Alaska Women, Time to Decide

My social media feeds are stuffed with my fellow Alaskans sick to death of political ads end-to-end on their televisions, and even the staunchest pro-deforestation people are wondering if we’ll have any trees left after they’ve checked their mailboxes. I get emails from people asking, “Is that true?” about something they’ve seen or read.

Here’s the kicker. Political ads, per a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, don’t have to be true. I KNOW! You have to swear on a Bible when you’re elected, but up until that point all bets are off. Did you know Mark Begich hates puppies? Yeah, and ice cream. Seriously, why doesn’t he just join the Taliban?

For those who have read my columns over the years, you know I’m an equal-opportunity complainer, and he’s gotten the brunt of my opinion more than once. But hey, he needs me to vote for him, not the other way around.

I had a few days in Homer this week waiting for the water to calm down enough for me to cross the bay. I had the opportunity to see a few of those ads people have been complaining so much about, and I couldn’t believe it. Is that going to work? Really?

First, it’s not a secret that you couldn’t get me to vote for anyone named Dan Sullivan. Either one is a disaster for women’s rights. I don’t really agree with the groups organized to elect women. I get it. But I’ve had enough women represent Alaska who betray us on a continual basis. Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted for the Blunt Amendment, allowing an employer to decide birth control coverage. She also amended the Violence Against Women Act to exclude First Alaskan women from the protections Native American women have in other states. See, being a woman doesn’t make you a feminist. Begich has voted to protect women. He seems to understand that you can have a uterus and a brain — at the same time!

Sullivan? Well, who knows? The guy is missing in action half the time. Where’s Dan? Oh, he’s raising money in Ohio. Right. That makes sense. He reminds me of that new guy sniffing around trying to figure out the crowd. Slippery. He won’t answer questions on personhood legislation. How can you not know? The personhood law is so severe it could eliminate in vitro fertilization. His website does say he believes life begins at conception and that “we must fight to protect the lives of the unborn.” What about the lives of the already born, Dan? He couldn’t say he supports the Violence Against Women Act. He doesn’t know if he would vote for it or not.

When it comes to equal pay for equal work, Sullivan doesn’t get it. He would vote like Lisa, though she didn’t volunteer to take 77 cents for every dollar Begich makes. There’s a dream team to lose sleep over.

One of the TV ads said Begich had left the city of Anchorage in dire financial shape when he “skipped” out. Um, this is awkward. We’ve had politicians skip out on us, and this wasn’t one of those times. Also, Begich was elected in 2008. He had inherited a $33 million deficit and the city was humming along until this weird global economic meltdown. Remember that? I had no idea that the mayor of Anchorage was capable of creating such devastation. You know why? Because he wasn’t. The stock market recovered much better than anyone else in the country since then.

Then there is the outrageous claim that Begich has voted with the president a bazillion times. Wait, does the president even vote? Right. The president doesn’t vote. The vice president does in the event of a tie in the Senate. (Remember, that’s how we got the pipeline passed in 1973 by Spiro Agnew.) That said, Begich voted against bringing new gun legislation to the floor. (Something that made me cranky, but should’ve gotten a nod from many Alaskans.) More recently, Begich voted against arming Syrian rebels against ISIS. Why? Because of history. See “arming rebels in Afghanistan” as an example of what could go wrong. Sullivan would have voted like Murkowski in favor of giving weapons to people to fight a proxy war and went as far as to say he’d put boots on the ground. Because what America needs is yet another war.

I think Susan B. Anthony had it right: “…The time has come when I strike, and proclaim my contempt for the tricksters who put their political heel on the rights of women at the very moment when their help is most needed. … I was never surer of my position that no self-respecting woman would wish or work for the success of a party which ignores her political rights.”

None of us agrees with our political representation all of the time. There’s a record for both candidates. I’m voting for Begich. One of his favorite phrases is “at the end of the day.” At the end of the day, we should be able to agree we’ll be glad to get back to ads that have a dancing man singing and selling mattresses.

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