Republican Joe Miller versus the "Alaska Mafia" for the US Senate Seat

When we first learned Murkowski was doing a write-in, we chuckled but not any more. The one thing we do know is that a Republican will win because the Democrat is so far behind both candidates. Looking at what happens with write-in candidates in most places, we didn't give her a chance to win but wouldn't bet on this race.

The Timothy Carney article from the Washington Examiner gives a whole new insight into Alaska politics including the "Alaska Mafia" and has this taxpayer even more convinced that is time to end earmarks and pork as we know them. If a state needs the items, let the delegation put them in the budget for appropriations not added on some bill.

While reading his article was thinking how little is known in the lower 48 about Alaska or the politics by most people. Here are few things that bet most people don't know:

Most of Alaska is owned by the Federal Government (had no idea).

Alaska likes to have the lower 48 think of them as rugged individualist when in fact, they are living in large part off the taxpayers of the lower 48 thanks to all the government owned land, earmarks, and pork their delegation has been bringing back to Alaska for years.

Murkowski and the "Alaska Mafia" (good choice of words) have now jumped on the green bandwagon as well as oil and gas.

Majority of Alaska voters are not registered to vote in any party which explains the low number of votes cast in the Republican primary in what is supposedly a conservative Republican state. Have had to rethink the word 'conservative' used with Alaska politics for the most part.

Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend was started 1976 not recently. In 2010 the fund is paying $1,281.00 for every adult and child in Alaska.

Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year (2008). By comparison, Alaska — with roughly a tenth of Arizona's population — is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks.

This article gives a whole new look at the 49th state and their so-called rugged individualist attitude that is paid for in large measure by the residents of the lower 48.

It will be interesting to see after Joe Miller is elected, if he follows through with his conservative outlook on earmarks and pork and votes to end the gravy train for Alaska. The jury is out on that one. It is very easy to say you are going to do something until you get to DC and face all the pressure on you to support Alaska.

Murkowski's 'Alaska Mafia' and the public dole
By: Timothy P. Carney
Senior Examiner Columnist
October 6, 2010
(AP)

Once insurgent conservative Joe Miller knocked off moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Senate primary, almost all Beltway Republicans lined up behind Miller. But thanks to Alaska's unique political culture, there is a small cadre -- mostly former staffers for Murkowski and other Alaska lawmakers -- supporting her quixotic write-in race for re-election.

Murkowski's bid has brought attention to a quiet but significant clique on K Street composed of former aides to Murkowksi, her father, Frank, former Sen. Ted Stevens, and Rep. Don Young, who specialize in lobbying for energy interests, Alaskan natives, and Alaska's towns and cities. The phrase "Alaska mafia" slips off the tongue of many Republican staffers, activists, and lobbyists who have dealt with this clique.

[Click here for a partial diagram of the "Alaska mafia."]

"They've done a very good job of looking out for each other," one Republican lobbyist told me. Stevens, Young and the Murkowskis have shared plenty of staff, and sent dozens of aides to lobby on K Street. These aides served as invisible middlemen in the earmark machine run by the venerable Alaska Republicans.

Stevens was a champion porker who once bragged, "I am guilty of asking the Senate for pork and proud of the Senate for giving it to me." Young was chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Lisa Murkowski was put on the Appropriations Committee in her first full term, and her father chaired the Energy and Natural Resources Committee before becoming governor.

Their aides grease the skids, cash in on K Street, and then donate to Murkowski and Young. Cordova, Alaska, population 2,500, boasts a former Lisa Murkowski staffer as a lobbyist. Another lobbyist, Jon DeVore, who worked for Ted Stevens, Frank Murkowski and Lisa Murkowski in the Senate, now represents a handful of Alaska Native Corporations -- government-created, for-profit entities owned by indigenous Alaskans. DeVore -- a Murkowski donor -- works at the lobbying firm Birch, Horton, a hub of the Alaska Mafia.

Besides representing cities and native corporations, K Street's Alaska contingent is heavy on the oil and pipeline clients, for obvious reasons -- it's the state's leading industry.

But the Murkowski-Murkowski-Stevens-Young crowd isn't just lobbying for laissez-faire, unbridled drilling and mining everywhere. Consider Andrew Lundquist, another Lisa Murkowski donor who worked on energy policy for Stevens and the elder Murkowski before co-piloting former Vice President Cheney's infamous energy task force.

(snip)

Earmarks, federal aid, energy subsidies and renewable mandates are hardly what one would expect on the agenda of a supposedly conservative state that styles itself as ruggedly individualistic pioneer country. Washington conservatives often express frustration that such a conservative state should produce moderates and big spenders -- especially Stevens and Lisa Murkowski.

But this pork culture, and the streak of moderation, is the natural product of Alaska's status as nearly a federal colony.

The federal government owns almost all of the land in Alaska, rendering moot a leave-us-alone attitude. Also, environmental groups see so much public relations value in "protecting" Alaska that they've fought tirelessly -- and successfully -- to block logging, drilling and mining.

And then there's the Alaska Permanent Fund, a government-run redistribution of oil revenues to all residents.

Alaskans may own lots of guns and care little for the Lower 48, but in effect they're living in a socialist microcosm. And Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski are what Republicans look like in such a world.

Excerpt: Read more Washington Examiner