Every Italian family has an Uncle Vinny. He’s the guy who doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t make threats, and somehow you still walk out of the room understanding exactly what’s going to happen to you if you don’t cooperate. This week, Alaska Democrats got their own version of that meeting, and Tom Begich was the man sitting across the table.
Picture it. Tom walks in thinking this is a negotiation. Maybe Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins steps aside instead. Maybe they split the difference somehow. But the man running the show isn’t Jonathan. It’s the head of the Alaska AFL-CIO, and he isn’t there to negotiate. He’s there to inform.
The message, stripped of the pleasantries, comes down to one sentence: you’re not splitting our money with Jonathan, Tom, you’re not getting any of it. Every union check, every phone bank, every mailer the labor movement was ever going to fund in this race has already been spoken for. Tom can stay in if he wants. He can stay in and watch Jonathan’s campaign get everything, and his own campaign get nothing, all the way to November. Or he can leave with his dignity, an endorsement to make it look mutual, and a nice quote about “shared values” for the cameras.
Tom Begich didn’t lose an argument. He lost a shakedown, and he knew it well enough to take the deal.
That’s not a coincidence of timing. That’s how these things work. And it’s exactly what happened.
Here’s what should worry moderate Democrats far more than losing Tom Begich: what they got instead. Kreiss-Tomkins spent three years at Yale before dropping out to run for the Alaska State Legislature, and the company he’s kept ever since tells you where that education pointed him. His endorsement list reads like a who’s who of Alaska’s furthest-left officials: State Senators Forrest Dunbar and Zack Fields, Anchorage Assembly Members Chris Constant, Erin Baldwin and Daniel Volland, and Fairbanks’ most progressive Borough Assembly Member Savannah Fletcher, among 30 hard-left validators total. Not one Republican made that list, and none was ever going to.
His record backs it up. He supported state-funded abortion. He backed LGBTQ legislation that religious liberty advocates warned would force people of faith to violate their conscience. His platform promises to keep fighting on both fronts as governor.
Compare that to Begich, a Senate Minority Leader who spent his career in the institutional, deal-making wing of his party, the kind of Democrat Republicans could at least sit down with. That’s the Democrat the AFL-CIO just retired.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
This wasn’t Alaska Democrats choosing their most electable candidate. It was organized labor picking its most obedient one, and making sure nobody else could afford to compete. Tom Begich didn’t lose an argument. He lost a shakedown, and he knew it well enough to take the deal.
The AFL-CIO didn’t just anoint a nominee this week. It told Alaska exactly who’s really in charge of the Democratic Party, and it isn’t the moderates.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
11 Comments
Exactly!
Glen, given your past screeds about the horrors of democratic policies, I don’t think you are a reliable and accurate assessor of the democrats.
With 33 years in politics, you are probably right. Thank you for the diagnosis, Dr Singh
Evan, here’s the Horror of your party.
He supported state-funded abortion. He backed LGBTQ legislation that religious liberty advocates warned would force people of faith to violate their conscience.
I wonder should we allow Muslims to assimilate into our country and accept thier belif system and try to force on me?And why should I have to accept your belief system and allow you to force it on me. I bet you never say anything about how we subsidize free education, health care and abortions in Israel. But I digress.
The giveaway is the phrase “Picture it.” What follows is not reporting. It is a screenplay.
The Alaska Watchman claims that the AFL-CIO threatened Tom Begich and forced him from the governor’s race. But the article identifies no meeting, witness, recording, email or person with firsthand knowledge. It quotes neither Begich nor Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins nor AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall confirming any threat. It simply imagines dialogue and then declares, “That’s exactly what happened.”
The documented facts tell a far less theatrical story.
Kreiss-Tomkins finished first in the primary with approximately 22.5%, while Begich finished second with 20.8%. The two campaigns had already discussed consolidation before the final count and before the AFL-CIO endorsement. Alaska’s withdrawal deadline was approaching, and Begich publicly said that uniting their supporters behind one candidate offered the strongest path to victory.
That is ordinary political strategy. Republican officials are simultaneously urging Republican gubernatorial candidates to consolidate behind one candidate. Apparently, consolidation is “unity” when Republicans discuss it but a Mafia “shakedown” when Democrats do it.
The article’s claim that organized labor singlehandedly “anointed” Kreiss-Tomkins is also false. Alaska does not have a partisan gubernatorial primary that awards a Democratic nomination. All candidates ran together, and Alaska voters—not union officials—placed Kreiss-Tomkins first. The AFL-CIO endorsement was voted on by the federation’s vice presidents after he emerged as the top vote-getter. It was not secretly dictated by one labor boss.
The supposed ideological contrast between Begich and Kreiss-Tomkins is just as manufactured. The Watchman presents Begich as a moderate displaced because Kreiss-Tomkins supports abortion and LGBTQ protections. But Begich was endorsed by Planned Parenthood precisely for his “unwavering commitment” to reproductive and LGBTQ rights. He was also endorsed by NEA-Alaska and is himself a member or retiree of several unions.
Those social issues therefore do not explain why labor selected Kreiss-Tomkins over Begich. Both candidates held broadly similar positions.
Nor does Kreiss-Tomkins’s actual record resemble the obedient “hard-left” caricature in this article. During ten years in the Alaska House, he:
• Served in Alaska’s bipartisan House majority.
• Passed legislation making Alaska’s 20 Native languages official state languages with overwhelming bipartisan support.
• Worked with conservative Wasilla Republican Mike Shower to develop a bipartisan election-reform package.
• Chaired an eight-member fiscal working group that included conservative Republicans Shelly Hughes, Mike Shower and Ben Carpenter and reached unanimous recommendations.
• Made a practice as committee chair of hearing a minority Republican bill first to demonstrate that every member would receive fair treatment.
Alaska Public Media documented that history. Former Republican colleagues have also spoken favorably about his willingness to work across party lines.
The article says no Republican appears on one campaign endorsement list. Even if accurate, that proves very little about governing style. Kreiss-Tomkins defeated an established Republican to enter the Legislature, represented a politically mixed Southeast district for a decade and repeatedly won reelection. His record of working with Republicans is considerably more meaningful than the party labels on a campaign webpage.
Voters may disagree with Kreiss-Tomkins on abortion, LGBTQ protections, pensions, spending or any other policy. Those are legitimate debates. But policy disagreement is not evidence of a labor conspiracy.
The Alaska Watchman has produced no evidence that Tom Begich was threatened, bought off or “shaken down.” The evidence actually available shows that Kreiss-Tomkins finished ahead of Begich, possessed greater fundraising strength, received a convention-approved labor endorsement and then obtained Begich’s support as the withdrawal deadline approached.
Calling that a Mafia operation does not make the allegation true. It merely disguises speculation as journalism.
The author is free to dislike Kreiss-Tomkins. He is not entitled to invent a private conversation and report his imagination as “exactly what happened.”
Tim, I think I just might agree with you, but…….. can you define what a woman is?
There is a reason the Uber Lefty Homosexual from Sitka received the largest outa State donation in a Governors race in Alaska history. The reason is simple the Uber Lefty Homosexual from Sitka is in lock step with his San Francisco Uber Lefty Homosexual benefactors.
Alaskans, do you want a limp wristed, hyphenated double last name, sexually deviant marxist as guv? Literally anyone else would be better. How about we all say no.
Why does this guy have an extra name?
What it’s about is not what it’s about. We still have RCV in place, and the democrats play it better than republicans. Eliminate all but one democrat to vote for in November. Let the republicans scatter their votes. The republicans cannot win that way. Ideally there’d be one democrat and one republican to vote for. I don’t think the republicans are smart enough to figure that out, and the democrats are playing the game they created brilliantly – and laughing all the way to the governor’s mansion.