Friday in the Sun!!! (Sept 2)

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Just As We Predicted — Sen. Lisa Murkowski continues to rack up post-primary left-wing endorsements

New Tactics — You may have seen a smattering of media reports of how Rep. Liz Vazquez hired her primary opponent, David Nees to work out of her Anchorage LIO office.

What wasn’t reported is why. We find it interesting that immediately after we posted this piece detailing how Vazquez staffer Bernadette Wilson would be a liability to the house rep, Ms. Wilson disappeared from the office. In fact, Mr. Nees confirmed in a Facebook post that he has in fact replaced the Lilliputian lady of the GOP:

We’re told Nees was hired because Republicans were mad/impressed with how they felt Rep. Jim Colver deployed his staff to do “constituent outreach” which was code for “door-to-door campaigning” in his race and Vazquez brought Nees on board to do the same thing for her.  

So if you live in Rep. Vazquez’ district you will probably be seeing Mr. Nees at your door sometime soon.

On a side note, it is odd that this pic is the third instance since Mr. Nees started working for Rep. Vazquez that he misspelled her name.

Midnight Sun On The Air!!!! — Master of Morning Radio Rick Rydell (AM 650 KENI) has asked us to come on every week and share Friday in the Sun with his audience. So listen for our inside scoop every Friday morning at 7:35.

Democrat Merry-Go-Round — You may have seen this story in the Mat-Su about Dems replacing one of their state house candidates on the ballot. Yesterday the Dems did the same thing in District 26 by naming David Gillespie to replace Bill Goodell as the Dem to run against Chris Birch.

More interesting is that we are hearing Dem party bigwigs are actively considering the same tactic in Rep. Cathy Munoz’ district. Munoz is suddenly vulnerable thanks to her bold stand in support of two CHILD SEX ABUSERS!

Word is Dem leaders are eager to retake what should be a solidly liberal district, but they aren’t sure their candidate, Justin Parish isn’t quite up to the task. We hear a name like Caren Robinson might be a viable replacement.

According to the Alaska Division of Elections, Dems have to decide by September 6th. That is when ballots are finalized.

Days until the General Election — 67

Oh Gabby — It was surprising to many that the Alaska Democratic Party would file an APOC complaint over Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux’s new personal PAC. Dems need Ledoux if they have any realistic chances of forming a bipartisan majority in the State House next year, so why go after her?

But you gotta hand it to Ledoux, she can turn almost any situation into campaign cash. we hear the Democrat Party’s move prompted a few Dem legislative staffer types to immediately donate to Gabby’s PAC, partly as a way of showing the PAC attack was the Party, not them, and partly to say “please, oh please, still caucus with us next year.”

Is An Alaska Candidate Tied To An Islamist Cult? — Well that is the claim made by a group out of Washington D.C. called the Clarion Project against House District 8 Democratic candidate Greg Jones.

“The Clarion Project has learned that a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention is a member of Muslims of the Americas, which is a rebranding of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a cultish Islamist group that is led by an extremist cleric in Pakistan and has a history of terrorism and criminal activity. The individual is also running for the Alaska State House.”

“Fuqra’s newspaper, the Islamic Post, announced that one of its members, Gregory “Shuaib” Jones of Wasilla, Alaska (the city that Sarah Palin was mayor of), had been chosen as a Democratic Party delegate to the Democratic National Convention. It also said that he was running for the Alaska House of Representatives District 8.”

Guess what we don’t do at The Midnight Sun? We don’t evaluate the relative extremism of religious groups. So read the article and talk to the guy and decide for yourself.

We will remind you, this is the same guy who came up with this logo, so we have a hard time believing he isn’t awesome.

1 of 100 — Congrats to Alaska Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Curtis Thayer who has been appointed to the United States Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100 (CCC100). Thayer is one of 10 newly appointed executives to join this elite group of chamber CEOs to represent the perspectives and needs of chambers and their members to the U.S. Chamber.

The upside of this prestigious appointment for Thayer is that the next time the Homer Chamber of Commerce wants to throw a fit about what the U.S. Chamber is doing, they know who to call.

Full Investigation — The Alaska Republican Party and Rep. Ben Nageak are now conducting their own investigation into the District 40 primary election. We wonder if their investigation will actually investigate everything? We have been hearing chatter similar to this commenter on the Alaska Dispatch News story:

From people we’ve talked to who have looked into donation patterns for Rep. Nageak’s campaigns, he does seem to have raised a good deal of his money from a few “clusters” of donations coming from the employees of a few companies. Will these investigations look into these  voters and donors? We are skeptical.

Throwing Stones — Something struck me about the hearing legislative Republicans held earlier this week about voting irregularities in rural Alaska. The Republican legislators kept pushing the narrative that the election was “illegal” because there were errors made by officials in as many as 4 out of over 400 precincts.

The thing is if we apply that logic to those legislators and their business then wasn’t that hearing illegal? It was being held in a room at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office (LIO) courts have ruled legislators procured illegally. So, by their own logic isn’t any hearing held there illegal?

It is like they held the hearing in their own metaphorical glass house. Actually, it is also literally a glass house. How poetic is that?

Political Fly Into The Sun — If you have morsels you’d like shared in this column, please email us at [email protected].

Here are just some of the other events you can find on our Political Calendar —