Permafrost Friday: Political Potpourri

Samuels Starts Swinging

GOP Gubernatorial challenger Ralph Samuels hit the airwaves with a hard hitting ad citing Alaska's sluggish economy, escalating state spending and basically no leadership from the current governor. Many political watchers have wonder when Samuels was going to take off the gloves; this week they got their answer.

Where's Sean?

In a rare duel press release, both GOP gubernatorial challengers accused current Governor Sean Parnell of avoiding debates and issued a notice that they would protest any surrogate that showed up to take the place of the elusive governor.

Back in 2006, Sarah Palin pulled the same stunt. She skipped debates she viewed as unfriendly or issues she was unfamiliar with, instead having surrogates show up for her.

Many say its because Parnell's approval ratings are a mile wide and an inch deep and he is worried about getting beat up in these debates for his handling of just about everything.

Tears and jeers of a clown

 

                  

Those in attendance at the Mat-Su Republican women's club luncheon to hear the candidates for Lt. Governor, were treated to Eddie Burke at his best.

Burke who was participating in the Lt. Governor's forum in Wasilla with fellow candidates Jay Ramras and Mead Treadwell, went from tears to jeers in a matter of moments.

He went from choking up about his battle with alcoholism, to calling Treadwell, "an Al Gore radical environmentalist."

Treadwell responded by slamming down a chair and accusing Burke of lying. Later Treadwell told the crowd, "and that's why I'm running for governor."

A freudian slip perhaps?

Poor Jay Ramras, all he did was talk about how to get the economy moving again.

 

 

Scripted to Fail

                    

A new batch of emails released to the Associated Press shows the former Palin Administration was worried about public perception about AGIA.

Some of those emails show how closely they watched media coverage of AGIA and how sensitive they were to criticism.

In one email, Deputy Director Marty Rutherford became concerned after TransCanada's CEO made the comment, "Nothing moves forward until Exxon is happy," just three days after TC was awarded the AGIA license.

"We need to ensure that comments about the Producers are scripted in the future," Rutherford wrote to Tony Palmer, TransCanada's vice president for Alaska Development.

Today we all know AGIA was a fraud and will have a negative impact on the ability for Alaskans to get in-state gas.

I'll say it again, I can't believe Marty Rutherford et al. still have jobs after what they've done to the state's pipeline future.

 

 

Middle of the Road

            

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, who was a moderate Republican for over four decades jumped ship last spring to the Democratic Party because he feared he couldn't win a Republican Primary in 2010.

On May 18, Specter was beaten in the Democratic Primary, thus ending his long political career and proving once again that if your in the middle of the road stay there because crossing can be fatal. 

Over the course of history there have been multiple quips and quotes about moderate politicians.

Political Pundit Jim Hightower once said "there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." 

Even former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once snapped that being in the middle of the road simply meant you would get crushed by traffic heading both ways.

Personally, I like my quippers to have credibility and so it was Dwight David Eisenhower that put the subject of moderate politicians best:

"People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually all human problems, excepting morals, come into grey areas. Things are not all black and white. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters."

And lets be honest, if it wasn't for Eisenhower leading the allies to victory in WWII, Thatcher would have been speaking German.

When it comes to moderates, I like Ike.