinese crime boss and sweatshop owner Tan Siu Lin was able to launder money through Abramoff to a number of GOP legislators and committees at the same time the US Interior Department was issuing reports to Young about horrendous working conditions and the growth of organized crime at Tan family-owned businesses in the Marianas.

On January 4, 1999, Abramoff was hired to represent the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Abramoff’s main mission was to stop legislation pending in Congress, which would have raised costs of clothing manufactured by the Tan family and other clothing manufacturing interests there.

On February 21, 1999, Young visited the Marshall Islands. As soon as he returned to Washington, DC, Young killed House Resolution 730, which called for the implementation of US labor laws in the Marshalls.

On February 2, 2000, Young called Abramoff’s assistant Jennifer Calvert to ask for use of Abramoff’s MCI skybox for two upcoming fundraisers. The request was granted. The fundraisers were held March 30 and July 24. Young failed to report use of the skyboxes, as required by Federal law, until early 2006-- after the Abramoff scandal broke and was splashed all over the national media.

Later in the summer of 2000, Abramoff’s lobbying firm, Preston, Gates and Ellis, held a pricey tribute for Don Young at the Republican National Convention.

In 2001, Abramoff moved to the firm of Greenburg Traurig. In a January 4, 2001 proposal to represent the government of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Abramoff wrote about his confidence in Don Young’s ability to quash legislation prejudicial to the Tan family business interests. But Abramoff also complained about Young's removal from the Chair of the House Resources Committee, saying, "The loss of Chairman Young’s authority cannot easily be measured or replaced." [He was replaced by someone equally corrupt and someone who was quick to pick up where Young left off: Dirty Dick Pombo.]

But Abramoff wasn't yet done with Young. We know of at least two more scams. On March 21, 2001, Abramoff staffer Tony Rudy met with Young's staff to "start gathering signatures on letter to chairman," an unclear reference to a Marianas official.

During the remainder of 2001, Young or his staff met or had discussions with Abramoff agents at least eleven times, May 25, 29 and 31; June 5, 8, 13 and 25 (twice); August 22; and December 13 and 21.

In the summer of 2002, Young's senior counsel, Duane Gibson, went to work for Abramoff. This is in itself highly interesting given the almost daily parade of GOP staffers and ex-staffers under fire, indictment or both.

In September 2002, Young sought to intervene with the General Services Administration on behalf of Abramoff, who at that time was seeking preferential treatment for a group of his Tribal clients who were bidding on a proposal to develop the Old Post Office Complex site in Washington, DC. Although Young merely wrote two letters to the GSA recommending the tribe's business consortium, he received a $7,000 contribution from two of the partners in the deal. Irregularities in this business deal have led to the indictments and convictions of David Savafian, GSA chief of Staff, Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, and, of course, Ambramoff. [Just today the Sacramento Bee confirmed that Young House crony John Doolittle is also being investigated for the FBI for his role in the Abramoff corruption scandals. It is widely believed that after Doolittle has been indicted Young and Montana Senator Conrad Burns will be the next up for thorough investigations by the Feds.]

On November 21, 2005 Abramoff’s partner Michael Scanlon pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a member of Congress and other public officials. January 3, 2006 Abramoff pled guilty to three felony counts, conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, involving charges stemming principally from his lobbying activities in Washington. He is purportedly continuing to cooperate with Federal investigators but in the world of Gonzales/Bush "Justice," Alice Fisher has led the investigative team. Fisher has been tied to fundraising for GOP crime boss Tom DeLay’s legal defense team.

In February 2006, the Anchorage Daily News published an editorial and a story that covered some of the Young-Abramoff links detailed above. Young responded on February 7, 2006 with a long letter to the editor of the News. Young claimed, quite falsely, "I have never had any personal or professional relationship with Abramoff." Young concluded, "I find the Daily News' editorial suggesting an unethical link between myself and Abramoff to be reprehensible. You need to get your opinions [sic] straight and quit attacking my integrity." The Anchorage Daily News followed up on February 19, 2006, with an article detailing some of the Young-Abramoff links.

And Abramoff-Young links keep popping up. Former Abramoff colleague, David Safavian, was convicted on June 20, 2006 of false statements and obstruction of justice involving his collusion with Abramoff while Safavian served as Chief of Staff of the Federal General Services Administration. Although Safavian has been pinned mostly for the well-known golf junket to Scotland, which has also brought down Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, Don Young's name came up in another aspect of Safavian's trial, the aforementioned Old Post Office Complex area development scam. There is a possibility that more information about Young's involvement in this crooked deal will come out in Safavian's pre-sentence investigation report, which is due for completion soon.

Along with Safavian, Federal prosecutors have convicted former Chief of Staff to Rep. Bob Ney, Neil Volz, for his role in deals which cut quite close to Young's involvement in the Old Post Office Complex scam and his subsequent contributions from Abramoff's clients. The May 25, 2006 Cleveland Plain Dealer article on Safavian has Volz testifying regarding Young. "In his testimony, Volz, who worked with Abramoff (as did Young’s chief counsel, Duane Gibson) after leaving Congress, detailed how the lobbying team received assistance from several Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Ney, Shelley Moore Capitol (W.Va.), Don Young (Alaska) and Steven LaTourette (Ohio)."

Liz Ruskin, the reporter who wrote the Anchorage Daily News stories critical of Young, left the paper in mid-2006. As of October 9, 2006, the Daily News has found no replacement for Ruskin, who reported on Alaska's Congressional delegation. According to their publisher, Patrick Dougherty, they have nobody assigned to cover Young during one of the most important national elections since World War II.

More articles are coming out every week as more information on Abramoff's criminal network come to light. Today's Los Angeles Times carries a long feature by Peter Wallsten, titled "Displease a Lobbyist-- Get Fired." In the article Wallsten chronicles Abramoff's long reach by having Allan Stayman fired in 2001, with Ken Mehlman's help. Stayman was the chief State Department negotiator for agreements on working conditions in the CNMI while Young also had direct responsibility for those conditions.

Alaskans should hold our sole Representative in what will be a Democratically-controlled Congress far more accountable about his dealings with Abramoff through the years, and his failure to look after the welfare of the citizens and residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands when he was statutorily responsible for the welfare of those people.


UPDATE: IF YOUNG WINS RE-ELECTION HE WILL OFFICIALLY BE THE STUPIDEST PERSON IN CONGRESS

Many people who have watched Young over the years think it's impossible to be any more of a moron than Alaska's one sole congressman. But according to Radar, which published a ranking of the 10 stupidest members of Congress, Young is only #2. The good news, #1, Katherine Harris, is leaving Congress. Here's the entry about Young:

The scene: Fairbanks, Alaska, 1994. Congressman Don Young, already in office for 20 years, is on the stump preaching the virtues of Newt Gingrich's Republican revolution to a group of high school students. Just look at all the wasteful things the federal government does with taxpayers' money, he tells them. The National Endowment for the Arts, for example, funds art involving "people doing offensive things... things that are absolutely ridiculous." One student asks, "Like what?"

"Buttfucking," replies the great scourge of obscenity and instructor of youth.

Young's performance remains a classic in the annals of congressional idiocy, offering that rare, supremely unselfconscious moment in which one of our nation's legislative solons lets his addled mind graze freely. But the real irony of this legendary gaffe is that the congressman lecturing on government waste was the very same man who, years later, would be responsible for Alaska's fabled Bridge to Nowhere, a $233 million project constructed entirely of pork. And it's the same man who, when asked about his state's outrageous $941 million transportation bill, boasted "I stuffed it like a turkey," before adding that detractors of the bridge-equal in length to the Golden Gate but connecting to a town with a population of 50-could "kiss my ear."

UPDATE: MEET MR. PORK

The new issue of Rolling Stone rates Young the third worst congressman in America-- and that is saying a lot!

DIANE BENSON TAKES ON DON YOUNG FOR ALASKA'S ONE HOUSE SEAT, PART I

Phil Munger is a member of the Firedoglake community who I have gotten to know as a faithful participant in the Blue America project. He lives in Alaska and has been keeping me abreast of the race between Diane Benson and one of the linchpins of the Washington Culture of Corruption, Don Young. I asked him to write the race up for DWT to help people in the lower 48 to get a grasp on what's going on up there. Here's Part I of his report:


In 1959, Diane Benson's mother was pregnant and had tuberculosis, still a common health problem among Alaska Natives, so Diane came into the world in the TB unit at a hospital in Yakima, Washington, near the vital Native community there, rather than Sitka, Alaska, home of her ancestral Tlingit clan.

Diane Benson is a quintessential Alaskan. She has had to struggle against the odds throughout life, but the hardships have only served to draw out inner strengths that now make her one of the hardiest and most vibrant of the group of challengers cornering the slimiest political machine in the history of our Republic.

After high school, Diane Benson went to work on the construction of the Alaska pipeline, driving trucks for Teamster Local 959. While she earned a union living, and raised a family, Benson yearned to be an artist. Whenever possible, she returned to school, eventually receiving a BA in Theater, with a minor in Justice, and then an MFA in Creative Writing. She’s written for newspapers, journals and Native publications. She's participated in theater in Alaska, and has had roles in films, most notably the international award-winning animated film Sacagawea, Disney's White Fang, and the recently released Alaska film, Kusah HaaKwaan. Northern Stars, the talent agency Diane founded, has helped young Alaska artists find satisfying work. Her poetry is gaining notice, and Benson's current role in her own dramatic script personifying Alaska feminist and civil rights pioneer Elizabeth Petrovich has been acclaimed locally as "stunning."

Diane, like many Alaskans, became disenchanted with the leadership of both major parties in the late 1980s, around the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. She was one of the charter members of the Green Party of Alaska, the strongest Green organization in the US. She was the party's gubernatorial candidate in 2002. But increasing despair over the state of our union during the early stages of the Iraq War and growing cognitive dissonance within her own family drew her back to the Democratic Party.

Latseen Benson, Diane’s son, entered the Army after high school, becoming a trooper in the elite 101st Airborne Division. After deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, Latseen's enlistment ended in late October of 2005. But the so-called stop-loss program kept him in uniform for another deployment.

In late September 2005, I listened to Diane Benson deliver the major speech at an anti-war rally in central Anchorage. In a blustery speech on a blustery fall day, she blew the crowd away. Her worry about Latseen's upcoming involuntary extension showed no more than her concern for our country itself. She was animated as she castigated the flawed policies and inept actions of the White House and Pentagon.

Weeks later, Latseen's squad was surprised near Baghdad. He lost most of both legs and an arm to a roadside bomb.

Diane was flown by the Department of Defense to a military Hospital in Germany. This is normally done only when a casualty isn't expected to survive. But Latseen fought hard, as usual, and miraculously survived. He was transferred stateside. Diane Benson later spent time with her son at Walter Reed Hospital. While there, she met dozens of young men who had been grievously injured. She helped Latseen and the others recover.

When she came back to Alaska, in late winter, she ran her dogsled team, mixed them with her son's team. She cried a lot. When she found out the state Democratic machine was unable to present a credible candidate to challenge Don Young, Alaska’s sole delegate to the U.S. House, she focused her rage, rejoined the Democrats, and entered the primary.

After easily sweeping the primary, Diane Benson has had another uphill battle-- attracting party, local and national attention to her fight against the only surviving member of the Abramoff A-Team.

Don Young has been in Congress since Benson was 14 years old. He's the third most senior member of the GOP majority, but has never had to decline a leadership post because none has been offered. Monday in Bethel, the western Alaskan urban center of Yupik culture, the grumpy congressman was miffed he had to wait a few minutes to meet important Native elders. Young petulantly threw up his hands, walked out, took his bush limo to the airport and fled town.

After all, what good are these swarthies for, if not for Asian sweatshops, right Don?

When Diane Benson was 38, Don Young, as chairman of the U.S. House Resources Committee, was statutorily responsible for the welfare of the citizens and residents of the Northern Marianas, an Island dependency of the U.S. He made sure that a Chinese sweatshop developer would be able to import quasi slave labor from China and the Philippines to Saipan to work under incredible conditions cranking out shirts, pants, lingerie and panties labeled "Made in the USA" while being paid dirt.

From that dirt, five-figure transportation fees, housing, food, and communication with families back in the homeland were extracted. Hefty service charges were added. Young discouraged the Department of the Interior from looking into abuses there, and with his close friend Jack Abramoff, killed legislation that would have improved working conditions in the Northern Marianas.

During that time did Young do anything to save the American jobs being transferred to Chinese mob boss Tan Siu Lin's rapidly growing sweatshop empire? Ask Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff or Bob Ney, Young's bosses in this sleazy deal with the worst aspects of transnational corporate abuse of workers. Forced labor, forced abortion, child prostitution, beatings of reluctant and ill workers, and narcotics trafficking mushroomed due to Young's failed stewardship of the Pacific Island trusts.

Back in February of this year, Anchorage Daily News political reporter Liz Ruskin wrote a story on Young's extensive links to Abramoff. The story showed that Young's strident claims of having had no contacts with Abramoff were totally false. Dozens of contacts have been documented. Young had lied to Alaskans, not for the first time, nor the last.

Meanwhile, Young is worried. He has spent more money earlier than ever-- right out of the primary season. He's gone negative in print ads and mailings, spending around a million dollars in a market where that amount is extraordinary. His internal polling, which has leaked out in dribbles, shows Benson closing to less than ten points. This is closer than any candidate has come to Don Young in sixteen years. He has threatened to actively campaign against any Democrat who endorses Diane Benson.


Young should be worried. Alaskans are fed up with Young, his 950 missed votes, his malaprops, his coarse treatment of constituents, his slavish devotion to legislation which helps oil giants like BP and Exxon at the expense of Alaska fishermen and motorists, and his ties to the most criminal members of the corrupt, GOP-dominated U.S. House. Benson yard signs and bumper stickers are showing up all over staunchly Republican communities around the state.

Diane Benson’s campaign strongly stresses material support for our troops, creation of economic opportunities in Alaska so our bridges can be to "somewhere," and equal opportunities for all Alaskans. Her spirited challenge to Jack Abramoff's last man standing may turn out to be one of the biggest surprises of the 2006 national election. If you'd like to lend her a hand, another Firedoglake and Blue America stalwart, Egregious, is collecting contributions for Diane's campaign at her ActBlue Page.