Alaska Public Media is not just affiliated with PBS and NPR. When their federal funds were threatened, the Democrats put their CEO Ed Ulmer on the panel to testify before the House DOGE Subcommittee last year, as if the NPR and PBS CEOs weren't enough.
The assumption might be that a remote red state so distanced from the continent isn't part of the Eastern media elite. Think again.
They performed such absurd propaganda on behalf of embattled Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola (D) as to reach Soviet levels of the ridiculously unsubtle. What happened is they went through the motions of claiming to have interviewed private citizens yet, amazingly, found none who did not support Peltola. Even the supposed Republican they interviewed claimed he was planning to vote Peltola.
Propagandists Eric Stone and Hannah Flor performed their silly Orwellian act on Wednesday in "New York Times report on Democrats’ secret ballot-stacking effort draws mixed reactions from Alaskans."
Oh, they did include a couple bits of criticism of Peltola but that was only from a statement by a public figure, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) and a from a spokesman for the campaign of Alaska's other Republican senator Dan Sullivan (not to be confused with the other Dan Sullivan installed on the ballot by the Peltola campaign). With that out of the way it was a solid wall of love, Love, LOVE for Mary Peltola:
Keven Kleweno, a registered Republican planning to vote for Peltola, said he was unsurprised by the news, given Republicans’ prior claims of Democratic involvement in Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign. “That's nothing that we haven't heard before,” he said.
But at the same time, he suggested that Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager who spoke to the Times about the campaign’s involvement, was a disgruntled ex-employee who “didn’t like being laid off.”
“I just feel it's another way to, you know, slander Peltola and try to make sure Dan worthless Sullivan is reelected,” he said.
Could he have been one of those infamous "life-long" Republicans who, when quoted, always seem to support Democrats?
Adam Lees of Anchorage is registered nonpartisan and supports Peltola. He said his opinions of the Senate race were already “mostly baked in.” Still, he said, the reported effort to stack the ballot is “not the best look.” “It does give — I think as some of the kids would describe it — icky vibes,” he said. “But at the same time, I think voters are intelligent and can figure out how to rank and can figure out which Dan Sullivan is their person.”
Yup! Despite getting "icky vibes" this one is also a Peltola supporter.
Amber McClelland, a registered Democrat and former Libertarian living in Anchorage, said she agreed. Politics wasn’t always this “dirty,” she said — recruiting a candidate just to draw votes away from an opponent “should not be a thing.”
“It's kind of messed up,” she said. “But in the past, Republicans have done everything that they can do to win, including cheat.”
The Alaska Public Media then switches gears slightly from finding private people who all just so happen to support Peltola to highlighting those who vouch for the integrity of the Dan J. Sullivan who was selected to be on the ballot by the Peltola campaign:
In Petersburg, residents who have known Dan J. Sullivan for decades had a hard time reconciling the picture the Times painted with the man they know. Erica Kludt-Painter said she doesn’t believe he worked behind the scenes with the Democrats to stack the ballot.
“I just don't see him being involved in a national conspiracy,” she said. “I'm sorry, I just don't. I know him to be a man of integrity who cares about his community and the people in it.”
Petersburg Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton-Gregor said the community knows Dan J. Sullivan is a man of “high character,” and he doesn’t see the Times story changing anyone’s opinion of him. He said he was disappointed in the article.
Alaska Public Media remained stubbornly true to liberal form by somehow not finding a single supporter of Senator Dan S. Sullivan (R) and ended with a flurry of yet more love for Peltola:
D.J. McBride, an independent voter living in Willow planning to vote for Peltola, was taken aback by the suggestion that Alaskans couldn’t distinguish the senator from the retired teacher.
“Both sides play pretty dirty pool, and if you're stupid enough that you can't tell the difference between an incumbent and a non-incumbent, I don't have any patience for you,” she said. “Alaskans are smarter than that.”
Fairbanks doctoral student Eric Evans said he was frustrated the controversy was drawing attention away from more important issues, such as the war with Iran. He said he had yet to make a final decision on who to vote for in the race.
“I think it's really, really unfortunate that the state Supreme Court of Alaska ruled on this months ago, and that this is what we're talking about at this critical point in time, when, really, we should be talking about, how are we going to solve things?” he said.
Geoff Kennedy, a retiree living in Anchorage who is registered as nonpartisan, said it was “absurd” to think Alaskans would be confused by the two Dan Sullivans. He said he didn’t expect the controversy to have much impact on the race.
Mary Peltola critics? They seem not to even exist in the Alaska of the cloistered liberal bubble of Alaska Public Media.
