Of course a real contest in Alaska means the GOP would have to spend money there they didn't expect. They will be having contests in states they easily held. Of course the same is true of the Democratic money, which will also be spnt to help Democrats in states where they might not have had a chance before.

neilwilson...several of your comments on Alaska are incorrect. I always am amazed to see how outsiders seem to profess an understanding of Alaskam when in fact they have no clue.

1) We don't have socialistic tax system where we get a rebate from the government. Like several States, we don't have a State income tax and we don't get a "rebate" from the government. A quick layman explanation...when the oil leases were first sold by the State in the late 1960s the cash was put into a fund that could never be touched. The "rebate" is the interest earned every year by the principal.

2) Yes..we do get huge amounts of money from Washington every year. But you know what, Washington owns in excess of 60% of Alaska in the form of Parks, refuges, etc., etc which of course cannot be used for resources extraction, provide jobs and a tax base. I am sure your State doesn't have the same problem. So I see it as a fair trade. If Washington is going to "lock up" the land and prevent use, it better be sending money to help us develop our infrastructures. You can't have it both ways, refusing to help us develop and refusing access to natural resources

3) As for the rest of your comments, you just sound like a grump. If you feel that way, don't come back

Alaska is the most screwed up state in the country.

I have been there a number of times and I have learned never to talk about politics with any of my friends.

They are the biggest hypocrites I have ever met.

They survive on government handouts. They have a socialistic tax system where they get a rebate from the government.

They get huge chunks of cash from Washington and can't survive without them.

As you can see from the various scandals, they have very corrupt governments.

So, basically, they are corrupt socialists who would feel at home in old Soviet Union. But they haven't been part of Russia for 150 years.

Unfortunately, Alaska will be in huge trouble once the oil runs out. Then they will have to actually work for a living and I doubt most of them can. There will be a huge outflow of people at that point and the great conservative socialistic Republic of Alaska will come to an end.

The Club for Growth loves to fight in primaries. This could be their shot to finally defeat a sitting bit spending Republican incumbent and be the favorite in the general election. They could truly pick up a House & Senate seat. They spent heavily and ran strong campaigns in Republican senate & House races in 06. House seats, districts much smaller than states, can be targeted much easier than senate seats for the Club. Evidence of this is Rhode Island & Michigan in 06'. In Michigan, the Club for Growth spent heavily to help Tim Walberg run against US rep. Joe Schwarz. President Bush & the national Republican party backed Schwarz, yet Walberg with a fiscally conservative messege prevailed not only defeated Schwarz in the R primary, but also winning the congressional seat. Another example is the RI US senate seat in 06. The Club supported Stephen Laffey against sitting US R senator Lincoln Chaffee. Again, Laffey ran a reform type fiscally conservative messege vs. the "moderate" big spending Chaffee. Chaffee was able to win the primary, albiet not by much, but lost the general election.

If the club is looking for winnable races in 08', they have to look no futhur than Alaska. The Republican electorate is looking for change and Young & Stevens are both beatable. They are both big spenders responsible for "The Bridge to Nowhere". The Club for Growth could show their muscle & run a strong campaign vs. Young & Stevens. They have already found a strong challenger for Young, R St. Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux. LeDoux is challenging Young and right now, the polling is around 60%-33% in favor of Young. LeDoux will certainly be well funded by the Club & will certainly run a strong campaign. Hopefully come November, it will be LeDoux who will be the new US rep. from Alaska & Young will see his political career winding down. Stevens doesn't have a strong challenger yet, but my guess is if the Club agrees to throw the money in they will find one to challenge Stevens in the primary.

Mark Begich has some baggage of his own. As a former downtown real estate salesman he cooked some deals that have left a foul smell, while he continues to raise taxes on business and property owners (Anchorage has no sales tax).

Neither Stevens or Young have been charged with anything. The McClatchy News would have everyone believe the inevitability of both being indicted and convicted, while their fair-haired boy Begich gets a pass.

That projected (News) opinion probably helps both longstanding bread winners for Alaska, (Stevens and Young) since they were in office before the California newspaper chain bought the News--as it was about to be snuffed out.

Chris Cizilla said "Berkowitz is already in the race and running against Young...." which is untrue. Berkowitz is in a primary contest until the last Tuesday of August, vying to run against Young, who probably won't be on the GOP ticket, anyway. Berkowitz has been too busy trying to advise Alaska's incredibly popular governor on foreign relations to even mention Don Young yet.

It is so typical for a DC wonk like Cizilla to take info from somebody like Kos and run with it without doing the smallest amount of fact-checking. Try to do a decent job, Chris. You're looking as unprepared to delve into Alaskan territory as that poor kid cuaght on the wrong side of the stream in his old bus.

I posted this at Progressive Alaska the other day, in response to Kos's weird poll:

Yesterday morning, internet organizer extraordinaire Markos Moulitsas announced, under his nom de blog, Kos, that his organization had commissioned a poll from Research 2000 showing Ethan Berkowitz leading Don Young 49% to 42%, and Mark Begich leading Ted Stevens 47% to 41% "if the 2008 race were held today." This is the third published poll showing Don Young losing, the first I know of showing a similar fate for Sen. Stevens.

Research 2000's sample is fairly wide. Their poll is less tainted than Berkowitz's early October Ivan Moore poll, and less analytical in terms of primary candidate comparisons than Diane Benson's mid-November Craciun Group poll. Benson's poll reflects the widest margin of victory over Young yet. But Kos's poll is perhaps unfortunate in that his article about the race we now have is, well - it isn't there.

Although he mentions that Mayor Begich hasn't filed for the hypothetical race, he doesn't mention that another candidate, Ray Metcalfe, has. And he fails to mention the interesting three-way race for the Democratic Party nomination for the seat now held by Young. Nor does he mention that a lot of the reason Young has three viable challengers is because one of them, Diane Benson, gave Young a scare last year, even though he outspent her ten to one.

Here are the three matchups:

Moore October 13:
Berkowitz 51%
Young 46.5%

Craciun November 2:
Benson 45.3
Young 36.7%

United 2000 December 7:
Berkowitz 49%
Young 42%

Kos's article has about 90 comments, which is low, considering the national interest in Alaska politics these days. But DailyKos is widely read, and not just on the left. So his poll was picked up by more blogs and small-circulation inside-the-Beltway-type publications than any article so far published about Alaska 2008. Google already has several pages of articles about the Kos article.

I'm glad to see interest grow in both these campaigns. The winners of the August 2008 primaries will have only nine weeks to campaign for the November general election, and in a climate where national interest will be focused on what promises to be the nuttiest presidential election in memory.

The Berkowitz campaign must be very happy about this. About a quarter million lefty bloggers now think that Berkowitz is the only candidate running against Don Young. Plus, some of the blog commenters have promoted him to "Speaker of Alaska House of Representatives." And several commenters were glad that Berkowitz, who "will never open ANWR," is running. Whatever. The race just keeps getting more interesting, eh?

Great post, Chris. Actually, I wasn't aware of the specifics involving the current political environment in Alaska. What makes Alaska mostly "red" and Hawaii mostly "blue"? They're both most rural, and aren't part of the continental U.S. To the best of my knowledge, when Hawaii became a state, the indigenous peoples were allowed to acculturate into the system. In Alaska, white folks virtually said to the locals, "Thanks for the gold, oil, and fishes!" In many ways, Alaska is like a fire engine-red state in the continental U.S. - mostly white and rural. So if Dems have a fighting chance, that's saying something. Personally, I can't see how any fundie Repuglican who has read Genesis, could justify drilling for oil in Alaskan wildlife refuges. Then again, it's something the Roman Republic probably would have done, if they could have.

Stevens will be defeated if Begich runs - it's as simple as that. The taint of corruption and his strong links to various scandals and his constant water-carrying for George Bush will be enough reason for voters to retire him even in this strongly Republican state.

Young is in an even worse position. The evidence of his corruption is even more solid and the man will more than likely be indicted before the election. I would bet money on him losing reelection. Forunately for Democrats, Young still leads his primary challenger by huge margins, so they don't have to worry about a possible scandal-free GOP nominee.

The Daily Kos poll belies the current political situation in Alaska. Berkowitz has a primary race with the very likeable Jake Metcalfe, a natural-born campaigner, who could well be the Democratic contender in the race against Young. It's too bad Kos decided to forego the Democratic process and primary system and anoint Berkowitz the Democrat's choice for the race. Berkowitz ran a very poor race for Lt. Governor and did nothing to convince us he could handle a statewide campaign. And since he filed a couple months ago, he's done nothing but court pollsters.

First, Begich indeed seems likeley to run. He has said that he would announce it by the end of 2007 if he is not running, and there is very little time left for him to do that: http://www.campaigndiaries.com/2007/11/omaha-mayor-is-out-but-is-anchorage.html

And Campaign Diaries rates AK-Sen "Lean retention" only and ranks it the 9th most vulnerable seat in its detailed race-by-race Senate Rankings: http://www.campaigndiaries.com/senaterankings

To be fair to Republicans, they got a fair amount of good Senate news lately (Kerrey and Fahey not running in Nebraska, Moore not running in Mississippi, and Luallen not running in Kentucky), so Democratic hopes of expanding the map are now resting on Alaska.

Off topic, but if you are wondering what that grand collection of knuckleheads, buffoons, illiterate charlatans, corporate hacks, hucksters, and incompetent fools over in Congress are doing, take a look at their newest creation, the ?
"Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO IP Act)", a bipartisan bill aimed at increasing civil penalties and criminal enforcement for copyright infringement. Under the terms of that act, if you buy a CD of music, and download it onto your computer using iTunes or something similar and, from there, onto your iPod or MP3 player, you are breaking the law and liable for thousands of dollars in civil and criminal penalties, imprisonment, and lawsuits from the music industry. You'd think that collection of embarrassing nitwits would have learned something after their vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq, the bankruptcy bill, the one creating H1-B visas, and on and on, but no. In any event, go review the high points of that mishmash corporate wish list and understand that every representative signing onto this has proven they have no business being in Washington. God help us if we need to choose our next president from this shallow end of the gene pool! I would suggest writing your representative; this bill suggests that you do so using crayons, writing your letter using only capitol letters and large print, and stick figure drawings showing the results of the bill.

Which D Prez candidate COULD run strong in Alaska? I have several R friends there and [all] three of the Ds. But local politics are local, as you say, and I do not think the absolute drubbing the D Prez nominee will take will keep Alaskans from throwing out a perceived crook.

The Rs will see this, I suspect, and run "new blood".