than conservative. Federal environmental policy, land policy and national defense are what keeps it mostly in the R column. There are few places that a true social conservative can get elected, the Mat-Su Valley and Fairbanks suburbs, The people here who style themselves fiscal conservatives are actually more anti-government and anti-social welfare spending than true fiscons; their beef isn’t with spending per se but rather what the spending goes for.

in a very long time. You guys in the Lower 48 created her “conservative” credentials, her record here was populist pandering and self-aggrandizement while spending more than any other governor in Alaska’s history.

Since the US owns or controls most of Alaska, Alaskans like for the US to pay for its own stuff here. Likewise, since the US looted Alaska from 1867 until 1959 and hardly built anything here except for the military, Alaska has a tremendous need for infrastructure. There are NO roads west of a line drawn from Anchorage to Fairbanks or north of a line drawn east from Fairbanks to the Canadian border except the Pipeline haul road which is dirt. Everything that goes to Western and Arctic Alaska has to come by summer barge or by air. One of the “pork” initiatives that Sen. Stevens had was to get running water in every village, and by that I mean one source of pure running water, not indoor plumbing in every house, which is unheard of in rural Alaska

not half. The Constitution requires that 25% of all revenue from non-renewable resources, mostly oil, must be placed in the Permanent Fund. Every year, the Permanent Fund is “inflation proofed.” After inflation proofing half of the Funds earnings are distributed per capita as the Permanent Fund Dividend and the other half is available for appropriation by the Legislature but is usually returned to the Fund.

There were a couple of years during Palin’s time of stratospheric oil prices; the spot average in ’08 was over $133/bbl, and not even Gov. Palin and the Alaska Legislature could figure out how to spend all the money. In addition to the PFD, they also did a “Natural Resource Rebate” of $1000 a head, which goes a long way towards explaining her high popularity numbers at the time. The Leg also did a billion dollar forward funding for education and a bunch of other dedicated funds; when you have that much money floating around nobody much cared that dedicated funds are unconstitutional.

As to the federal spending, the US has a huge military presence here. The FAA has a huge presence here as most over the Pole flights traverse Alaska airspace and the Great Circle route from the US to the Orient traverses Alaska as well; that’s why Anchorage International is among the largest air cargo ports in the World. Spending on AIA does benefit Alaska and Alaskans, but it also benefits every consumer in the US. The 17th Coast Guard District does benefit Alaska and Alaskans, but it also benefits every container ship traversing the Great Circle Route from the Orient to West Coast ports and thus it benefits every consumer in the US. The Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, NOAA, NMFS, BIA, IHS, etc. have a very large presence here but it is because two thirds of that landmass south of Hawaii called Alaska is two-thirds federal or Indian land. Consequently, much of that spending in Alaska that everybody likes to complain about is the US spending money on its own stuff and for its own purposes. Alaska does derive some benefit from the US spending money on its own stuff, but most of us would be much happier if the US turned most of its land here over to us and took all their Democrat-voting employees and its environmental regulations back to the Lower 48.

ballot can be taken by Rs or NPs, but not registered Ds. I don’t expect a high turnout because most of the races are deadly dull this year. Nobody here in Juneau has any primary opposition, or even meaningful oppostion in the General. The Governor’s race on the R side has been deadly dull with Parnelll having a commanding lead though the Anchorage Daily News and the AFL-CIO tried to make some mischief by endorsing Walker. I don’t watch much network television (almost all broadcast television and all cable television is from Anchorage), so I don’t know how much effort has gone into the Democrat race in Anchorage but my sense is that the Berkowitz-French contest has been a borefest even there; it is just a contest to see who Parnell beats.

The Republican Lt. Gov. race has a little bit of a contest between Jay Ramras, a forty/fifty-something Fairbanks Legislator who gained notoriety for dating the 19 yr. old daughter of high-level legislative staffer, and Mead Treadwell, a Hickel appointee whose “establishment Republican” credentials are pretty good. Ramras is better known, but I think Treadwell will win narrowly.

The Republican US Senate race has been the noisiest with Miller and Murkowski. Again, I don’t watch network television so I haven’t seen how much presence either has in Anchorage. My wife says that Miller has a lot of street corner sign wavers in ANC. I’ve had Juneau talk radio on all morning and it has been nonstop Miller commercials, but that’s preaching to the choir; anybody listening to Rush long ago decided who they were voting for and here in Juneau, Palin’s endorsement is the kiss of death, even the Republicans here despise her and the Democrats truly loathe her. I know I’m sick to death of hearing the phrase “truie conservative,” an oxymoron in Alaska politics.

There is a parental notice initiative on the ballot which has sparked some interest. I would say that helps Miller, but not much. There’s also a libertarian sponsored ethics initiative that has sparked a lot of advertising and interest. I can’t judge who that plays for and against. Oppostion to this initiative is the first thing in a very long time that has both the Chamber and the AFL-CIO on the same side.

have intensely hated Frank Murkowski since ’80, maybe before. In ’80, Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) had run afoul of the Democrats’ biggest money man, Barney Gottstein, over his vote to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia. Barney was Jewish and staunchly pro-Israel. So, Mike gets a well funded primary challenge from Clark Gruening, the grandson of former Territorial Governor and US Senator, Ernest Gruening. The Gruenings are Alaska Democrat nobility. Clark beat Mike in the Primary, but Frank beat Clark in the General and the Democrats and the ADN have had their panties in a wad ever since.

The ADN viscerally hates Frank Murkowski. If we did anything good in the Murkowski Administration, they ignored it. If we did anything they could characterize as bad, it was front page above the fold. The bad press was unrelenting from the minute Frank took his hand off The Bible. I’m not going to blame the ADN for our ignominious demise, but they sure did their part. Fundamentally, we never recovered from his appointment of Lisa; it guided everything we did for the first two years. In my balliwick, every labor relations decision was predicated on keeping those unions under contract and out of politics until after the ’04 election.

The People of Alaska simply recoiled from Frank’s appointment of Lisa and passed by initiative legislation removing the Governor’s power to appoint to fill a Senate vacancy. I don’t know that Lisa would have won in ’04 if Ted and Don hadn’t thrown all in to get her re-elected. Since then, she has worked very hard at constituent relations and is probably the most popular sitting politician in the State, or at least she was until Miller and Palin started trashing her. Sen. Murkowski had centerstage at the Sen. Stevens funeral service and was very sincere and Senatorial. Since pretty much everybody in Alaska watched that, I think that served her well.

I don’t know that Frank and Ted had that good a relationship, but Lisa and Ted seem to have had a very good relationship. Neither Frank nor Ted are/were easy guys to get along with; Ted had an “in your face” prosecutorial manner that unless you were as tough as he was could be very off-putting, Frank is a big, domineering guy and you WILL notice that he is in the room. I never knew Ted Stevens at any personal level; we said hello and knew each other’s name. I worked with/for Frank and he and I got along pretty well but only after I established that I could be just as big an a$$hole as he could. Being a successor to an icon ain’;t easy for anyone. Frank didn’t have Ted’s stature but he had a lot of stature, so filling his shoes wasn’t easy for Lisa. Ted definitely took her under his wing and was her mentor. She profitted from the experience.

Come join me for the returns at the Red Dog in JNU tonight and I’ll introduce you to LOTS of people who despise Sarah Palin.