The Mudflats

Today, on the Shannyn Moore Show, I got to break the news on KUDO 1080am that right wing talk radio host Eddie Burke’s show on KBYR has gone dark. >poof!<  Lights out.  The man who put the “S” in Racist (see above) is on the air no more.   Burke says he resigned, others say it was the “you can’t fire me, I quit” scenario.

I noted that when his show was cut from 3 hours to 2 hours a day, he said the show was now in a “super drive time” slot.  As opposed to the regular 3-hour drive time, which somehow isn’t so super?  So, now by his own standards he’s hit the big time with the Super Dooper Drive time slot that goes from nowhere to … nowhen.

Will he show up elsewhere on the dial?  He’s already hopped around a bit, and he may resurface eventually, but for now…. let’s enjoy a moment of blissful radio silence.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….

Yes, I know that they’re just going to fill up those two hours with some other godawful nonsense.  But at least it won’t be HIS godawful nonsense.

So what will become of our vile friend? Personally, I’d love to see him run for governor. Talk about giving us something to write about. We’ve listened for years to Eddie Burke talking about what he’d do, and how things ought to be run, and bla bla bla. And he’s run for office before, but now he has a ready-made band of followers.  And now that he has time, I think he ought to be Alaska’s very first Tea Party candidate.  Or he could take up macrame.  Or perhaps go on a spiritual retreat in some nice cave somewhere and come back a changed man, and get an in-your-face liberal talk show.  But I think running for office is the more likely of the three scenarios.   

Actually, I think he’d round out the non-Democratic field nicely. So any Teabaggers out there (and I only call you Teabaggers not Tea Partiers because your future candidate says DemocRAT Party), it’s time to draft your newly retired leader to run for the state’s top spot. He’s got nothing else to do, so why not? 

Eddie Burke actually called into the show to say that he had “resigned,” and that he didn’t think that the Tea Party was organized enough to endorse a candidate, or shouldn’t be organized, or something.  And then he started rambling on about socialists and France. 

 And I wanted to ask him if he’d ever heard of the Treaty of Paris, or if he ever thanked France for saving our asses during the American Revolution, and remind him that without France we’d all be subjects of the Queen and have socialized medicine, so as a patriot, he ought to be thanking France for the very existence of our country.  But one does not interrupt an on-air conversation between Shannyn Moore and Eddie Burke with a history lesson.  It was quite a moment in radio.  And you can still tune in to hear Shannyn for 15 hours a week.  Eddie Burke?  Not so much.

And this is what it looks like when a H8R leaves the building.

During the President’s Day recess from Congress, Don Young (R) was back in Alaska. And then, when the weekend was over, he went home to Washington D.C. Mudflatter J happened to be in the airport with him, and passed on this little tidbit.

I flew into Seattle yesterday with Mr. Young. Waiting in line to board he remarked to someone beside him that he was returning to “monkeyland”… I almost lost control when I heard this, but decided to not create a “situation.”

I was not impressed. What kind of person are we sending to DC on our behalf? I will work hard to see him defeated.

Gee. What might Congressman Young have meant by that?

Schaeffer Cox, 2008 State House Candidate for District 7 in Fairbanks got himself in a little hot water yesterday.  The former candidate and founder of the local ”Second Amendment Task Force” was arrested yesterday on second degree assault charges.  Fairbanks had eyebrows raised yesterday when I arrived, and only today have details become available on the arrest.  Cox has been accused by his wife of choking her and punching her during an argument as the couple drove to Anchorage with their young son last week.

The Fairbanks Daily News Miner reported on the incident:

Court documents obtained Tuesday detail the circumstances of the arrest of Schaeffer Cox, 26, on a charge of second-degree assault, a class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Cox’s wife told Alaska State Troopers that the couple and their young son were on their way to Anchorage Thursday when they began to argue. The argument escalated, and Cox punched the woman in the arm, according to a criminal complaint filed in court.

It was unclear if Cox was driving or pulled over at the time of the alleged assault.

She told Cox that if he ever touched her like that again, she would leave him and take their son. Cox then reached over, grabbed her by the throat and pinned her up against the vehicle door, court documents allege.

The woman fought him off, and Cox stopped choking her a few moments later and continued to drive to Anchorage with his wife and child, the report stated.

She contacted authorities the next day.

When an Anchorage police officer interviewed her, he noticed that there was minor bruising, redness and a fingernail abrasion on her neck.   [snip]

Last year he found the Second Amendment Task Force, a local gun rights group which has organized several open-carry days. He has also organized several high-profile meetings and rallies promoting gun rights and personal freedoms. A three-hour “Freedom Fest” was held at the Carlson Center in April.

Cox’s activities, including the organization of militia, have garnered the support of such groups as the Interior Alaska Conservative Coalition and the Alaskan Independence Party.

It is amusing to note that Cox’s slogan on his campaign web site is “Schaeffer – A Voice for Reason”.  If you like the slogan a lot, you can get it on a t-shirt for a $60 donation to his campaign.  We learn on the site that:

Having grown up in a family business, he had already learned the rewards of hard work, imagination, and treating people well. 

This incident unfortunately adds one more statistic to Alaska’s already unacceptably high rates of domestic violence. 

[Hat tip to Jamie Smith of the Ink & Snow blog and honorary member of the Mudflats Art Department for the fabulous cartoon]

~Scheaffer Cox

The Alaska GOP’s favorite pollster Dave Dittman has come out with some new numbers about our ex-almost-one-term governor. How many of them would like to see her run for President of the United States? What percentage of Alaskans think that the woman who couldn’t even survive one term as the governor of half a million people should run the country?

It would appear that it’s 17%. That would leave 83% of Alaskans who think that’s a bad bad idea. BUT, I would submit to you that I know many progressive Alaskans who would love Palin to run for president.  Their little eyes get all twinkly, and they look like someone has just asked them if they want a piece of cake.  A Palin candidacy, they tell me,  assures another four years of a Democratic White House.

So, take that 17% with a grain of salt.

I was interested in this quote from USA Today:

A new poll of voters in Alaska, where Sarah Palin served as governor, shows them deeply divided about whether they think their ex-chief executive should run for the White House.

Deeply divided? 83% v. 17%?

If the election were held today, and Palin ran against someone else for the presidency and the other candidate won in an 83/17 split, I don’t think anyone would be describing it as a “deeply divided” nation. That’s as close to unanimous as a national contest would ever get.  “Landslide” doesn’t even do it justice.   I believe, if memory serves me correctly, 17% is the same percentage as those who thought favorably about Dick Cheney when he stepped down from the presidency in 2008.  No that is not a typo.

And it looks doubtful that Palin would even come close to winning her home state, where it all started. Deeply divided? Not so much.

Another 36% of respondents say that Palin should not run for president, but simply “help other candidates.” Well, she did help Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd District. They hadn’t had a Democrat in that seat in decades until she came out in support of the conservative candidate.

She does seem to bring in a lot of money for the candidates she supports, but she also polarizes the debate so much that she brings in just as much for the opponent. Palin is the Republican party’s gift to Democratic fundraisers across the nation.

No Alaskan pollster has asked the question that I would ask – “If Sarah Palin were to run for governor of Alaska in 2010, would you vote for her?”   That’s the one I want.

Since I can’t ask only Alaskans that question, I’ll put up another poll here. I’ll assume that most of the regular readers of this blog are not Sarah Palin fans. Call it a hunch. So, what do you think? Would you like to see her run for President against Barack Obama in 2012?

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