Within the past few days, democracy with a small d made important, even historic, gains in New York, New Jersey, and Alaska.
An important part of the New York State story covered by Chris Bowers is that the Senate Majority Leader is, in effect, an unelected position. In the nearly 50 years since the Republicans grabbed control of the chamber, governors have come and gone and the Republicans clearly lost much of their popular support. But the position was seen as politically untouchable, certainly by any Democrat or any mere voters. After Elliott Spitzer amassed an incredible 69% of the vote for governor, Bruno basically stuc his thumb out and said so what. And with the backing of the city's tabloids, the Post and the Daily News, derailed the will of the voters and seemed to put Spitzer's career into deep jeopardy by abusing the investigative power of the state senate. It was old Albany saying to Spitzer what entrenched DC said to Bill Clinton in 1993: we don't care who elected you, we run this place and you are a temporary outsider and parvenu.
Spitzer, unlike the previous governors, refused to play the game as Albany dictated it. He realized that concentrating on the Senate one seat at a time coukld change the game and put the voters instead of the bosses in charge. And he did more. By appointing a Republican to a state post he opened up a Democratic leaning district on Long Island and took one huge bite out of the apple. Last night, he surprisingly found another. And all of a sudden the corrupt and corrupting tone that elections don't matter and can be easily overturned by a boss like Bruno suddenly vanishes. (Bruno's swipe at stae driver's licenses was a huge dent in Hillary Clinton's campaign, the swift boat of 2008, so far; he's a national level time bomb).
Alaska is one of those extractive industry states I've been writing about. It's very similar to Montana in terms of its libertarian populism and resource-based economy. In 2006, Montana had a corrupt Republican Senator who brought home the bacon up for reelection - Conrad Burns - and in 2008, Alaska has a corrupt Senator Ted Stevens and a corrupt Congressman Don Young up who bring home the bacon up for reelection. While normally pork is quite important for these states, corruption has just gone over the top in Alaska (as Jonathan Singer astutely noted way back in December, 2006).
About 75 protesters, crying "Oink! Oink!" and "FBI! FBI!" gave Young, Alaska's two senators and their supporters a shockingly poor reception at last week's fundraiser. When Young held a public picnic on Monday, the protesters were back, wearing swine masks and waving angry signs...
Formerly a senior GOP aide in the Alaska legislature, Burke was in the thick of the rowdy hog-roast picket, whose turnout stunned even protest organizers. The bipartisan crowd, as Burke described it, amounted to "John Kerry and Newt Gingrich holding hands [to express] that corruption is wrong and change might happen."
Young is running against Democrat Jake Metcalfe, who I interviewed earlier this year (he's a really sweet man, and you can see a minute long clip here). Stevens is vulnerable, not just to a Democrat but to a primary challenge.
Polls released this week suggested that Democrats may have a leg up. The Hays Research Group in Anchorage found Stevens with a 44 percent positive rating in the state and showed Republican Gov. Sarah Palin trouncing Stevens by 23 percentage points in a hypothetical Senate primary next year.
Some amount of corruption is tolerable in Alaska, since oil is the lifeblood of the state and everyone knows oil, like coal, is dirty. But it seems like a line has been crossed, the same line Conrad Burns crossed last year.
Judith Freeman blogged below about our meeting with candidate Jake Metcalfe, who is running against Don Young for Alaska's lone Congressional seat. Metcalfe is a good guy; he fits his state well, a lot like Tester in Montana. Alaska is actually quite similar to Montana, a resource extraction state with a traditional of progressive libertarianism and a strong native culture. It has a high military and veterans presence, and is one of the most densely unionized states in the country. The economy is doing fairly well, and it oil companies and fishing and timber dominate, with spots of intense rural poverty that lends itself well to an argument for universal health care.
Metcalfe said that the rumors flying around about lobbyists, state officials, and Federal officials are really bad, and that the investigations could go on for five or ten more years. Ted Stevens has hit his lowest popularity level since he first got into the Senate in 1968, so there's definitely an opportunity to run a Conrad Burns-style populist campaign. Alaska isn't going to be a bedrock of urban progressivism, but there is a prairie populist style that does fit with the state, and the corruption is just awful.
Metcalfe's an incredibly straightforward and calm Westerner, a former prosecutor who grew up with 8 siblings in semi-poverty and a current union official. Until Saturday, he was the Chair of the Democratic Party, so he's definitely into the loya grassroots model of politicking. There will be a primary, so it'll be useful to know the characters. Here's a minute long clip of Metcalfe, the guy running to replace Don Young.
Regardless it's pretty hard to see how Alaska won't be in play this cycle.
STATE BLOGS
