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Sarah Palin can be with Glen Rice now.....

Aqua Buddha

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StassneyHorn

StassneyHorn 6540

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The special election primary for Alaska's at large seat is Saturday. Don Young died at 88 and had served for 49 fucking years before passing away on a plane ride home. Alaska changed to a ranked choice voting system, but voters will only select one candidate in the special. The top 4 vote getters go to the final round in August. Mail ballots were sent out across the state to all who were registered, and must be postmarked by the 11th, same day of election. They will count again on the 15th and 17th. 

https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/06/06/candidates-crisscross-alaska-in-final-week-ahead-of-us-house-primary/

Candidates crisscross Alaska in final days ahead of U.S. House primary

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StassneyHorn

StassneyHorn 6540

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/09/alaska-is-having-wildest-election-2022/

Great article on the race. Santa Claus story is too meme-worthy. Al Gross has great opportunity to make runoff even though the Democratic party up there tried to move on from him. Palin obviously with most recognition (not named Santa). Goes into good detail on the electorate and seeming contradictions of the state and how Young had a great coalition of all of them.

 

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StassneyHorn

StassneyHorn 6540

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I have an advantage because of name recognition,” Claus explains over a vegetarian omelet at a diner in North Pole.

He was born Thomas Patrick O’Connor in D.C. and grew up mostly in New York. He says he graduated New York University just behind Martin Scorsese, and the university confirms this. He says he was a bouncer for a time at the Electric Circus, a psychedelic disco in the East Village; this fact is harder to check. He has photos on his phone of various plaques that suggest a strange and peripatetic work history. For less than a year in the early 1970s he was “special assistant to the deputy police commissioner” of the New York Police Department; he says that witnessing the suffering of children at crime scenes informs his life and work. He has a photo of a plaque from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dated September 1984 that designates him as “a member of the National Defense Executive Reserve.” For eight years, he says, he worked in an outfit called the Terrorism Research and Communication Center. “You can’t find it anywhere unless you actually know where to look,” he says. A 1985 government directory confirms its onetime existence as a six-person operation, led by one Thomas P. O’Connor, that catalogued “material on domestic terrorism.”

Most of his life seems spackled together by odd jobs, community service and the kindness of strangers. He says that, while walking down a snowy road near Lake Tahoe in 2005, he asked God how he could use his Kringle-like appearance to benefit the greatest number of children. He wondered, in prayer, if he should change his name to Santa Claus. Within moments, a white car slowed down and the silhouetted driver called out: “I love you, Santa!” Soon he was receiving commendations from governors for his child advocacy.

He completed his transformation nine years ago by moving to North Pole. He is now a city council member and a potential spoiler for at least four top-tier candidates in the House race. Claus is only running for the special election, as an independent who espouses the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders. He seems to think that some good can come from four months as a lame-duck congressman.

Normal person? Serious candidate?

“Santa is a viable candidate with a real policy platform,” says a state Democratic Party official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to positively discuss a candidate who may prevent any Democrat from making the finals. “He’s a wonderful individual who’s supported a lot of Democratic candidates.” As for Claus’s democratic socialism, the official notes that “we all get a dividend from oil. The state already has elements of socialism.”

In Alaska’s previous voting system, Claus would probably have been weeded out in a primary. Now, out of the more likely fourth-place contenders — Claus, Constant, Peltola and Sweeney — Claus makes the strongest showing in a theoretical general election, according to data from Alaska pollster Ivan Moore. And candidates who see him as a novelty need to treat him like a threat.

“I’m waging a war on Santa,” Revak said last month in a playful ad that seemed like a lighthearted act of desperation. “This Bernie Bro legally changed his name to Santa and he wants Alaskans to accept his North Pole Marxist fantasies.”

“Santa Claus, I’m coming for you, because when I was 9, I was really good that year and I woke up to no Easy-Bake Oven,” jokes Sweeney.

“I’m sorry about Santa,” says Coghill, with a hint of embarrassment on behalf of Alaska. “When a guy changes his name to Santa Claus, you wonder what the motive is. Is it really to help people, or to aggrandize himself?”

Claus says his motives are pure, that four months is enough time to “shake it up” in Congress, have an impact on child welfare and then cede the seat to the winner of the regular election. Some Alaskans are chattering about Claus as a protest vote, an expression of fatigue with politics in general.

“The fact that he’s serious is what is scary,” says one longtime observer of Alaska politics, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, perhaps to avoid the naughty list. “We’re going from one of the most powerful congressional seats, because of what Don Young made it, to like No. 435 in importance — and we’re going to give that to Santa?”

Santa’s chances may be slimmer than they appear. But his outsize presence in 2022′s strangest campaign is a reminder that we are in an interglacial period, both geologically and politically. The old figureheads are receding. Coalitions are melting. And even our most civilized exercises in democracy are not very far from the wilderness.

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Js1

Js1 85114

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13 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Just a fyi, the time to complain was BEFORE the election 

The time to complain was when the AK GOP started this in order to fuck over Lisa Murkowski for not being Trumpy enough.

I love watching shit backfire on Republicans. 

She also called on Nick Begich to drop out of the race in November - very likely he forcefully tells his voters to put Peltola second.  It's not confirmed, but likely a decent number of Dems put Begich first and Peltola second on their special election ballot to try to knock out Palin.  So I'd expect Peltola's first round total after the general election to be a tiny bit higher than her special election first round total because they'll switch it around. 

My guess:

Palin's voters harden and she doesn't lose much support, so enough to finish 2nd, because they'll be mad at Begich and won't switch to him (he's more electable)
Peltola finishes first with a higher vote share than she had after round 1 of the special election
Begich strongly hints to his voters to put Peltola second or spoil their ballots (no second choice), rather than give Palin second consideration
Peltola wins re-election

Edited by Js1
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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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Rank choice voting is a fantastic method to decide which candidate is most acceptable to the majority. Most importantly it allows the 3rd party voter to show their displeasure at the entire system with a protest vote, but they need to settle on which legit candidate to give their secondary vote.

It also eliminates the need for run-off elections which is a huge financial drain on the govt aka us. Not to mention that run-off elections usually give the election power to fewer people that show up. 

Rank choice voting SHOULD lead to more moderate candidates so I don't expect many states to follow AK's lead.

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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There are different flavors of elections but if we had ranked choice voting in 2012, there is a decent chance we wouldn't know Ted Cruz's name today. In the GOP primary he "lost" the first vote 44-34 against Dewhurst. For the run-off, Cruz won 56-43.

It would seem reasonable that Dewhurst would have found another 6 percent in that initial result if ranked choice voting had occurred.

(I'm not saying that Dewhurst would have been better or not. Just speculating that we would have forgotten who Cruz was by now.)

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