Alaskans need to hear from at least one Dan Sullivan about the loss to Iran
When Petersburg Dan Sullivan is returned to the election ballot for the U.S. Senate election, as he will be, Alaskans will have one Dan Sullivan with the ability to make public comments about the debacle in Iran, voter suppression, fuel prices and the rest.
Right now we don’t have that.
We only have federal employee Amanda Coyne, ordered by Sullivan to recycle tired talking points in place of Ohio Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Coyne is a talented person and a former Alaska journalist, but she was never elected. She is the stand-in for the man who cannot speak for himself on any topic that carries the slightest hint of political risk.
Here is what Sen. Stand-in was required to say to the Anchorage Daily News about Sullivan’s refusal to support the resolution backed by both the House and Senate to block military action in Iran.
Alaska Public Media has taken to not naming Coyne as the source of Sullivan’s words, but also had to resort to the shadow senator to get this misleading and deceptive answer.
Murkowski told the LA Times that the U.S. has not gained any leverage over Iran.
“You want to be able to give the benefit of the doubt,” she said.
But “I think we’re in a place where there is a deal that has been signed, but it doesn’t appear to me that it puts us in that much of a different position than prior to the beginning of the war.”
To NPR, she said that a lot of money has been spent and lives have been lost: “And yet you have Iran in a place where it almost looks like this was where they were before.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump “ripped into” Murkowski at a Senate lunch, though Murkowski wasn’t there. “When Murkowski entered the meeting late, Trump quipped that he had just been saying nice things about her,” the Journal said.
The New York Times said Trump made “highly personal attacks” against Murkowski.
Had Sullivan said uttered a single word in her defense, rest assured it would have been reported.
A big point of contention at that lunch was the voter suppression act that Murkowski opposes and Sullivan supports. Trump is demanding that Republicans approve the bill.
There has been scant coverage of the deep disagreements between Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski on issues that relate to the character and misdeeds of Donald Trump.
Murkowski has endorsed Sullivan over Mary Peltola, but it is similar to Sullivan’s half-hearted endorsement of Murkowski in 2022, a public statement he made only once.
Having Petersburg Dan on the ballot to highlight issues that Ohio Dan won’t touch—Iran, the slush fund, massive corruption, etc.—will be a public service. It might even force Ohio Dan to speak for himself.
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