Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey
As though the Establishment’s political lynching of Chair-Elect Russ Millette wasn’t enough, the verdict is now in on round two of the proceedings from the Kangaroo Court assembled by the State Executive Committee. After hearing the latest verdict, it is abundantly clear that party “leadership” is sending an unequivocal message to grassroots conservatives: your vote doesn’t matter.
It might be dismissed as an anomaly, an exigent circumstance, or perhaps an isolated lapse in judgment if we hadn’t seen this flick before. But the bad reruns just keep coming, ad nauseam.
After the State Convention in April, I sat down for lunch with ARP Rules Chair Frank McQueary to talk party politics and see if we could patch things up. When asked what could be done to bring the party together, his answer was “nothing.” Period.
Mr. McQueary then went on to give me a history of grievances stretching back to my childhood. He told of the villainous Christian fundamentalists from the “Moral Majority” of the 1980’s, the troublesome “Christian Coalition” of the 1990’s, and so on. It all left me scratching my head, wondering what all that had to do with me or my conservative friends in 2012.
Apparently they had committed the same almighty calumny that the Palinistas, Millerites, and Paulers had. They had the unmitigated gall to go out, organize, and win an election. Clearly unacceptable!
Notwithstanding the protests of my Establishment friends, this whole sordid affair had nothing to do with Russ Millette or Debbie Brown. Just like the last episode had nothing to do with Joe Miller. Or the one before with Sarah Palin . . . or the Christian Coalition of the 90’s . . . or the Moral Majority of the 80’s . . .
It had everything to do with ruling class entitlement, corruption, and a group of despotic power mongers who leverage political power for personal aggrandizement, and shake down State and Federal Treasuries for the enrichment of their friends and family. Can we say crony capitalist?
They are the folks who for a generation propped up Ted Stevens, the Murkowskis, and Don Young while they colluded with lawyers, lobbyists, corporatists, and other corrupt politicians in Washington to create a network that would bring the gravy train to Alaska and keep it flowing. Our delegation and their “partners in crime” are known inside the beltway as “the Alaska Mafia.” No joke.
Sadly, the ARP’s role in enabling big government and crony capitalism has made it a willing accomplice in the bankrupting of America. The struggle you see going on now is for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in the Last Frontier. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The Establishment is arguing again that the results of the Convention were somehow illegitimate, and don’t represent the Alaska Republican Party. Where have we heard that before?
Seems I recall hearing a lot of moaning from the Establishment that Sarah Palin wasn’t “one of us.” Ironically, she was too bipartisan.
And given my central role in Joe Miller’s campaign, I know the narrative well that was being peddled in the days following Joe’s stunning primary victory in the 2010 US Senate race.
Yep. Same story. The primary election didn’t reflect Alaska because it represented only a fraction of the electorate (it’s called the party system), everybody who wanted to vote for Lisa couldn’t (read Democrats) because of the closed Republican primary, and of course Joe Miller had somehow won illegitimately because he “mischaracterized” Murkowski’s record.
I know I’m a little late with the Truth Squad, but the fact is that Joe Miller defeated Lisa Murkowski in the largest turnout for a Republican Primary in the history of Alaska, garnering more than 10,000 more votes than Murkowski received in her 2004 primary victory which she won by more than 20 points.
Then-Representative Lisa Murkowski had voted for the closed primary system while serving in the Alaska Legislature. And the Senator went on to embrace almost every one of Joe’s supposed “mischaracterizations” of her record in the general election, vindicating his statements as truth. Ironically, she won her write-in bid with the help of more than 36,000 Democrats. That would be more votes than the write-in senator received from Republicans.
Murkowski also claimed that she re-entered the race due to an outpouring of public support that grew over time to create a popular mandate. But according to an interview conducted with The Daily Beast on primary election night, knowing things were not looking good for her, she was already entertaining the idea of a third-party run before the primary results were even tallied.
Joe Miller was subsequently villified and treated as a pariah by Establishment Republicans who supported Murkowski’s relentless multi-million-dollar fear-and-smear campaign, proving that all it takes to destroy the character of a good man is a few million dollars and a lot of malice.
The same canards were trotted out after Russ Millette won the chairmanship with 54% of the vote from elected delegates representing all forty political districts of the state. Was it a small number of the 137,000 Republicans in the State of Alaska? Yes, it’s called representative government. But it was a decisive victory from what was reportedly the largest Republican Convention ever assembled in the Alaska.
Not only are the architects of “Republican” mayhem living a lie through their post-convention coup, they are engaging in hypocrisy of the lowest kind. For over the molehill of specious charges leveled at both the Chair and Vice-Chair duly elected by the delegates of the 2012 Republican State Convention, looms a mountain of evidence to prove beyond doubt that many of the folks on the SEC have in fact broken party rules for which there has been no discipline imposed.
I offer two indisputable examples that are a matter of public record: United States Senator Lisa Murkowski, and long-time party boss Randy Ruedrich.
As we all witnessed in 2010, Lisa Murkowski, a sitting member of the State Central Committee, waged a multi-million-dollar smear campaign on the public airwaves against the party nominee. It was mean-spirited. It was malicious. And it was a clear violation of party rules.
What was the Party’s official response? To congratulate the perpetrator, and openly attack the Republican nominee. And that is where Ruedrich comes in.
As though it wasn’t enough to publicly embrace the villainous Murkowski, and seek to publicly humiliate the Republican nominee, Ruedrich joined the Murkowski intervention in post-election legal proceedings by signing a sworn affidavit submitted to the Court, all before the election was certified. This too was clearly a violation of party rules for which the State Central Committee could have removed Ruedrich from office.
So what did the Central Committee do about these clear rules violations? Absolutely nothing.
In fact, after the duly elected delegates of the 2012 State Convention passed a resolution out of committee censuring Murkowski for her destructive behavior, Ruedrich broke the rules again to shut down the convention prematurely, averting a floor vote on the censure. The Chairman subsequently thwarted the reconvene of the convention required under the rules, even taking to the press to tell folks not to attend so as to avoid a quorum.
But it didn’t end there. When the State Central Committee finally got around to acting on the censure resolution, they refused to even vote, instead opting to table it. So not only were they unwilling to exercise discipline by removing the bad actors, they were not even willing to denounce what they had done.
But then again, why would this behavior be surprising coming from the likes of folks who I personally witnessed throw tantrums at the State Convention. One vowed to “burn down the Central Committee.” Another personally told me he couldn’t wait until his term was up as a state-wide officer so he could attack the party openly. Both of these members voted to remove the duly elected leaders of our party.
The subversive behavior of ARP “Leadership” deserves censure from every Alaskan of good will. It is dishonest. It is hypocritical. It is an affront to good faith and fair dealing.
Sorry folks, the verdict of the State Executive Committee’s Kangaroo Court just won’t pass the red face test. And while the corrupt Republican Establishment continues to wage war on the citizens they expect to vote for them, Mark Begich laughs. Let’s hope he’s not laughing all the way back to Washington for a second term.
