Taylor's replacement won't run a real campaign for governor

I suspect that Candice English is going to be a candidate in name only.

It is more likely that English, who stepped into the Tregarrick Taylor void, will call on Republicans to support Bernadette Wilson alone or along with Dave Bronson.

That would create a three-way race with Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Bronson and Wilson.

The clearest sign of this is what Tregarrick said in a press release right before he was booted off the ballot by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom for his failure to follow the financial disclosure rules: “Alaskans have a choice. We can divide the Alaska vote and give an advantage to a campaign fueled by California money, or we can unite and give Alaskans a real choice.”

“The question is simple: Do we want Alaskans choosing our next governor, or California mega-donors propping up JKT?” said Tregarrick.

Tregarrick, who put $600,000 of his own money into his campaign, is a mega self-donor.

Right after Tregarrick was booted from the ballot, his former running mate English filed in his place, which is the replacement plan allowed under state law.

English put her name forward for governor, while Taylor’s wife Jodi was added on the lieutenant governor line. Look for English to be pushing the unity line.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar speculated on Facebook what the strategy may be with English’s filing: “I'm wondering if this is some kind of strategic move, where it's revealed that Treg Taylor's former LG and his wife's new ticket is actually just a placeholder to stop the slide down the rankings of Republicans added to the ballot, and that they are endorsing Bernadette.

“Because it seems so far-fetched that they would run a successful campaign starting now, especially when Treg's wife, Jodi Taylor, will presumably have the same APOC troubles and education funding misappropriation scandal that he did.”

There is also this problem, as reported by James Brooks in the Alaska Beacon August 17:

Former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, a Republican candidate for governor, violated state campaign finance laws by donating more than 60 times the maximum amount of money to his own campaign, according to disclosure documents filed this week.

Those documents show his lieutenant governor candidate, Candice English, also violating the same limit.

Under state law, primary election candidates cannot give or loan their campaigns more than $5,000 after July 17.

In a campaign finance disclosure report due Tuesday, Taylor says he donated $260,000 to his campaign on Aug. 3. He also reported buying plane tickets worth more than $3,400 with his own money.

English and her husband, Stanley, reported donating $100,000 to the campaign on July 28, according to the same report.

Tregarrick believes the campaign limit is unconstitutional, so he chose to ignore it, according to what his spokesman told the Anchorage Daily News.