This is Going To Be One Nasty, Tacky Election

I recently had a post about how some people aren't affected by facts that contradict what they believe and how emotion and personal narratives, the stories one has about how the world works.  As someone who thinks facts are important - would you like your doctor operating on you based on her opinion or based on scientific evidence? - I also recognize that we are all ruled by emotion as well.  And we need both to be rounded human beings.

So I'm posting this video, not because I personally like it, but because it shows that the Democrats are abandoning any semblance of rationality and reasonableness and going for the truly tasteless in hopes it will work for them like it does for Republicans.  This is an anti-Joe Miller ad that says it's from Blue America,  Outsiders who seem to think Alaskans  read at a 3rd grade level.  I wonder where they could have gotten that idea?

From the Blue America website:

Blue America '10

Among Blue America pages you will find actions dedicated to specific endeavors, like defeating Blue Dogs, rewarding members of Congress who have been fighting for meaningful health care or for ending the disastrous occupation of Afghanistan. There is even a page dedicated specifically to giving props to progressive hero Alan Grayson and one dedicated to the best challengers running for the U.S. Senate this year. I'm kind of partial to the one that Digby came up with to send a message to the Inside the Beltway Establishment by supporting BETTER Democrats, the non-corporate kind.

Joe Miller's "Judicial" Record Reviewed

In my last post, I cited information from Joe Miller's website* about his legal positions in Alaska.  I had questions about being a magistrate and his language that he "stepped down from the bench" to run for office.    [* I also had stuff from McAdams website]

I emailed my questions to an attorney friend who did not want to be quoted but wrote back, "it is so puffed up that I would puke if it had been written about myself." 

I normally wouldn't post unsupported opinion like this (he did have support in the email), but it seems the vehemence that's expressed is as important as the facts.  There is a VERY STRONG personal reaction to Miller's candidacy by many as mentioned in the previous post.

And besides, more detailed factual information came from another source.

akbrite left a comment on the previous post with a link to Wickersham's Conscience where the same questions were raised AND answered:

Joe Miller has never been a judge; he has been a magistrate. A state judge is appointed by the Governor from candidates proposed by the Alaska Judicial Council. Joe Miller has been a candidate for a judgeship: the superior court in 2005, the seat Judge Robert Downes now holds. He withdrew his name just before the bar poll results came out: that’s usually an indication he was panned by his peers. A magistrate is appointed by the court to do ministerial tasks. A federal magistrate is much the same.

In his bio, Miller says, “In 2004, Miller stepped down from the bench to run for State Representative.” He was never on the bench; he was never a judge. He ran for the superior court, although he quit before he got fairly started.
He says in his campaign website he has lived in Alaska for 16 years. He told the Judicial Council in March 2005 he had “been an Alaska resident for 10 years, and has practiced law for 9 years. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1995.” So if he graduated from Yale in May or June of 1995, in March of 2005 he had lived in Alaska for something less than ten years. And in 2010 he’s lived in Alaska 15 years, not 16 years. Yale is in New Haven, Connecticut, not Alaska.
Miller also says in his bio, “He has represented clients in a wide variety of cases, a number of which have gone all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court.” As it turns out, “a number” is two reported Alaska Supreme Court decisions, one when he was part-timing at the Borough Attorneys’ Office and one domestic relations case.

 The rest of the Wickersham's Conscience post does a similar analysis of Miller's statements on offshore drilling, the Constitution, the Alaska economy, and a few other issues. 

Big Clouds? Blue Skies? Time to Reflect and Get Grounded

This big cloud appeared over the Chugach range Wednesday night last week, but there was also lots of blue sky. Our primary election has changed the political climate in Alaska and  garnered national attention. What do we do now? 

Alaskan voters are faced with two candidates for the US Senate most know nothing about. (If Lisa Murkowski does find a way to get back in this race, it really doesn't change the gist of what I'm writing here.) I suspect that's true about most elections - but usually voters  have  candidates who'd been in the public eye for a while and the voters think they know who they are voting for.

But with 'unknowns' we end up grabbing labels - 'attorney,' 'mayor,' 'ivy league,' 'Alaskan,' 'hunter,' 'fisherman' - and we take them out of context and to create caricatures that have more to do with our projections than with the candidates.

We have less than two months to start collecting facts and filling in the holes so that our images of each candidate are reasonably close to who they really are. 


Joe Miller

From his website we're told he was born to a working class family and raised in Kansas. He went to West Point, was in the First Gulf war, got a law degree from Yale,  and came to Alaska. He's practiced law, been a magistrate. His wife's a teacher and serves on the Judicial Council which helps select judges.

He's been branded an extremist for calling for an end to 1) Social Security, 2) Obama's new health care program,  and 3) the Department of Education, for starters. But he's also qualified the social security claim in a letter to seniors in which he wrote, "I will not vote to cut your Social Security or Medicare benefits!" He just wouldn't allow new people in.  Is he saying one thing to one audience and something else to another?  Or is he being taken out of context?  We have to do our homework to find out. 

I've never met the man and I'm only just starting to look through his positions.  Do the Republicans who oppose him (people from Andrew Halcro to Paul Jenkins) know him well and have good reason for their fears?  Are they concerned that the Republican Party power structure, as they know it, is threatened?  It could be one, the other, both, and something else altogether.

But let's take the time to get to know the man.  Let's, of course, listen to those who already know him (Democrat David Guttenberg who defeated him in his race for the state house in 2004 was pretty strong in his opinions.)  But let's not fly off like one blogger did and make up Miller's record without doing our homework.

The unusual agreement  among people from both the Democratic and Republican parties suggests that Mr. Miller's positions really are extreme.


McAdams

Let's also get to know Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka who was seen as a Democratic placeholder so that Sen. Murkowski wouldn't be running unopposed.  With her losing the election, he's suddenly become as a serious contender.   I did get to talk to McAdams in Juneau last January and again just after he won the nomination.  I felt that he was genuine, bright, and knows quite a bit about how government works.   McAdams' website says he spent his elementary years in Petersburg, has commercial fished, graduated from Sheldon Jackson College, and has been chair of the Sitka School Board which got him involved in national school associations.

I haven't seen or heard the kind of strong negative talk about McAdams that Miller has generated.


Let's treat this like hiring our personal financial and legal adviser

It's time Alaska voters treat these elections for what they are:  job selections.  If this were a personal decision, it would be like hiring someone to handle our personal legal, financial, and family affairs.  Would you choose such a person based on 30 second ads made by a public relations firm?  Or would you study his resume carefully and consult people who know him and can tell you about his past performance? 

(Let's also hope that the public television/radio show "Running" will have a lot more depth for the general election than it did for the primary.  There was so little time for candidates that even Charles Manson could have come through the effort looking good.) 

This is probably the election that offers Alaskan voters the greatest degree of difference between the two candidates that we've ever had.  Let's not settle for facile slogans and solutions.  Let's carefully examine what both candidates say.  Let's look at the feasibility of their proposals, let's look at the likely direct consequences of their proposals, and the likely long term consequences.


Assignment

Go to the Miller website and the McAdams website.
1.   What are the issues that each highlight as important?
2.   What are the values they say are important?
3.   What do you see in their records that supports their claims?  Are their lives consistent with their values and stands on the issues?
4.   What more do you need, what evidence, to assure you that their claims are true?

This is step one.  You can learn a lot in an hour.  And doing it yourself, taking notes, will make it yours.  You'll understand and be ready for the next steps.

Next we're going to have to find:

• real - not quick and dirty - analyses of what they claim.  (This Mudflats piece digs past the superficial rhetoric, for example, though the title let's us know this is a partisan piece and an author's name would be helpful.)
   
• people who have seen these people working, people who can tell us whether they are what they say. 

The future of your state depends on you doing your homework, getting other voters to do theirs, and then everyone sharing what they've found out.

Alaska Election Context 3 - How Vulnerable Was Lisa Murkowski?

In Part 1 I looked at looked at Alaska's registered voter rate (apparently 96%).
In Part 2 I looked at the US Senate race and how the primaries work in Alaska.
In this post I'll look at Sen. Lisa Murkowski's background.

[UPDATE Aug 28:  A reader sent me this link to Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell's Huffington Post piece on the same topic, which has the same gist, but gives much richer detail than do I.]

These are thoughts aimed more at non-Alaskans.  Alaskans know all this and will, no doubt, correct me if I misreported anywhere.

Lisa Murkowski was a Republican state legislators with whom Democrats could live and  Republicans had some problems.  She was for women's rights, if not completely pro-choice, friendly, smart, articulate, and not of her father, Senator Frank Murkowski's, generation.  'Environmental' wasn't an epithet to her. 

She won her 2002 reelection to the State House by only 52 votes in the Republican primary  and then faced no opposition in the general election. 

That same year, her father had deciding to leave the Senate and run for Governor of Alaska.  In a January 2008 post speculating why Murkowski might have decided to leave to the Senate to run for governor I wrote:

The oil controlled state legislature passed a bill that said, in case a US Senate seat becomes vacant, the newly elected governor, not the currently sitting governor, makes the appointment. Everyone knew the purpose was to give Murkowski the power to appoint his successor. If this hadn’t passed, retiring governor Tony Knowles would have appointed the next US Senator. But it did pass assuring that, if Murkowki won, he could appoint his daughter. If he lost, he was still in the Senate.

This was settled before he ran for Governor.  Republicans didn't like the idea of a Democrat appointing Murkowski's successor and, given the reaction when he did appoint his daughter to the position, most people hadn't  anticipated that Frank would appoint Lisa. 

Appointing Lisa to the US Senate was the first seriously unpopular act of the new Governor.  Most people thought it was tacky at best, unethical or even illegal at worst.  Rival Republicans for the position were pissed.  The more conservative Republicans were particularly dismayed, while the moderate Republicans were less upset.  Democrats were ambivalent.  They thought it reeked of nepotism, but of all the Republican contenders, Lisa was probably the best in their eyes.

Gov. Murkowski went on to do a lot of things that got everyone mad from cutting benefits to seniors to buying a private jet - with administrative funds when the legislature said no.  (One of Palin's first acts as governor was to announce she was putting the jet on e-bay.)

Since Palin's run for governor knocked off Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary in 2006, there has been no love lost between the Murkowskis and Palin.  As an Alaskan, if I had to pick between  Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski to represent my state to the world, it would be Murkowski hands down.

But, when Lisa Murkowski got to the US Senate, she got into a much less flexible Republican majority where she forgot the words 'global climate change' and probably left the room entirely when abortion came up.  She quickly moved into the party leadership by moving way right.  There had always seemed to be a real ideological difference between Murkowski the elder and Murkowski the younger, but that seems to have mostly evaporated.

There was some question about whether Lisa could get elected on her own, but she had no real primary competition in 2004 when she had to run.  In the general election Republicans saw her as the lesser to two evils and united behind her against former Democratic  Gov. Tony Knowles.  At that point, I think, people thought she'd established herself, even if the Republicans didn't love her.

But Palin knew that Murkowski's Republican support was pretty shallow. And there is still a lot of resentment toward her dad and her original appointment.  There was even talk that Palin might run against her.  But then she'd have to take a pay cut and lose some of her spotlight.   But she probably saw this current race as a good opportunity to settle old scores.  Even if Miller hadn't gotten this close, she would be telling Murkowski to watch her back.

Add to that a primary with 25% turnout and a ballot measure on abortion and she was vulnerable. All Miller needed to do was get about 9% of Alaskan voters to vote for him. 

So while this seems to come as a huge surprise, the conditions were ripe for it to happen if the right factors came into play.  And they did.

Alaska Election Context 2 - US Senate Race

[This is the second post on this topic.  The first post  focused on the problems of determining the actual numbers of registered voters in Alaska which, if compared to the Alaska voting age population, would mean 96% of voting age Alaskans are registered.]

Overview

Few people voted Tuesday.  The winners of the US Senate races got votes from between 3% and 9% of the voting age population.  That means over 90% of the voting age population voted for someone else or didn't vote.  75% of the voting age population didn't vote at all. 


Alaska's Population

The US Census gives the population of Alaska in 2008 as 686,000.
The Alaska Permanent Fund estimates the 2008 population as 679,720 and 2009 population as 692,314.


Registered Voters
That same Census Bureau estimates the voting age population of Alaska as 506,000 in 2008.
The Alaska Division of Voters, as of August 3, 2010, says there are 487,575 registered voters.  As I noted in a previous post, this would mean that Alaska has about 96% of its voter age population registered while the US average is closer to 70%.

How the Alaska Primaries Work

The Republican primary is a semi-closed primary.  That means that only Republicans appear on the ballot and only Republicans and people not registered with another party can vote in the Republican primary.  So, Republicans, independents, and undeclared voters can vote.

The other parties have a blanket primary.  That means the other parties (Libertarian, Democratic, Alaska Independence, etc.) have their candidates all appear on one ballot and anyone, including Republicans, can vote on this ballot. 

There were three ballots.

• ADL - This includes Alaska Independence Party, Democrats, and Libertarians, and both ballot measures.
• R - This is the Republican Ballot, plus both ballot measures.
• M - This is just for ballot measures. There are no candidates.

Each voter had to choose one ballot.
Republicans could choose any ballot.
Undeclared and Independents could choose any ballot.
Democrats, Alaska Independence, and Alaskan Libertarian Party members could choose the ADL ballot or M ballot.

I would guess that most voters probably did not understand all this and it had to be explained by the election workers. 

There were two ballot measures.

• Prop. 1 to severely limit lobbying by public officials and employees and non-profits, but not businesses.  (It lost resoundingly.)
• Prop. 2 to require doctors to notify the parents of girls under 18 before they can have an abortion. (It won 55%-44%)

How many people voted?

ADL Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 30,855 (one Libertarian and three or four relatively unknown candidates)
• US House - 33,192 (one candidate, State Rep. Harry Crawford)
• Governor - 39,768 (two high profile Democrats, one Libertarian, one Alaskan Independent)
• Lt. Governor - 37,149 (three Democrats - one got 67% - and one Libertarian)

R Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 92,386 (Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller)
• US House - 62,590 (one candidate, incumbent Don Young)
• Governor - 90,938 (six candidates, including sitting Governor)
• Lt. Governor - 84,928 (seen by many as the most contested election, four candidates, three high profile)

M Ballot- Voters could vote on the ballot measures on all three types of ballots.  So, these vote counts reflect all three ballots and are the highest.  The election results do not distinguish the votes of the different ballots on these measures, or even how many people voted for them on which ballots.

Measure 1 - 134,471
Measure 2 - 134,981


Votes for US Senate Races


ADL Ballot

ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 41923/487456 8.6 % Total Votes 30855 Haase, Fredrick LIB 4849 15.72% Kern, Jacob Seth DEM 5978 19.37% McAdams, Scott T. DEM 15347 49.74% Vondersaar, Frank J. DEM 4681 15.17%

R Ballot

US SENATOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 93170/487456 19.1 % Total Votes 92386 Miller, Joe REP 47027 50.90% Murkowski, Lisa REP 45359 49.10%

The box below shows that overall, 24% of Alaskans of voting age voted in the US Senate race.  The Democratic winner had about 6% of Alaskans of voting age and the two Republicans who were almost tied, each had about 9%.

What does it mean? 

Without good polling to hear from the voters themselves, the numbers leave a lot of unanswered questions.


1.  How many Independents and Undeclared took Republican ballots, Democratic ballots, M ballots?  My guess is they were more likely to take Republican ballots.

2.  How many Independents and Undeclared voters voted for Miller?  And Why?  Clearly some were swayed by the Tea Party rhetoric.  Some, no doubt, we're voting against Murkowski.

3.  If Miller wins, how many of his voters this time will vote for him in the general?  How may others can he attract in November?  If the Tea Party folks were fired up, are there that many left who will vote for him in the Fall?

4.  If Murkowski wins, what will the Miller voters do?  Sit out?  Vote for Murkowski?  Vote for McAdams? Vote for the Libertarian Party candidate?

5.  McAdams is just as unknown today as Miller was three months ago.  Can he get Alaskans excited?  He has a great Alaskan profile - fisherman, small town mayor, but basically a 'real person' rather than a politician.  Will he attract Outside money to counter the money the Tea Party has sent to Miller?

6.  Will Murkowski's close race make her seem more vulnerable even if she wins?

7.  Is Miller so extreme that when his positions are known Alaskans will reject him when more show up to vote?

All these questions and others may or may not be answered in the next few months.  I think the key point here is that really very few people have voted.  That means that so far very little support has been given to anyone.  If the Tea Party really spent half a million dollars on Miller, it means helped get a victory (even if he doesn't win) by spending $10.63 per vote. 

All things being equal, Alaska voters tend to be more conservative.  The key to winning for Democrats is identifying non-voters who can be cajoled at worst and excited at best to come out and vote.  Obama energized a lot of Alaskan liberals to vote in 2008.  But, that said, it's easier said than done.

Scott McAdams Alaska US Senate Candidate - Video

I first met Scott last February in the Capitol hallway in Juneau.  After he told me what he did I realized he would be good on tape and posted a short video of him then.  With the Tea Party putting Joe Miller ahead of Sen. Murkowski, Alaskans as well as Outsiders are now asking, "Who is Scott McAdams."

There was a hint of what he had inside in the February video.  Tonight, at the Democratic Unity Dinner at Kincaid Park, on a spectacularly beautiful evening, Scott ignited those present as people realized that this guy is real, is articulate, has a brain, and could be our next US Senator.

The video shows most of his eleven minute talk.  I cut out some of the applause, but otherwise left it pretty raw.  I'll bet he grows tremendously as he travels the state in this election.

Alaska Election Context 1 - 96% of Alaska Voting Age Population Registered to Vote

It would appear from the data available that somewhere between 94% and 97% of Alaskans of voting age are registered to vote.  The national average is about 70%.   Basically, what I think this means is that the Alaska Division of Elections list of registered voters is carrying a lot of names - I'm guessing about 125,000 or 25% - of people who are no longer Alaskan residents - they've either moved away or died.

OVERVIEW

Registered Alaska Voters = 487,000  - official (Table Y below from Div of Elections)
Voting Age Alaskans  = 506,000 (2008 Census Data) (Table 16 below)
Percent of Voting Age Americans Registered to vote = 68-70% (Table 1 below from 2010 Census Survey)
Percent of Voting Age Alaskans Registered to Vote = somewhere from 94% - 96%
70% of Voting Age Alaskans (if the same as general US rate) = 354,200
Number of Possible Phantom Registered Alaskan Voters = 133,000 (about 27%)



In the rest of this post I'll go through the numbers.  In a follow up post I'll speculate what this means about the Republican primary yesterday that has Joe Miller slightly ahead of incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski.

The Numbers

From the Alaska Division of Elections website, we learn that there are 487,575 registered voters in Alaska. 

(I realize these tables go into the right column, but otherwise the numbers are too small for most and the lost numbers don't matter much.)

TABLE Y		RECOGNIZED POLITICAL PARTIES						POLITICAL GROUPS
STATEWIDE TOTALS	TOTAL	A	D	L	R	N	U	G	M	V
(438 PRECINCTS)	487,575	14,464	74,802	9,392	126,486	78,189	177,219	2,373	2,892	1,758

(These numbers are at the very bottom of the page on the website.  Here's what all those initials mean:

Political Parties:
A – Alaskan Independence Party
D – Alaska Democratic Party
L – Alaska Libertarian Party
R – Alaska Republican Party

Political Groups:
G – Green Party of Alaska
M – Republican Moderate Party Inc.
V – Veterans Party of Alaska

Other:
N – Nonpartisan (no party affiliation)
U – Undeclared (no party declared)

Less than half a million may not seem like much to most US citizens, but according to the 2008 Census data there are only 502,000 Alaskans of voting age.  This number comes from a 2010 US Census Statistical Abstract Resident Population by Age and State: 2008 [Excel 143k] | [PDF 446k]

I got 503,000 by adding up the totals for the age categories over 18.  But that is a 2008 population and this is 2010.  Can we get more up-to-date data?  Well, the Alaska
Department of Revenue Permanent, Fund Dividend Division's Annual Report, estimates the 2009 population at 692,314.  But their 2008 estimate of 679,720 was actually lower than the Census Bureau's 2008 estimate of 686,000.  The Permanent Fund estimates annual population increases between .7% and 1%  for 2005-2008.  From 2008-2009 they estimate a 1.9% increase in population.  If I increase their 2009 estimate by 1% for 2010, I get 699,237.

from 2009 Permanent Fund Dividend Annual Report

Then if I take the percent of the population over 18 from the Census Bureau 2008 population in the chart (Table 16) above,  about 73% of the population is of voting age.  That comes to 506,000 of the 2008 Census population total, and 519,000 using an estimate based on extrapolating from the Permanent Fund numbers. 

I don't suspect that any sort of Chicago shenanigans, that people were voting in the name of any of these phantom voters. (Though if there were a headline that this did happen, I wouldn't be surprised either.)  Alaskans move about a lot more than the average US citizen.  People come and go.  We have a large military population, some unknown number  of which take on Alaska residency because of the Permanent Fund Dividends.  When I spoke to an elections official last spring, I was told they purge the lists on a regular basis (I remember that it was something like four or five years of not voting to get off the list.)  I remember my son was on the list when I would go to vote for a long time after he was no longer a resident.  Perhaps the state should rethink how often the list is purged.  Or at least study whether our phantom number is significantly greater than in other states.

NOTE TO READERS:  Most of you aren't going to go through all the numbers and the math and are going to just trust me.  That's probably a mistake.  I wouldn't intentionally play with the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if I made a mistake or two.  My brain is no longer capable of looking at all this and as a blogger I don't have an editor.  And I want to get this out and I have to leave already.  I don't think any possible mistakes will affect my conclusion that we have a lot of people on the voting rolls that aren't Alaskan residents any longer. 

With 97% reported Joe Miller Still Leads Murkowsi

     

Miller, Joe	REP	45,909	51.09%
Murkowski, Lisa	REP	43,949	48.91%

Miller will  run against Sitka, Democrat Scott McAdams for the US Senate.  Will the Democrats try to get him to step down so a better known Democrat can run?  I'm not sure what conditions would have to be met for them to do that.  And it would be even more embarrassing if Miller to win anyway.

No surprise:  Don Young versus Harry Crawford for US House.

Berkowitz 48%    French 38% for Democratic Governor candidate.

Parnell, 43,764  49.49%
Walker, Bill 30,019  33.95%
Samuels, 12,420   14.05%

Lt. Gov   Rep. Treadwell (53%)  v. Dem Benson (65%0)


Con Bunde's old Senate Seat  Anchorage hillside will be a woman - Giessel (47%) (R) v. Reiser (D)

Peggy Wilson keeps her  SE House seat 52% to 47%

I'll post this now and then finish adding the other close races.


[Updated:


Steve Thompson wins Jay Ramras open Fairbanks house seat with 54%.



The closest raise was to fill John Harris' Valdez House Seat on the Republican side:

Feige, Eric A.	REP	666	33.57%
Fellman, Pete	REP	658	33.17%
Haase, Don	REP	660	33.27%

Carl Gatto keeps his Matsu seat with 54% of the vote.  And Mark Neuman keeps his with 65%.

Bill Cook won the Rep spot in Nancy Dahlstrom's old seat with 39% in a three way race.  Lindeke won as the only Dem.

Rep. Charisse Miller got 75% of the vote in her Anchorage seat.  Rep. Bob Lynn got 69% to keep his.

Appointed Rep. Neal Foster got 57% to keep his Nome seat.

Measure 1 to severely limit lobbying by governments and nonprofits lost 63% No to 37% Yes.
Measure 2 to require parent notification of a minor's abortion won 55% Yes to 45% No.]


All the results from the elections website are below

State of Alaska 2010 Primary Election August 24, 2010 Unofficial Results

08/25/10 03:56:12

Registered Voters 487456 - Cards Cast 134102 27.51%

Num. Report Precinct 438 - Num. Reporting 429 97.95%

US SENATOR (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 40596/487456 8.3 % Total Votes 29837 Haase, Fredrick LIB 4730 15.85% Kern, Jacob Seth DEM 5781 19.38% McAdams, Scott T. DEM 14802 49.61% Vondersaar, Frank J. DEM 4524 15.16%

US SENATOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 90618/487456 18.6 % Total Votes 89858 Miller, Joe REP 45909 51.09% Murkowski, Lisa REP 43949 48.91%

US REPRESENTATIVE (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 40596/487456 8.3 % Total Votes 32062 Crawford, Harry T. DEM 32062 100.00%

US REPRESENTATIVE (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 90618/487456 18.6 % Total Votes 86444 Cox, John R. REP 5220 6.04% Fisher, Sheldon REP 20365 23.56% Young, Don REP 60859 70.40%

GOVERNOR (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 40596/487456 8.3 % Total Votes 38483 Berkowitz, Ethan A. DEM 18718 48.64% French, Hollis S. DEM 14964 38.88% Toien, William S. LIB 1367 3.55% Wright, Donald R. AI 3434 8.92%

GOVERNOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 429 97.9 % Times Counted 90618/487456 18.6 % Total Votes 88423 Heikes, Gerald L. REP 355 0.40% Hlatcu, Merica REP 499 0.56% Little, Sam REP 1366 1.54% Parnell, Sean R. REP 43764 49.49% Samuels, Ralph REP 12420 14.05% Walker, Bill REP 30019 33.95%

36% of the Vote In - Miller leading Murkowski 51%-48%

[Update 10:27:  looking at the 9:47 count, Anchorage has large percentages reported (58%- 77%) but with some very low ones like the Mt. View district.  Districts with low reporting:
Kodiak 0%; Bethel 0%;  Kotzebue 4%; Nome 11%;  Dillingham 9%;  the giant rural district 6 that includes Tok   3%;  Juneau 20%. Ketchikan 22%.  These probably bode well for Murkowski, but who knows?]

It's not clear which precincts aren't in yet.    No votes from Anchorage District 20 - Mountain View area legislative race.  Kodiak races have nothing. Juneau only has about 2 of 9 precincts in Egan's race.  Some other SE Alaska votes are missing or lower percent than overall.  Some Anchorage races are 58% and 68%.
Below are all the results as of 9:36pm from the election site.

State of Alaska 2010 Primary Election August 24, 2010 Unofficial Results

08/24/10 21:36:00

Registered Voters 487456 - Cards Cast 66051 13.55%

Num. Report Precinct 438 - Num. Reporting 159 36.30%

US SENATOR (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 19183/487456 3.9 % Total Votes 13838 Haase, Fredrick LIB 2340 16.91% Kern, Jacob Seth DEM 2528 18.27% McAdams, Scott T. DEM 6867 49.62% Vondersaar, Frank J. DEM 2103 15.20%

US SENATOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 45740/487456 9.4 % Total Votes 45375 Miller, Joe REP 23251 51.24% Murkowski, Lisa REP 22124 48.76%

US REPRESENTATIVE (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 19183/487456 3.9 % Total Votes 15139 Crawford, Harry T. DEM 15139 100.00%

US REPRESENTATIVE (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 45740/487456 9.4 % Total Votes 43641 Cox, John R. REP 2679 6.14% Fisher, Sheldon REP 10509 24.08% Young, Don REP 30453 69.78%

GOVERNOR (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 19183/487456 3.9 % Total Votes 18222 Berkowitz, Ethan A. DEM 8822 48.41% French, Hollis S. DEM 7446 40.86% Toien, William S. LIB 627 3.44% Wright, Donald R. AI 1327 7.28%

GOVERNOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 45740/487456 9.4 % Total Votes 44674 Heikes, Gerald L. REP 175 0.39% Hlatcu, Merica REP 248 0.56% Little, Sam REP 721 1.61% Parnell, Sean R. REP 21895 49.01% Samuels, Ralph REP 6140 13.74% Walker, Bill REP 15495 34.68%

LT GOVERNOR (ADL) ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 19183/487456 3.9 % Total Votes 16987 Benson, Diane E. DEM 11102 65.36% Brown, Jeffrey D. LIB 1601 9.42% Moreno-Hinz, Lynette DEM 902 5.31% Powers, J. J. "Jack" DEM 3382 19.91%

LT GOVERNOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 159 36.3 % Times Counted 45740/487456 9.4 % Total Votes 41864 Burke, Eddie REP 5231 12.50% Lupo, Bob REP 961 2.30% Ramras, Jay REP 13302 31.77% Treadwell, Mead REP 22370 53.43%

Early Morning Election Day

As regular readers might remember, I originally went down to Juneau as a volunteer staffer for Rep. Max Gruenberg.  So when he and his wife invited us to hold campaign signs I thought I needed to say yes.  It is primary election day.  Besides, it would be a chance to chat with them.  Rep. Gruenberg is unopposed in the primary, but he does want to have his name out.  The idea of holding a campaign sign on a street corner to wave at cars going by is low on my list of things I want to do.  Plus it was at 7:30 in the morning.  But I advise others to do things they normally wouldn't, so I should too.  So there we were as the sun was blindingly coming over the Chugach Mountains. 

The weather was perfect - sunny but not too warm.  Drivers waved and I got to talk to some of the kids walking to Clark Middle School and introduce them to their Representative in Juneau. 

Mt. View Community Council member Joyce saw as at the corner and joined us for breakfast at the Mountain View Diner - a Chanlyut project, where Noble's Diner once was.  The food was good and we had a nice chat. 

2010 Alaska Proposition 2

[UPDATE 2012:  Here's the post on the 2012 Prop 2 to reestablish an Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program.]


I've been trying to avoid this.  KSKA has done a pretty good job and you can listen to Kathleen McCoy's Hometown Alaska show with guests representing both sides.   And Lisa Demer at the Anchorage Daily News on Friday covered it in depth. 

So I can just step back and leave the details to the others and try to put it into a larger perspective.


The PR characterization by the pro and anti forces:

PRO:  Alaskans for Parental Rights
ANTI:  Alaskans Against Government Mandates

Comment:  The pro forces win here, by being closer to what the measure is about.  The bill would require notification of parents before a pregnant girl under age 18 can have an abortion.  The anti forces seem to have taken a lesson from some of the right wing groups that have stretched the names they use to fight things they don't like.  Many things the government does (including things the anti-forces believe in) are 'government mandates' and yes, this would require doctors to inform the parents, I think this is fairly misleading.


What it's really about:

This is basically an anti-abortion measure.  An earlier law which required parental consent for an abortion for girls was thrown out by the Alaska Supreme Court.  This is an attempt to at least require parental notification.  But is this about parental rights?  Technically, yes, but it sure smells like it's really an attempt to make it harder to get an abortion.


What it's really about 2:

This is also about the balance of power between parents and their daughters.  The pro forces would give more power to the parents.  The anti forces would maintain the daughters' freedom to make these decisions.

The anti forces argue that there are girls whose dysfunctional families make it impossible, even dangerous, for the girls to go to their parents.  90% of the girls, they say, actually do talk to their parents.  Their concern, they say, is the 10% in dysfunctional families, or who may even be pregnant by a family member.

The pro forces say they have taken care of this by including an option to have a judge make the decision.  (Would you trust a random judge to make this sort of decision for you?)
The anti forces are particularly concerned about rural girls and the difficulties they already face.



Types of Parents and Types of Kids

As I see it, we have a continuum of parents from 

1_______________________2___________________________________3

1. Parents who essentially have abandoned their kids to do their own thing - either because they are working so much, or they are dysfunctional and can't control their own lives let alone their kids' lives. 
   
2. Parents who teach their kids to make age appropriate decisions about their lives and encourage them to become independent and think for themselves as they mature and give them the skills and information to do this - including birth control and sexual health information.
   
3. Parents who want to keep a close control of their kids and have very specific expectations for how their kids should behave and what they should do, even if the kid doesn't fit their mold.  

There are more different kinds of parents along the line and I'm sure readers could fill in different types of parents and where they fit on the continuum.

There are also different kinds of kids:

1___________________________2____________________________3

1.  Kids who are physiologically incapable of making many decisions for themselves.  FAS kids, for instance, come with many different kinds of abilities, some of whom really can't make good long term decisions and need protection from being taken advantage of even as adults.


2.  Kids whose families have not prepared them to make responsible decisions or who temperamentally are not suited to making important decisions on their own.

3.  Kids who have good smarts and have been trained or simply had an aptitude  to take personal responsibility and make important decisions about their lives.

I guess what I'm saying is that we can't generalize about the power relationship between kids and their parents.  In some cases the kids are better equipped to make important decisions about their own lives.  In other cases not.

There are cases where good kids make it through bad families, and there are cases where despite the best parenting, the kids turn out difficult.


I would argue that most parents would like their kids to consult them for important decisions.  And I dare say that in most families this happens.  In cases where girls cannot be persuaded by counselors to include their parents in the decision, I would guess that the girls probably have a good reason.  But not always. 

Does it really matter if it passes or not?

In the KSKA debate both sides seemed to agree that there were about 125 girls under 18 who have abortions in an average year in Alaska.  If it's true that 90% inform their parents (and I didn't hear the pro-forces challenge this), then all this is about 12 girls a year.  It doesn't stop them from getting abortions, it only delays it for 48 hours or so.  This may prevent a few girls from getting abortions, or, as the anti forces argued, it may cause some girls to take desperate measures to end their pregnancy.

Anti-abortion advocates will say that each abortion is a murder and so any abortion prevented is worth any effort.  I don't think abortion is a good thing.  No surgical procedure is a good thing if it can be prevented.  Rather than spend all this time and money on trying to change the law this way, it seems to me that everyone's time would have been better spent on serious sex education and birth control to make sure that there are simply fewer unwanted pregnancies and this would decrease the number of pregnancies.



Other Issues

It was suggested that this law would make doctors consider their own legal liability when trying to determine what is best for their patient.  Doctors have to deal with informing parents and in some cases getting girls to judges. 

The pro forces have very effectively taken the comparison between parents permission required for schools to give a kid an aspirin to their not even being informed that their daughters are pregnant.

There is a major difference here though.  Schools are not medical institutions and except for school nurses the personal are not medically trained.  These rules are in place to be sure that a teacher or an aide doesn't give an aspirin to a kid who is allergic to aspirin and would have a serious reaction.

Doctors, however, will be making the decisions about whether the child has an abortion.  I don't know how they work out getting the girl's medical record before making this decision.  And some girls may not even have a medical record. 

I did another post the other day that suggested if people didn't read and/or understand the bill, they should either not vote or vote no.  I would advise anyone who hasn't read this bill and doesn't understand it after they read it, should simply skip this measure and go on and vote for the candidates.  Or they should vote no.

Political Signs

Sometimes I have a possible story, but then things happen and I let it go.  Except it keeps coming back. 

About four weeks ago I noticed a Parnell Sign on what I always thought was a government built fence on the right of way at Lake Otis and 36th.  I thought that because when they did the bike trail they put in one fence all the way along the block and then added a flower planter at the corner.  It had flowers the first two summers and has been weeds since.












And there were two little signs on the big red sign. 

One said the sign was authorized by the property owner. 




The other said it was illegal. 




So I called the numbers on the "illegal" sign attached to the sign. 

The State told me that things related to political signs on the right of way were complicated right now because of a US Supreme Court decision and they were reviewing all their policies.

The Municipal planning person said he'd send someone out and check and if it was on the public right of way it would be torn down. 


I know it stayed up for at least another week, maybe two. 

Sometimes seeing something that isn't there is harder than seeing something that is there.  I went by the corner often and I'd get home and think, "Is that sign still there or not?  I don't recall seeing it, but maybe I'm just used to it now."

That  happened again just this last Friday.  I still had my bike out, so I just rode back to check it out.  No sign, and probably there hasn't been a sign up for a while now, which is why I couldn't remember seeing it.  Because I didn't see it. 


Ah, so it must have been found illegal and taken down. 

But today as I headed over to UAA, I noticed it was back, plus another sign had joined it.  Tomorrow is the election.  Campaign underlings often get ambitious and the candidates, especially for a major office, can't keep track of all this stuff. 

Nevertheless, if there were big fines for this sort of thing, maybe it wouldn't happen so much.  Or maybe candidates would put up their opponent's sign so he'd get fined.  Every time you make a rule, someone finds a way to mess with it. 

If You Don't Understand It - Don't Vote or Vote NO!

Most people would agree with the idea that legislators should read the bills they vote on. We can find a lot of self-righteousness on the topic on-line.

From Greta Van Susteren's blog on the Fox News website.

How about reading the #### bill before you vote for it???! What is wrong with Congress? 

CBS reported 

Let Freedom Ring, a non-profit, grassroots organization that supports a conservative agenda, announced an initiative today urging members of Congress to sign a pledge to read and give citizens the opportunity to read any health care reform legislation before voting on it.

From Rand Paul's website:

Once elected Rand Paul has pledged to never vote for a bill he hasn’t read and one of the first bills he will sponsor is the Read The Bills Act.

Maybe it's because the Democrats are in power that the sites I can find quickly on this topic are conservative sites.  But no matter, I think most people agree that there is something wrong when our members of Congress don't read the bills they vote on.

On Tuesday, Alaskans have two Ballot Measures to vote on.  Each is about five pages in the  State's voter pamphlet full of language like this:

(A) No public body, public officer, person in the employ of the state, any of its political subdivisions, any school district, or candidate for public office may, directly or indirectly, direct, permit, receive, require, or facilitate the use of tax revenues or any other public resources for campaign, lobbying, or partisan purposes, including payment of dues or membership fees of any kind to any person, league, or association which, directly or indirectly, engages in lobbying, campaigns, or partisan activity. No candidate, political committee, or political party may accept any contribution from any state, state agency, political subdivision of the state, foreign government, federal agency, or the federal government. A violation of this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Neither of the petitions are easy to make sense of.  In talking to a few people about Prop. 2 it became clear that what they thought a 'yes' vote would do, really needed to be a 'no' vote.

My advice to people is this:  We shouldn't make new laws that we haven't read or don't understand.  If you haven't read the ballot measures, you probably shouldn't vote on them.  If you insist on voting, you should probably vote no - that that new laws don't get added that people haven't read and/or don't understand.

And if you have read them but don't really understand them, the advice is the same.  Either don't vote or vote no.

If a significant number of people who vote for candidates but do NOT vote for the petitions, this will send a significant message to our legislators that we won't copy their behavior and we want them to copy ours.  If you haven't read it, don't vote on it.

Of course, being me, I could argue that there are times when you might want to follow the advice of someone you know who's an expert in a topic and vote as they suggest.

And one could say that this is just a sneaky way to manipulate people into defeating these two ballot measures.  It's true, I don't think either of these is a great measure.  Both are very confusing.  Legislation often needs to be complex to reflect the complexity of society, but the writing can still be clear so that someone willing to read it should be able to understand it.

I truly believe that no great or even minor tragedy will occur if both these measures and the point of passing up these two would have a positive effect.\

You can get the Voter Pamphlet here (it's a pdf file) and read them yourselves.

I'll try to get some specifics up about Ballot Measure 2 by Monday.

Martin Lindeke "Up Ship Creek Without a Dam"

I do understand the power of the soundbite.  When I downloaded the video to load it onto Viddler, that quote just stood out.  How could I resist?

I ran into Lindeke, the Democratic candidate for the House District 18 seat - the bases and Eagle River mostly.  This was the district represented by Nancy Dahlstrom before she switched over to a state job and then resigned that job because the timing looked like it violated the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law prohibiting legislators from take jobs created while they were in the legislature.

Lindeke served in the Navy on the USS Dwight D Eisenhower (nuclear powered aircraft carrier), he was a professional in-line skater, and a line cook/chef at Simon's and Sous Chef at the Brewhouse.  He now works for a private company in Eagle River as a Hazardous Material Specialist and Building Inspector. 



I had great intentions to try to cover a number of the Anchorage races.  As it is I'll be lucky if I'm able to get up some videos like this one to give you a sense of the candidates.  You can check out his website as well.

Here's the full list of the District 18 candidates from the Division of Elections website:

State Representative District 18

* Nancy A. Dahlstrom (Republican) - Withdrew
PO Box 771094
Eagle River, AK 99577
Phone: (907) 694-4929

* Bill Cook (Republican)
19328 Monastery Dr. #A
Eagle River, AK 99577
Phone: (907) 694-1010

* Dan Kendall (Republican)
PO Box 770616
Eagle River, AK 99577
Phone: (907) 696-7066

* Martin J. Lindeke (Democrat)
16111 Cline Street
Eagle River, AK 99577
Phone: (907) 622-4216

* Dan Saddler (Republican)
PO Box 771811
Eagle River, AK 99577
Phone: (907) 696-5492

Curious Numbers in South Carolina's Election

After finishing the last post on the South Carolina primary elections, I kept poking around.  What I found first was election results from the 2008 Democratic primary in South Carolina and they were so completely bizarre I couldn't believe them. And with good reason, they were totally wrong. All the Obama results were 0% with just a few votes per county even when there were thousands of African-American voters. I mention this to remind people to think when they see things on the internet. When it's too strange to be true it probably isn't.  Fortunately there was a link to the same results in a different format. They seemed much more sensible - Obama won with 55% of the vote. But let's try thinking again. In 2008, Obama got 55% of the Democratic primary vote in South Carolina.

In 2010, Al Greene took the Democratic primary with 59% of the vote!  According to Charleston South Carolina's Post and Courier these are the election results for last week's Democratic primary election for the US Senate:

U.S. Senate - Dem Primary

June 09, 2010 - 04:54AM ET

South Carolina - 2109 of 2109 Precincts Reporting - 100%

Name Party Votes Vote % Greene , Alvin Dem 99,970 59% Rawl , Vic Dem 69,572 41%

Let's think about this for a bit.  First, a small discrepency:

In 2008 the Post and Courier says there were 2259 precincts and in 2010 there are only 2109 precincts.  There's probably a good explanation, but we do need to find out what it is.

Now, let's think about the 2008 primary election.  The first really serious female presidential candidate and the first serious black presidential candidate were both running and getting tons of attention.  Everyone was worked up about this and there was lots of national attention on the primary elections that day.  Plus, John Edwards from neighboring North Carolina was on the ticket.

So an extremely articulate black candidate with lots and lots of publicity running against two white candidates, Obama,  got 55% of the vote in 2008.

In 2010,  an inarticulate black candidate with no publicity and no funding running against one white candidate with high name recognition and good funding got 59% of the vote.  Something is bizarre here.

You can say, "But far fewer voters actually turned up to vote, only about 1/3."  But, presumably, the voters who turned out this time around would be more likely to be party regulars who pay more attention to the elections and are better informed.  They would have looked at the two candidates and seen that the one was totally off the wall.  The other candidate was white - like 62% of South Carolinians (though the percent of white Democrats is probably lower, it still appears to be over 50%.)  I know almost nothing about North Carolina politics, but nothing I've read yesterday and today suggests that Vic Rawl had high negatives.

When something doesn't look right, we should look a little harder.  Sometimes we can explain the problem.  Like the other day while running, I sensed the color of the trees was funny.  I looked up and one of the birches had been broken near the top and it was hanging down.  Oddity explained.  Now, these numbers in South Carolina, plus Greene's inability to answer questions about things like where he got the money to run and reports of problems with the computers all raise serious questions.  These were paperless touch screen computers so voters don't have, and the voting machines don't produce, any independent hard copy of the votes.  There are serious questions about electronic voting and it's quite possible that South Carolina could be the first example of voting machine rigging on a large scale.

Or, it could turn out to be as simple as voters voting for the candidate with the same name as a famous gospel and soul singer.  

[Update 3:30pm June 16:  This Huffington Post blogger found a lady who said she voted for Al Greene because his name sounded like the singer.  The blogger writes as though this were further proof of South Carolina's problems, we all know that name recognition is a major goal in  politics.  After all, Californians elected a governor because his name was the same as a movie star.  What's the difference?]

The Alvin Greene Story - Biggest Election Story of 2010?

After Tuesday's election results, the most curious story for me is the victory of Al Greene in the Democratic Senate race in South Carolina.  When I saw a video of him talking to the press the bells and whistles really began to go off.  Here's yet another video.



Was this guy for real?  What were the Democrats doing during the campaign?  How come all this comes out only after the election?   How could an inarticulate candidate nobody knows, who didn't campaign, beat a well funded party backed candidate?  It's pretty remarkable.  There's a bigger story there one way or the other.  Either there's some monkey business or there's a new lesson to be learned.  But given Greene's dreadful presence on tape, the former seems more likely than the latter.

I was puzzled by the lack of attention it got compared to stories about California's rich women execs or Arkansas' Governor's race, or even the other South Carolina race.  Maybe these got more attention immediately post election because these were the ones that had been hyped the most pre-election. 

The media were looking the other way, so they weren't ready for the Greene story, but I suspect it will turn out to be one of the biggest.  It has Watergate writ small all over it.  I know, every hint of political scandal is compared to Watergate, but this potentially about political sabotage by the other party just like Watergate. 

My first questions were:

1.  How does an unknown, inarticulate, black candidate with no political history and no campaign expenditures knock off a white judge in a conservative southern state in a US Senate primary?  (According to Wikipedia, in 2000 the state was 62% white, 29% black.  Presumably a larger percent of registered Democrats are black than the state population.)

2.  Why didn't his obvious weaknesses, not to mention the pending felony charge, come out during the primary campaign?

So I started looking around.

A TPM story June 10 says there are two more odd cases of black candidates running for office in South Carolina in Democratic primaries with no party support and no financial disclosures.  One lost (Gregory Brown who ran against sitting black Democratic Representative and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn), but the other, like Greene, won too.

In the third race that Clyburn calls suspicious, the 1st Congressional District, Frasier won even though the establishment-favored candidate, Robert Burton, raised and spent $100,000. Frasier's campaign didn't file any details about his spending with the FEC. But he's far from a first-time candidate, having run nearly three dozen times -- and losing -- for elected office. Frasier has run as a candidate for both parties, and has even been accused of being a Republican plant and not qualified to be a candidate in the past, according to local press accounts.
Frasier doesn't have a campaign Website or Facebook page we could find, but Frasier beat Burton by about 2,200 votes or 56%-44%.

So people are accusing the three of being Republican plants.  Theoretically that shouldn't matter.  Primary voters should be able to see through the ruse and not elect them.  Except the South Carolina primary is an open primary.  Republicans could vote in the Democratic primary.  So far, though, I haven't seen any documentation of pushing Republicans to vote for these candidates - letters, emails, etc.  Surely if this were a significant factor, there'd be some documented evidence.  Maybe it will come out yet.

But down in South Carolina, Jennifer, at Indigo Journal, a self proclaimed progressive blog* (hey, this is South Carolina, who knows?  it says:

Founded in 2008 by Tim Kelly and Jennifer Read, IJ is a news, analysis and action website dedicated to building a strong progressive community in the reliably red Palmetto State*)

suggested on June 11 that there was not a Republican conspiracy:

While national pundits and activists foam over the possibility of some nefarious GOP plot at work here in the Palmetto State (a scenario I find weak at best), the real question S.C. Democrats should focus on is why didn’t their front-runners mount more sophisticated campaigns?

Today, June 14, Jennifer, has posted losing Democratic Primary candidate Judge Vic Rawl's statement calling for an investigation into the election which he says are riddled with irregularities.

• First is ongoing analysis of the election returns themselves, which indicate irregularities.

• Second are the many voters and poll workers who continue to contact us with their stories of extremely unusual incidents while trying to vote and administer this election.
  
  These range from voters who repeatedly pressed the screen for me only to have the other candidate’s name appear, to poll workers who had to change program cards multiple times, to at least one voter in the Republican primary who had the Democratic U.S. Senate race appear on her ballot. . .

• Third is the well-documented unreliability and unverifiability of the voting machines used in South Carolina.  It is worth noting that these machines were purchased surplus from Louisiana after that state outlawed them.

[Update June 15 from the Atlantic:

South Carolina's Election Commission says it's confident its voting system are reliable, and Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire rebuffed the claim by Vic Rawl (whom Greene defeated in the primary with over 100,00 votes, just under 60%) that South Carolina purchased its machines second-hand from Louisiana after the state stopped using them. South Carolina bought its machines directly from ES&S, Whitmire said.]

But Jennifer, while acknowledging possible election problems, still chastises the Dems:

According to the Rawl campaign, there are too many irregularities in Tuesday night’s results to let the election go uncontested. Fair enough. Let’s do some due diligence digging. But I still say, had Team Rawl stepped up their communications game prior to primary day, we wouldn’t be dealing with this drama. Case in point: we’ve received more press releases from the Rawl campaign in the last 5 days than we did during the entire primary season. Just sayin’.

However, Tim, also at Indigo Journal, writes in a later post today trying to figure this out by following the money in the Brown campaign (the person who ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Clyburn.

Brown’s campaign was run by Preston Grisham – a longtime aide and former campaign manager for, you guessed it, Joe Wilson. [Steve:  You remember the guy who interrupted Obama's speech before the joint House and Senate by shouting out, "You lie"?]

Brown’s disclosure forms (here, here and here) show he paid Grisham’s consulting firm more than $23,000.

The truly perplexing thing, though, is just where Brown got this money – or any of the $54,000 he spent on his campaign. As of his latest filing, Brown reported raising a grand total of $830. He ended his campaign last Tuesday with a deficit of over $53,000.

“Say Joe Wilson and a group of well-heeled Republicans cook up a scheme to cause Clyburn to have to spend his cash and to “help” the Democrats nominate a Senate candidate that can be hung around the whole fall Dem ticket’s neck,” said a source we spoke with this afternoon.

“On March 1, Brown’s campaign cuts Joe Wilson’s former campaign manager a check for $12,500 for marketing,” our source continued. “We don’t know what the hell kind of “marketing” Preston Grisham provided Brown, but we do know that shortly thereafter, an unemployed Alvin Greene has $10,400 for a filing fee to run for the U.S. Senate.”

As I said, it’s a stretch to take this all the way to Alvin Greene. But we do now have not one, but two, Democratic primary candidates who haven’t disclosed where thousands of dollars in campaign cash came from, and we have Joe Wilson’s – and/or elephant poop – all over one of those candidates.

I did find that in a 2008 campaign, Ben Frasier's South Carolina residency was challenged on the grounds that

that Frasier has a home and several businesses in Maryland and far fewer legal ties to his purported home on Wadmalaw Island.

but the County Board of Elections and Voter Registration determined he's a resident.


So, there are some facts, but a lot more speculation at this point.  But I also remember hearing about some burglars at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building.  That's all it was at first, a petty burglary.   It took a long time before people believed that Nixon was connected to that.

Let's go back to my initial questions and see where we are.

1.  How does an unknown, black candidate with no campaign expenditures knock off a white US Representative in a conservative southern state?  Possible answers:

• The white Dems didn't campaign, according to Jennifer
• There were serious voting irregularities with second hand voting machines

And after writing all this I have more questions on this:

1. In the House upset, what is the racial make up of the House District?  Was it majority black so that a black candidate against an unknown white candidate could win?  Jennifer says that in the last couple of days there were high profile tv ads so voters could see he was black.
   
2. In the US Senate race, could the voters have voted for Al Greene because they associated his name with gospel and soul singer Al Green?

2.  Why didn't Al Greene's obvious weaknesses, not to mention the pending felony charge come out during the primary campaign?

• Jennifer suggests that the party backed Democratic candidates didn't take their opponents seriously and simply didn't campaign.  This isn't too unusual when someone has a fringe candidate or two running against them.  They want to save their money to campaign in the general election.  
• I looked back through the Indigo Journal posts to March and didn't really see any coverage of Greene, Brown, or Frasier here either.   There was one post "Trouble for Demint"  that had a quote that listed Vic Rawl as "Democratic Challenger," with no mention of Greene.  The quote mentioned that Rawl hadn't done any advertising - but the implication seemed to be that his polling numbers against Demint were that high even though he hadn't started to campaign.  There was no comment about him needing to campaign. This wasn't a post by Jennifer.   But, to be fair, it seems that Jennifer wasn't posting much earlier.

So it will be interesting to see where Gregory Brown got the $52,000 he's supposed to have spent when he only raised $850.  And where Al Greene got his $10,000 filing fee.  And where Fraser got the money for his television ads.


*As an Alaskan blogger who was pigeon-hoed by non-Alaskans right after Sarah Palin's VP nomination, I don't want to perpetuate that sort of silliness.  I just wanted to point out that I first saw Indigo Journal today and have to judge by what they say about themselves and what they write.  But given the story was about a suspected phony Democrats, I couldn't resist the dig.  Their posts seem legitimately progressive to me.