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Interesting Items 9/15 -

Posted by Alex Gimarc
Monday, September 15, 2008

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. Investigation
2. Campaign
3. Cold Summer
4. Drawdown

1. Investigation. All the usual suspects have gotten involved in the legislative investigative into Governor Palin’s dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. To date, we have the Obama campaign, the Troopers’ Union and three democrat legislators involved in the investigation pictured in the Anchorage Obama office in July. The Obama campaign carried the photo on its website as late as last week. Last week, the Legislative Council decided to subpoena seven people involved in a meeting thought to be related to the firing. Interestingly enough, the democrat state senator overseeing the investigation, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French chose not to include the gentleman who called and chaired the meeting, leading to Republican calls for his resignation as the overseer. A letter asking for the resignation by state Representative John Coghill was slapped down pretty hard by Chairman Kim Elton, yet another democrat legislator pictured in the group photo mentioned earlier. This investigation and subpoenas are a completely new thing. This has never happened before in this state, and there is no legislation to support the depth or breadth or where the Legislative Council is going. Eventually either the courts are going to have to intervene or the elected branches of state government are going to have to draw up some ground rules. At this point both the governor and those targeted for investigation have lawyered up with the intent of forcing the investigation back into the State Personnel Board where these things normally are done. Add to the mix a CNN report last week that the Obama campaign has contacted the Troopers’ Union in an attempt to dig up more dirt or file more complaints against the governor. And true to form, the union has obliged by filing some legal complaints against Governor Palin for interfering in union disciplinary actions. As background, Alaska is not a right to work state, and we have heavy union involvement in most sectors of the economy – which is yet another reason why things are so expensive up here. When the unions get involved in a personnel action, unless they determine the cost of defending you is more than the cost of jettisoning you, it is very difficult to fire a poor employee. Given the charges against Trooper Wooten that the union has substantiated (the only ones you see reported) and the fact that he is still in state employment, you see the problem. Expect this to continue to percolate nicely over the course of the next several weeks, as Senator French (D) would like the results to be published by October 10, which he has gleefully referred to as his October Surprise.

2. Campaign. Interesting series of campaign events last week. Here is a short recap:

Senator Obama decided to get tough and made a comment about putting lipstick on a pig still leaving it a pig. The Republicans picked up on it and went after him as a personal attack on Governor Palin – which it was. Obama has a history of snarky words and actions, including flipping off Hillary Clinton at a debate last spring. While I am not a fan of gotcha, you can’t say this about me politics, Obama has made a living out of doing this sort of stuff to opponents, denying it afterwards, and needed to be called on it.

In his second attempt to get tough, the Obama campaign ran an anti-McCain ad accusing him of being old and out of touch because he didn’t use e-mail. Well, it turns out that McCain’s prison camp torturers rearranged his bones in such a way that it is painful to type or mouse, and it looked like Obama was going after the handicapped vet for being handicapped. This one appears to be a McCain setup, opening the door for the attack ad and inviting the Obama campaigners to step into the proverbial trap – which they gleefully did. Yet another example of the OODA loop in action.

John Fund ran an article early last week about 30 democrat lawyers and opposition researchers “air dropped” into Wasilla, Anchorage and Juneau with the task of digging up as much dirt about Governor Palin as possible. We will see the results of their labors over the course of the next 50 or so days. Given the over the top, reckless, hysterical personal assaults on Governor Palin and her family over the last couple of weeks, I don’t think there will be much found that will be more or less exciting than the wild rumors already floated and slapped down.

It appears that Palin’s selection has encouraged women to start shifting to vote for McCain – Palin. This has moved the polls at both the national and state levels toward McCain - Palin.

The drop in generic party identification for congressional seats is down to one percent, the lowest in history. Congressional Republicans are starting to believe that there may not be a bloodbath in November, or if one should take place, it will be among democrats. Peggy Noonan pointed this out, with the warning that Republicans ought not to get arrogant or dismissive of their newfound good fortune. If we conservatives indeed have this new opportunity opening up for us, let’s do it right this time and not screw it up again.

The Alaska Democrat Party deleted web pages lauding Governor Palin for fighting the earmark for the Bridge to Nowhere in Gravina Island.
Toward weeks’ end there was a small boomlet about replacing Joe Biden (D, MD) with Hillary Clinton. The story was picked up among the talk shows and the blogosphere. It was based upon a meeting between Obama and Bill Clinton on 9-11 in NYC and addresses the hemorrhaging of support for democrats among women.

Finally, McCain and Palin did a campaign rally in Fairfax, VA last Tuesday which attracted over 20,000. This is significant on a couple levels. First, that part of VA has swung blue over the last decade with government workers in the northern part of the state swinging hard toward democrat candidates. It provided the support to elect the democrat governor and Jim Webb (D, VA) narrowly over George Allen in 2006. Second, it demonstrated the small minded pettiness of local democrat dominated school board, as the rally was supposed to take place at a local high school. The school board held an emergency meeting and bounced the rally. Note that the Obama campaign held three campaign events at three other public schools in that part of the state that same day and nobody seemed concerned and there were no emergency board meetings held.

3. Cold Summer. Anchorage set a couple records for cold weather this last summer. The first was that we only had two days with temperatures over 70 degrees, the fewest ever recorded. On average, we normally see 16 days over 70 degrees. The summer ended up being about three degrees cooler than normal, the third coldest summer on average ever recorded up here. So much for Global Warming. ADN, Sun.

4. Drawdown. One of our local talk show guys, Glen Biegel (KBYR AM, 700) discussed how Governor Palin dealt with earmarks. At the time of her election, the congressional delegation was bringing in close to a billion dollars in earmarks, with that amount expected to increase as long as they were in office and in the majority. Governor Palin saw this as a problem, as free money becomes a powerful drug that is difficult to do without when it goes away, and came up with a plan to wean the state off congressional earmarks. In her first year, she cut the requests in half. In her second, she cut it in half yet again, starting to wean the state off the federal teat. Note that earmarks are different from appropriations, as they do not go through the standard legislative process. This sort of drawdown sits very nicely with her reform agenda. Alaska is such a large state with so few people, the task of putting in infrastructure is an enormous thing to consider. This is why at statehood 50 years ago one of the compromises made was to encourage natural resource development statewide, and allow the state to keep 90% of all revenues. Congress changed that split 20 or so years later, and it is now sits at a 50-50% split. Congress also passed a series of laws that removed 60% of land in Alaska from development. If we are unable to develop our own resources in order to build our own infrastructure (roads and bridges), you can see there is justification and support for earmarks among the general population here in Alaska. Bluntly stated: Why not steal from the same people who are stealing from us? It is not right. Nor is it correct. But it is most certainly a logical response to congress unilaterally changing the rules after congress and the State of Alaska jointly approved the statehood compact in 1959.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the Town Hall Conservative group.