Alaska continues to be in the vanguard of the expelling and repelling of extremists from electoral positions:
“There’s a lot of conservatives waking up this morning not happy about the preliminary election results,” Amy Demboski said during her morning talk radio show Wednesday.
The former Eagle River Assembly member and municipal manager spent the program going over early Anchorage election returns that disappointed many conservatives in the municipality, with progressive and moderate candidates pulling off a near sweep in six of seven races for the Assembly over right-leaning rivals. Bond packages and ballot proposals did similarly well, winning in all but one case, and typically by healthy margins.
“Not only are races being won by the liberal candidates … but in a much bigger percentage than most of us who do political analysis expected,” Demboski said in an interview Wednesday.
The one exception was in the conservative stronghold of Eagle River, where candidate Scott Myers, who ran with the endorsement of Mayor Dave Bronson, is poised to win by a double-digit margin.
“I was kinda hoping we’d pick up some more conservative seats, naturally,” said Assembly member Kevin Cross, who, along with Myers and South Anchorage’s Randy Sulte, is on track to be in a three-member conservative minority on the 12-person body. [Alaska Daily News]
Demboski’s comment concerning the margin of victory being greater than expected for the liberals is telling, and reminiscent of the 2022 elections in which Republicans badly underperformed their own forecasts, and this was signaled by special elections and other votes preceding the actual general election.
And I thought this was a hint about the future as well:
“There’s probably a little bit of frustration (among) Republicans about the effectiveness of local politics,” said Craig Campbell, a former Assembly member, lieutenant governor and now in a leadership position within the Alaska Republican Party. He’s also the manager of the Ted Stevens International Airport for the state. “It was a tough year for conservatives in fundraising.”
They don’t describe who failed to contribute, but it’s a fair bet that the small contributors failed to do so. Why? Well, go ask them – but, given the behavior, incompetence, and positions exhibited by Republicans nationwide of late, I’d say it was disgust with what has become of a Republican Party that still welcomes former Governor Sarah “quitter” Palin (AK) into its leadership ranks.
So far the Democrats have been pleased with election results since the 2022 elections, which have principally been special elections, but include the highly important Wisconsin Supreme Court election elevating Janet Protasiewicz, who was open about her belief that reproductive rights are a fundamental part of this democracy. As this continues the pre-2022 pattern, Republicans should take these elections as a warning.
Except they can’t. Politics is fundamentally different from playing a game, because the limitations on changing tactics and strategies in a game are resources, technology, and training, all of which can be modified, within limits. In politics, though, the limiting factor is, to a dominant degree, and even moreso for Republicans, the core ideology of guns, religion, and core positions, which are deeply negative, on taxation levels and regulation. As more and more independents become aware of the fundamental flaws in those and other positions, Republicans cannot change them. They’ve spent decades training their base to not question them. Now that they’re discovering that the majority wisdom is not in their favor, and that reality does not correlate with the predictions they make based on those tenets, they’re stuck with a big rock in their arms.
The fourth-raters who make up the vast majority of the leadership of the Party may soon begin sinking out of sight as elections go against them, as they decide to resign, as they’re arrested and expelled from Congress and other positions of power for corruption.
Keep the popcorn handy, and make sure Russia is on your bingo card, as I expect we’ll find some interesting connections between Russia and the Republican Party.
