A major endorsement for Orange to Blue candidate Mark Begich:

In a blow to the re-election campaign of GOP Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska AFL-CIO has endorsed his Democratic opponent, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Unlike most states, unions in Alaska often endorse the dominant Republicans, and the AFL-CIO has endorsed Stevens in all his past re-election campaigns -- but his lagging both numbers and ethics investigations may have changed the calculations this time.

In the past, Stevens was better than almost any Republican on labor issues, but now he's gone too far right, he's weakened, and Begich is a strong enough candidate that labor is obviously not worried about angering Stevens, so they're going for the better candidate. This is a huge boost for Begich given that Alaska is the scond most unionized state in the country.

Race tracker wiki:  AK-Sen

Race tracker wiki: AK-Sen

You know a politician is in trouble when the people around him begin to walk away. And in the case of Ted Stevens, they're walking away fast. Such is the case in Alaska where the state's AFL-CIO has endorsed Stevens' opponent for the first time in decades, according to Roll Call (subscription only).

June Update
Senate gains looking solid. Dems have a lot of work to do to go from solid gains of 4-5 seats to huge gains of 7-9 seats.

Current Senate: 49 Dems, 1 Socialist, 1 Lieberman, 49 GOP.

Rasmussen. 6/16. Likely voters. MoE 4%.

This race continues to be a tossup, as it has been since Begich's entry. It really is remarkable that this is the case against an Alaska institution like Ted Stevens. He is the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, and will complete his fortieth year of service in December. Yet the taint of Republican corruption (in which former U.S. Attorney Stevens is knee-deep, of course), is such that it may well bring down a longtime icon in deep Republican territory.

A bonus from this poll: DavidNYC has multiplied out the crosstabs from this poll, and they indicate that McCain leads Obama in Alaska by just two points, 43% to 41%.

Bush won Alaska 61% to 36% in 2004. He won 59% to 28% in 2000.

Race tracker wiki: AK-Sen

Kossacks, I need some help with a fundraising pledge I made late last year.  I'm working with a group called Secure Our Senate Majority to back several Senate challengers for Republican seats - and one of them, Mark Begich, has an excellent shot at unseating Ted "Toobz" Stevens in Alaska.

Please join me over the fold to find out how you can meet Mark tomorrow night...

I know, I know...it's not likely, but a brother can dream can't he?

Following up on my post from yesterday and incorporating some of the suggestions/corrections from the comments made there, let's take a look at our best case scenario in the November Senate elections.

Right now, we're at 49 Ds, 49 Rs and 2 I's.  When the smoke clears on election night in November we'll be at 62 Ds, 37 Rs and 1 I.
Here's how it's going to happen....

Here’s how the Dems can win a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the U.S. Senate.  It’s not going to be easy, but it can happen.

Right now, there are 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats and 2 Independents (Sanders-VT & Lieberman-CT) who both caucus with the Dems.

In November of 2008, there will be 33 Senate seats up for election AND one special election - to replace the retired Trent Lott-MS.  For the Dems to achieve a 60 seat super-majority they will need to win 9 seats that are now held by a Republican.  Here are the 9 seats that are in reach:

A poll commissioned last month by Alaskan lobbyist Sam Kito shows Dem candidates Begich (Senate) and Berkowitz (House) with large leads over Republican incumbents Stevens and  Young.

Hellenthal and Associates. May 6-10. MoE 6%

That's a huge MoE, and the poll is definitely an outlier. Research 2000 had a Daily Kos poll in the field the week after that poll was conducted, and found a tighter race.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/12-14. Likely voters. MoE 4% (12/3-6 results)

Young     (R) 40 (42)
Berkowitz (D) 50 (49)

Stevens   (R) 43 (41)
Begich    (D) 48 (47)

The takeaway from this, though, is yet another poll showing the scandal-plagued incumbents trailing. Berkowitz, in particular, can't approach this race too confidently--Young could be taken out in the August 26th primary. According to this poll, he's trailing Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell by a slim margin, 37 percent to 34 percent. In this poll, Parnell leads Berkowitz in a potential general match-up 43-38. All these match-ups are within the MoE.

The Club for Growth has endorsed Parnell, meaning they'll be pumping a great deal of money into this primary, meaning that Young with a meager $604K in cash on hand (as of March 31) has reason to be seriously concerned. The CfG can make a big difference in a cheap media market state--they showed that by buying ID-01 for Bill Sali.

Race tracker wiki: AK-Sen AK-AL

Yesterday while campaigning in Alaska with the Secretary of the VA by his side, Senator Ted Stevens managed to stick both his feet in his mouth over the new GI Bill  and the Secretary of the VA opened his mouth and explained his true feelings about PTSD which will make many veterans question the recent incident in Temple Texas with Norma Perez about if she was acting independently as the VA claims or was she just caught passing out the official position on PTSD. It costs to much money so do NOT diagnose it.

(Promoted by MissLaura)

On Memorial Day weekend, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and VA Secretary James Peake stood side-by-side in Fairbanks, Alaska to showcase their opposition to--and lack of respect for--today’s newest veterans.

Speaking at the Disabled American Veterans’ 19th Annual Department Convention, Senator Stevens told the majority of America’s most recent war veterans that they had not yet sacrificed enough to have earned a GI Bill that would cover the full cost of their educations.  

Sen. Ted Stevens warned of a "mass exodus" from the military Saturday if the so-called 21st Century GI Bill goes into law without major changes.
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"There are worries that people who are already in for two years will serve one more and leave, and there’s really no incentive to stay," Stevens said.

What Stevens is really saying is that today's troops are unpatriotic--that they're only in it for the money and the college.  And while Stevens’ "mass exodus" theory has been thoroughly discredited by the Congressional Budget Office, the true irony of the situation lies in the fact that Stevens earned his own college degree after World War Two by using the same GI Bill he’s aiming to prevent today’s veterans from receiving.  

At the same convention, VA Secretary James Peake--who is already under fire for the cover-up of an extraordinary number of veteran suicides and for overseeing an organization that may not be taking PTSD seriously--showed a stunning lack of situational awareness by discounting recent media reports and think tank studies by suggesting that fewer returning vets actually had PTSD than is commonly thought.

On the topic of PTSD, Peake questioned if the condition is being overdiagnosed, considering the mental health services available to those in the armed forces.

"I worry about labeling all these kids coming back," he said. "Just because someone might need a little counseling when they get back, doesn’t mean they need the PTSD label their whole lives."

The only reason Peake worries about "labeling all these kids" is because he understands neither the cause of combat PTSD nor how it should be treated.  If Peake viewed PTSD as a combat injury sustained in theater--as the troops and the psychiatrists do--then he wouldn’t worry about the "stigma."  As it stands now, Peake is apparently content to perpetuate the myth of the "crazy, unstable vet guy."  In fact, what Peake--a former contractor--is saying directly contradicts the message of VA psychiatrists like Jonathan Shay:

The American Psychiatric Association has saddled us with the jargon "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD)--which sounds like an ailment--even though it is evident from the definition that what we are dealing with is an injury. . .We do not refer to a veteran who has had an arm blown off by a grenade as suffering from "Missing Army Disorder." [. . .]  Combat PTSD is a war injury.  Veterans with combat PTSD are war wounded, carrying the burdens of sacrifice for the rest of us as surely as the amputees, the burned, the blind, and the paralyzed carry them.

To say the least, it’s alarming that the VA Secretary doesn’t get this.

Unfortunately, this double-barreled blast of disrespect for the service of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on Memorial Day weekend from a Republican Senator and a Bush appointee is not unexpected.  We’re used to it.  However, it should provide all of us with an extra jolt of motivation to rid our nation of those who hold today’s troops in such contempt.
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Also available at VetVoice

Race tracker wiki: AK-Sen

I was just browsing around on the series of tubes that is our internets, and I wanted to see what kind of a case longtime Senator Ted Stevens was making for his reelection.  

We are all familiar with the longest serving republican Senator Ted Stevens – whether it be his frequent outbursts on the Senate floor or his comment about the internet being a series of tubes or his "Bridge to Nowhere" or his promises to resign from the Senate if he doesn’t get his way on whatever it is he is whining about on any given day.

Or, of course, the little fact that his home was raided as part of a Federal criminal investigation.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Senator Toobz has his hands more than full on the re-election front, with a recent poll putting him 5 points behind Mark Begich.  Needless to say, this is one of the most telling opportunities for a Democratic pickup, as there hasn’t been a Democratic Senator from Alaska since Mike Gravel in 1981.

Yesterday Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich unveiled a government ethics reform plan and put forth a personal ethics pledge. Additionally, Begich brought financial transparency to a new level by posting 21 years of personal financial disclosure records available for download on our campaign website.

It probably comes as no surprise to the Daily Kos community that reforming government ethics is the first major policy plan that Mark puts forward in his campaign to represent Alaska in the US Senate. Alaskans have been let down by their elected officials. Secret meetings, hidden favors, special access for special interests, and now convicted legislators have hurt Alaskan families. And our opponent, Senator Ted Stevens, has a poor record when it comes to supporting stronger ethics legislation in the Senate.

Young's Defense Fund Nets $0

When you've got lawyers gobbling up $1 million plus in fees, you need all the help you can get. And in January, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) opened up a legal defense fund to help stop the bleeding. He was forced to pay out more in legal fees from his campaign account than he was able to raise in the first quarter of this year.

But through March of this year, a disclosure report for the fund shows, no one had contributed to the fund.

http://www.adn.com/...

That's right, yet ANOTHER poll, in fact everyone so far, shows Begich beating Sen. Stevens of Alaska.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Republican Senator Ted Stevens is trailing by two percentage points in his bid for re-election. Stevens attracts 45% of the vote while Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) earns 47%. A month ago, it was Stevens with 46% support and Begich at 45%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...

One of the highlights of this week was a slapdown of a Texas Republican by a Wisconsin Democrat in the House during a debate over funding the Iraq Quagmire. Check out the video. It is wonderful to watch.

Another wonderful video is Chris Matthews, not someone I generally like, slamming a Republican for making references to Neville Chamberlain without having a clue of the real history. Parroting lame talking points is no longer working for the Republicans. Their gross ignorance is showing and even conservative talk show hosts are getting irritated by it.

On Thursday, May 15, Markos Moulitsas pubished a set of polls he had commissioned from Research 2000, seeking information from 600 probable Alaska voters on four candidates, in hypothetical "if you had to vote on this today" scenarios.  The two scenarios are a Sen. Ted Stevens vs. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich matchup, and a Rep. Don Young vs. Ethan Berkowitz matchup.

The polls asked a number of questions regarding favorable-unfavorable views toward the four, and both show victories by the Democratic challengers over the GOP incumbents now holding those two seats in the national legislature.  The information in them is valuable, but is it pertinent? - especially in the hypothetical Berkowitz vs. Young race.

But, more importantly to this blog and to its readers, has Markos Moulitsas crossed an egregious ethical line in the way he has handled his spin here regarding Ethan Berkowitz's house campaign since December?  I think he has.  Here's why...

VoteVets.org adviser Roger Martinez has made another phenomenal video in the support of Jim Webb's 21st Century G.I. Bill. This video targets Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens, a World War II veteran who went to UCLA and Harvard Law on the G.I. Bill. Despite using his education to springboard a long career in politics, Stevens is opposed to the new G.I. Bill which would grant veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the same educational benefits as veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

The good news is that Stevens' opposition to giving our veterans the benefits they have earned is a minority view. There's a good chance the Webb bill will be added as an amendment to Iraq supplemental funding next week.

And here in Alaska, Stevens' opponent - Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich - has been a strong advocate for the new G.I. Bill.