newsminer.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Politics is a nasty business.

Just ask Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Begich, who’s the subject of the Web site markbegichfacts.info. Or Sen. Ted Stevens of retireted.com fame. Or Congressman Don Young, who’s no fan of dropdon.com.

All of those Web sites take aim at the individual candidates’ purported shortcomings and are paid for by opposing parties. But at least they stick to the use of public documents, such as court records and newspaper clippings, to make their arguments.

You’ve got to crawl a little deeper into the honey bucket to get down to the level of the Internet-based attacks being made against Ethan Berkowitz. Type Ethanberkowitz.blogspot.com, Berkowitz08.com, Berkowitzforcongress.com or Berkowitz2008.com into a Web browser and you quickly get the idea that someone doesn’t like the Anchorage Democrat very much.

The addresses direct viewers to either a fake Berkowitz blog, a San Francisco-based gay lifestyle site or a merchant selling items imprinted with the phrase “Trust Fund Baby.” The implication is that Berkowitz is a rich California liberal — otherwise known as an Outsider. Berkowitz is challenging Young for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, but he has to get past Jake Metcalfe and Diane Benson in the Democratic primary first.

And that’s the thing about the anti-Berkowitz sites, they appear to be coming not from Republicans but from within the ranks of the Democratic party.

In fact, the trail points to the campaign of former party chairman Metcalfe.

Anonymous attacks on a candidate’s character aren’t illegal — they happen almost daily on the state’s various political blogs — but the anti-Berkowitz Web sites may have set a new bar for dirty campaign tactics in Alaska.

It’s difficult to draw a direct link between the anti-Berkowitz sites and the Metcalfe campaign since the sites were set up through a domain service that obscures the identity of the person behind them.

However, a person knowledgeable with the campaign said Bill Scannell, Metcalfe’s political strategist and spokesman, told Metcalfe last September or October — weeks before Berkowitz officially filed to run for office — that he was buying up Berkowitz-related domain names and redirecting them to other sites.

Scannell denies any involvement in the rogue Web sites and says the entire issue is an effort by the Berkowitz campaign to push Metcalfe out of the race.

“This is stupid little boy stuff,” Scannell said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “Why would I need to get involved in something like this? This is clearly being pushed by the Berkowitz campaign — who else benefits?”

In addition to the source, who asked not to be named because of his or her connections to the Democratic Party, there’s also the coincidence that Metcalfe’s official campaign site — Jake2008.com — and the anti-Berkowitz sites (except for the Blogspot page) were all purchased from the same small, Kirkland, Wash.-based domain registration company. An employee for the company — domainmonger.com — said all four accounts originated from Anchorage. Metcalfe said he’s seen the attack sites, but that he’s not behind them.

“It’s not me,” Metcalfe said. “I’ve heard about it, and I don’t approve of it. It hurts the party. I’d rather talk about the issues, but that’s what you have to put up with as a politician.”

Metcalfe said he has no control over other activities Scannell is involved in, including his lobbying against the federal government’s Real ID Act of 2005. But if Scannell is linked to the anti-Berkowitz sites, he would take disciplinary action, Metcalfe said.

“If it does come back to anyone associated to me, I’ll take appropriate action,” Metcalfe said.

Metcalfe has already severed ties with Scannell once over an incident involving a protest Scannell planned to hold outside of the Anchorage house of state Sen. John Cowdery, whose name has come up in the ongoing federal investigation into political corruption in the Legislature. Scannell rejoined the campaign in March.

Metcalfe is a voting member of the Alaska Democratic Party’s executive board.

Berkowitz called the Web sites “disappointing” and said it was unfortunate that another candidate would attempt to mislead voters.

“The politics of personal attack have no place in this election,” he said. “At a time when the state is trying to recover from the scandals in the Legislature, it reflects badly on political process and it insults Alaskans.”

Berkowitz said he was especially disheartened to hear the attacks were likely coming from a fellow Democrat.

“People involved in political campaigns have a responsibility to act ethically,” he said.

Patti Higgins, chairwoman of the Alaska Democratic Party, said there are no rules prohibiting negative campaigning within the party in the run-up to the primary.

“It’s sort of a free-for-all during the primary,” she said.

Higgins has not seen the Web sites, but said she hoped they weren’t coming from the Metcalfe campaign. If they are, she said, she’d likely have a talk with the candidate. There’s nothing official the party can do to punish such activity, though.

Higgins said she didn’t want to get in the business of refereeing every little dispute between candidates.

According to his campaign disclosure report with the Federal Election Commission for the first quarter of 2008, Metcalfe paid Xylosystems, a California-based Web design company with close connections to Scannell, $1,050 at the end of March.

Alexander Fordyce, owner of Xylosystems, said his company, which built and runs Jake2008.com, had nothing to do with the anti-Berkowitz sites.

Scannell received $3,400 in the first quarter through his company Tergiversation Inc., which is based in Las Vegas.

The official Berkowitz campaign site is Ethanberkowitz.com.

APRN reporter David Shurtleff and Brendan Kelley of the Anchorage Press contributed to this report.