Parnell Headlines Evangelical Fundraiser to Break Up Bipartisan Coalition

Governor Sean Parnell will headline a fundraiser today at 4:30pm for Alaska Family Action, the political wing of the Alaska Family Council headed by Jim Minnery. The Alaska Family Council is an activist group whose “pro family” agenda includes promoting extreme anti-choice and homophobic policies. They also advocate public funding of private religious schools, and other “matters of religious liberty.” And try to screw up elections by encouraging voter fraud.

So, why is a sitting governor headlining this fundraiser? The answer is two-fold. First, it is because he aligns with everything espoused by the organization. His extreme stances on social and religious issues have, for some reason, gone largely unreported. It is, perhaps, because he has never openly espoused them in such a blatant way. Until now.

Yes, he vetoed the expansion of the Denali Kid Care program (Alaska’s SCHIP) and denied health care coverage to an additional 1200 needy children, and several hundred pregnant women because the program could have paid for someone’s medically necessary abortion. But he’s never actually stood shoulder to shoulder with Jim Minnery, shaking people down for money to oust sitting legislators. 

The second reason is explained by Alaska Familly Action in a flyer they sent out in this way:

“The Alaska Senate Bi-Partisan Coalition has been disastrous for Fiscal and Social Conservatives. In order to BREAK UP the Coalition, these two groups must work together. Working as allies, these two voter groups have a much stronger ability to obtain conservative Republican control of the Alaska Senate on November 6th.”

The flyer goes on to note that “although most conservatives are fearful of our economic future under the current regime, many Alaskans are primarily motivated to go to the polls by social issues.” Minnery predicts that “countless evangelical and Catholic voters will be persuaded and activated by strong messaging” on social issues.

And it just so happens that many Republican candidates want oil money and just happen to believe in the the evangelical voters’ issues, OR they believe in the evangelical voters’ issues, but just happen to want the oil companies’ money. Take your pick in this political game of convenience.

The supposed “disastrous” nature of the bipartisan coalition was not detailed, but we do know that it is only because of the Senate bipartisan majority that we don’t have policies in place giving away $2 billion a year to the oil companies with no strings attached. The governor’s plan was a wholesale giveaway of cash from the state’s coffers into the pockets of the richest companies on the planet. Is that what passes for fiscal conservatism these days?

The plan of mixing up evangelicals and oil shills into some kind of unholy stew will be called the “Reclaiming Juneau” initiative. I don’t know that these interests ever “claimed” Juneau in the first place, but the Orwellian rah-rah speak isn’t interested in that.

Parnell is a twofer – evangelical activist, and oil shill.  I think Jesus would make sure we gave away our treasure slated for education, and infrastructure projects, so we could give it to the rich multinational corporations. Right? Heck our Governorvangelist even vetoed a new sprinkler system for Valdez High School. Presumably this will free up more money to “incentivize” BP, Conoco, and Exxon to explore, produce, and employ at their convenience…maybe.

The social conservative takeover of Juneau has four senate races it will target:

Bob Bell vs. Hollis French: Bob Bell, who was just found guilty of financial shenanigans by APOC, and eventually had to disclose that one of his clients was BP that paid his engineering firm over $1 million last year. He also admitted being offered bribes, and not tipping off the FBI. He could have spared Alaska from the corruption scandal that left 10% of the legislature indicted for… bribery. When told that this was illegal, Mr. Bell came back with the immortal line, “It is?”

John Coghill vs. Joe Thomas: John Coghill is one of the four Republicans whose self-imposed exile into a tiny minority rendered them effectively useless, but still able to whine that the coalition has more Democrats than Republicans in it. Apparently he and his other buddies in the minority (Giessel, Huggins and Coghill) think that we can’t figure out that when you have a 10-10 split of Democrats and Republicans, and four Republicans leave… that means there are more Democrats in the majority, and it’s BECAUSE the Republicans left. Math is hard.

The other two stalwarts in the Bipartisan Coalition that will be targeted are both on the Senate resources committee (with Hollis French) – Bill Wielechowski who has been the most outspoken and knowledgable defender of the state coffers against big oil, is defending his seat against Bob Roses; and the take-no-nonsense senator from Fairbanks, Joe Paskvan, who is being challenged by Pete Kelly.

Sean Parnell will be raking in the bucks for an independent expenditure from Alaska Family Action against these four legislators. They’re quite detailed about what this will entail. The governor and Minnery want to raise $40,000 for the following, according to their own literature:

1)  A 6″x10″ mailer for each race (10,000-15,000 pieces)

2)  Two “Get out the Vote” robocalls for each candidate, one on Friday November 2, and one the day before the election. Robocalls may come from Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee.

3)  E-mail/Text blasts to their database of more than 30,000 self-identified social conservatives.

And perhaps the most disturbing:

4) Pastor engagement webtool – Password protected website that will give church leaders the ability to upload their own personal photo and church logo and customize mailers, email blasts and texts to congregation members regarding the election. Alaska Family Action’s role here is to equip church leaders to motivate their own members to get to the polls. These will not be candidate specific but will increase the number of Value Voters who turn out on November 6th. Unfortunately, church members are not much more likely than non-churchgoers to get to the polls. This pro-active pastor-driven approach will change that.

Jim Minnery and the Alaska Family Council in recent weeks, invited local pastors to a free breakfast at the Petroleum Club to hear from national activists who encourage church leaders to defy IRS rules about tax-exempt status and to preach candidate endorsements from the pulpit on “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” last week.

It’s becoming clear to the governor that nobody is buying what he’s selling regarding oil taxes. It’s also clear that divisive, extreme social issues don’t resonate with most Alaskans either. So, if two groups with messages that only appeal to the minority team up, they’re more likely to get what they want, even though it doesn’t reflect what the people actually want. So much for representative democracy.

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