newsminer.com

ANCHORAGE — Welcome to the Silly Season.

With a week to go before the primaries, would-be voters are being bombarded by campaign advertisements from congressional candidates and third-party special interest groups.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who is trying to knock incumbent Don Young out of the Republican primary for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, is running a television ad touting his endorsement by Gov. Sarah Palin.

Parnell’s ads are being created by Walsh and Sheppard, the same public relations firm that handled Palin’s 2006 successful run for governor.

Parnell’s campaign has been helped by the anti-earmark group Club for Growth, which is spending $350,000 to broadcast two ads targeting Young before the Aug. 26 GOP primary.

Club for Growth has been running an ad for the last week blasting Young for earmarking $10 million for a Florida road project. The conservative group is replacing that ad with a new one today that paints Young as “just another Washington politician.”

Club for Growth is also behind the Web site DumpDonYoung.com.

Young counterpunched with a tongue-in-cheek ad urging voters to chose the other guy if they think he’s done too much for Alaska.

“He’s being attacked for doing too much for Alaska, but what does too much mean?” said Art Hackney, a political consultant who is doing campaign ads for Young and Sen. Ted Stevens.

Parnell’s ads miss the mark and raise doubts about his ability to deliver if elected, Hackney said.

“There are a lot of people out there who are taking a second look at Young because they don’t think Parnell is a good replacement,” he said.

Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore, who has worked primarily for Democrats in the past, said Parnell’s clinging too tightly to Palin’s skirt tails and not doing enough to convince voters he’ll fight for Alaska’s interests in Washington.

“Sean’s main Achilles’ heel is that he’s quiet and unassuming,” Moore said. “One thing you can say about Don Young is that he’s not quiet and unassuming.”

Parnell did not respond to calls for comment in time for this story.

The attention on the House race from Outside third-party groups seeking to oust Young, who has held the seat for 35 years, has actually increased the effectiveness of his message, Hackney said.

“People just dislike the approach,” Hackney said of the Outside interference. “They are realizing that these groups have interests that are different than ours.”

Hackney said Young is being criticized for doing what most Republicans expect of him in Congress. He may not always be popular, but he’s serving the needs of the state, Hackney said.

The Young campaign will roll out a new television ad later this week.

Gabrielle LeDoux, a Republican state legislator from Kodiak who also is vying for the GOP House nomination, has been running a biographical ad to boost her statewide name recognition. She plans to begin airing a second TV spot later this week focused on ethics. Both ads will run up to Tuesday’s primary.

In the Democratic primary, former state House minority leader Ethan Berkowitz has a jump on opponent Diane Benson with two campaign advertisements playing on local television stations.

The first highlights his values and stance against political corruption as an Anchorage legislator. The second concentrates on the state’s natural resource potential, including traditional oil and natural gas production and generating electricity from alternative energy sources like wind and tidal power. Both ads were created by the Washington, D.C., consulting group Struble Eichenbaum Communications.

Benson is planning to put out her first TV spot this week. Phillip Allen, Benson’s campaign spokesman, said the ad will focus on Benson’s history of breaking barriers as a woman competing in a male-dominated world.

Senate race

In the primaries for the U.S. Senate, the public punch-up has mainly been between Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in the Democratic corner and incumbent Ted Stevens on the Republican side.

Begich has three television ads out, including a lighthearted take on cleaning up Washington politics by putting lawmakers through a car wash — something that’s been popular with his supporters and critics alike.

His latest ad publicizes his independence as a lawmaker and support for opening parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, something the national Democratic Party platform opposes.

Begich is expected to easily win the Democratic primary against challenger Ray Metcalfe. As such, his ads are aimed at building name recognition for the general election showdown.

Begich has mostly avoided criticizing Stevens, who was indicted at the end of last month on seven counts of filing false financial disclosures to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts from oil services company VECO Corp. and its executives. Stevens denies any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

Despite the indictment, most pollsters and campaign watchers in the state expect Stevens to win the Republican primary easily.

Stevens is running a statewide TV ad featuring testimonials from Alaskans about his 40 years of service to the state.

“Stevens doesn’t have a real primary challenger, so he’s trying to repair his popularity numbers,” Moore said.

Hackney said the federal indictment has turned out to be less of an issue for Stevens than the threat of the indictment had been.

“Now that the charges are laid out, people see that they aren’t that serious,” he said.

Even though he enjoys a comfortable lead in the polls over his six lesser-known challengers in the GOP primary, Stevens has taken his knocks, primarily from newcomer Vic Vickers, a Florida Democrat who moved to Alaska in January and switched affiliations to run in the Republican primary.

Vickers’ ads have taken direct aim at Stevens’ legal troubles, a tactic Hackney thinks will backfire.

“They’re in here just to try to muddy and bloody Ted Stevens,” he said. “But they’re just doing it in such a clumsy manner that they’re just upsetting people.”

Vickers has three ads airing and has three more planned before the primary, for a total media buy of $1 million. “I’m going to buy everything I can this last week,” Vickers said.

The indictment of Stevens has breathed new life into the campaign of Anchorage developer Dave Cuddy, a fiscal conservative who is touting himself as the “only Republican who can win in November.”

Stevens, who is set to stand trial beginning Sept. 22 in Washington, D.C., is trailing Begich by roughly 18 points in most polls.

“I don’t see any way Stevens or Vickers can win in the general,” Cuddy said. “I don’t see Alaskans choosing to pick Vickers over Begich and I don’t see Stevens’ numbers going up while he’s sitting in a federal courtroom.”

Cuddy’s lone TV spot points to his personal and professional history in Alaska. Cuddy said he’s got two more spots written and will likely produce at least one of them for broadcast before the primary.

“We’ve got a lot of media time booked,” Cuddy said. “We’re going full bore.”