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Go Home The *other* Fight To Seat A Senator

THE PLANK APRIL 15, 2009

The *other* Fight To Seat A Senator

BY AUTHOR INFO NEEDED

I almost wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about the odd fight to fill an Alaska state senate seat currently taking place out in the Last Fontier. In brief: Kim Elton, a Democrat representing Juneau, took a job with the Obama Interior Department and needed a replacement for his seat. By law, the replacement has to be a Democrat, so Dems in the state senate came up with a name, as is customary, and asked Governor Sarah Palin to sign off on it. She didn't, and rather than wait for the Dems to submit a list of alternatives, she recommended her own candidate, a fellow named Tim Grussendorf. The problem was that Grussendorf was a registered Republican who had switched parties just a couple of weeks earlier, specifically in order to be eligible for the Democratic seat. He claimed that his GOP registration was all a mistake--which sounds like the lamest defense ever but, incredibly, looks as though it may have been true. (He'd run for office as a Democrat in the past and was at the time working as an aide to another Democrat in the state senate.) But his (newly) fellow Democrats decided that someone who had been a Republican less than a month earlier, whether through ideology or ineptitude, wasn't a great choice, and voted down Palin's pick.

There's been more back-and-forth since, which blogger Mudflats has catalogued: Palin tried to change the rules so that everyone--Democrats and Republicans alike--would be able to vote to confirm a replacement, but the legislature nixed that idea. The Dems submitted a list with three more acceptable candidates for Palin to choose from, but she again picked someone not on the list, one Joe Nelson, whom the Dems again rejected. So Democrats and Republicans in the senate came up with yet another option both were happy with, former Juneau mayor Dennis Egan. Problem solved? Well, no. Mudflats has the details:

Palin has now submitted ….a list of three names.  Yes, folks, it’s
backwards day in Juneau!  She didn’t like the fact that it was the
other side that was supposed to submit a list of names, so she just
went ahead and did it herself.    And who’s on the list?  The first
name is Tim Grussendorf.  “Hold on a minute,” you may be thinking. 
“Hasn’t he already been rejected?”  Why, yes he has.  Soundly.  And so
has the second nominee, Joe Nelson.  And the third name?    No, of
course it’s not Dennis Egan.  That would make sense, and be a brilliant
diplomatic move, showing….wisdom and maturity.  No, Dennis, like
Kerttula fell victim to the big red REJECTED stamp. 

Enter Alan Wilson, name #3.  Nobody knows much about Alan Wilson. 
The Division of Elections tells us that Alan Wilson is not a registered
Democrat, although Palin’s spokeswoman Sharon Leighow tells us he is
too.  He converted on March 4.    And this means that the third and
final candidate has not only been chosen from outside the Democrats’
list, but According to the Division of Elections at the time of his
nomination, he is ineligible to hold the seat.  And just for a little
added enjoyment,  public records tell us that he’s married to one
Sydney Mitchell, who owns a little shop in Juneau called Shoefly. 
Those of you who are Sarah Palin trivia junkies will remember that
Shoefly is where Sarah Palin purchased her infamous pair of red Naughty
Monkey pumps, that were sold on Ebay for $2025.

On the plus side, he's never (to my knowledge) compared gay people to lima beans.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

--Christopher Orr 

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20 comments

Can we do more lima bean riffs, please? This controversy does not seem to allow as many comic possibilities (he said, in a challenge to ratner, bone, yard, blackie, etc.) (I have to use "etc." because an exhaustive list would undoubtedly leave someone out).

- Geoff G

April 15, 2009 at 1:34pm

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Alaska is just this close to being a third world country.  They sure as hell have the politicians to pull it off.

- sdemuth

April 15, 2009 at 1:54pm

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Look - nothing in any of this comes as a surprise.  The Palin woman - the entire brood and extended family - is a pox on the body politic, but Alaska is good at producing toxic politicians, so what's new.

No, any rage, ridicule, moral umbrage you feel should be directed at Horny Goat McCain, the sadsack jerkoff narcissist asshole who brought you the W- of Wasilla and proposed to put her within his own damaged heart's beat of the Presidency.  Every time you see any movement in the stock market, any problems with the Banks, any international crisis, any summit, any judicial appointment - think that McCain was telling the world that this Glad-Bag-on-Pumps was qualified to lead the US in this time of economic peril and international incertitude.

Of course, the saddest this of all is that the "three persons on a list" gambit is right out of Yes, Prime Minister - only, as one would expect from the Palin woman, inept and ham-handed.

- icarusr

April 15, 2009 at 2:28pm

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A friend of mine confessed that he might have had too much to drink at a party one time and, well, did something with one of them that he doesn't really want to talk about. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

- williamyard

April 15, 2009 at 2:31pm

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A lot of people experiment, but that doesn't make them lima beans. Hell, I've eaten the things myself, just to see what the fuss was about. But, once was enough and I've never been tempted since. (I did have to get another cellphone number, but I don't see the need to discuss this any further.)

- Geoff G

April 15, 2009 at 3:35pm

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Clippy shot a lima bean in the back out of jealousy.

- icarusr

April 15, 2009 at 4:25pm

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I think I still have a lima bean "up there," if you get my drift.

- WoodyBombay

April 15, 2009 at 4:43pm

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Impeach Palin!

- richardt32

April 15, 2009 at 5:16pm

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I tried to get my wife to have lima beans, but it backfired on me. I was telling how good they are and how much fun she'd have, and she said "If they're so good, why don't you have one?"

- Geoff G

April 15, 2009 at 5:27pm

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Y'all are looking at Palin's antics from the wrong point of view. She's a Republican governor. It's in her interests to minimize the number of Democrats in either house of her state's legislature. Which by the way is about to go out of session and not meet again for months. So first she tries appointing some non-Democrats. This is win-win for her: Either the non-Democrat gets ratified, and she's just removed a Democratic seat in the legislature, or the non-Democrat gets vetoed, and the seat is still empty and that's one less Democrat in the legislature. She could have kept playing that game all year long, but instead she got creative and played the legislature's pick-a-name game back at them. Again, it's win-win for her: either one of her selections fills the seat, in which case it's not really a Democratic seat, or none of her selections fly, in which case the seat remains empty and that's +1 for the Republicans.

If you assume she's some kind of civic-minded professional, then yeah, I can see how she looks like a bumbling failure, or even a trailer trash ditz. But if instead you assume she's a venal power-grabbing political operative, then she looks like a tactical genius.

- rhubarbs

April 15, 2009 at 5:43pm

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Four percent of all beans are lima beans; 75% certainly are not; the rest are bean-curious.

- icarusr

April 15, 2009 at 5:44pm

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Perhaps Sarah Palin will do what seems to be the next logical thing and just nominate a lima bean to the State Senate.   It wouldn't make her appear any more irrational than she appears already.  

Sarah Palin is a walking nightmare, red pumps or not.

- shaw-man

April 15, 2009 at 5:55pm

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There's a place in Louisiana where they turn lima beans into T-bone steaks. Theoretically, anyway -there's a restaurant attached, and but it never seems to have any steak.

- Geoff G

April 15, 2009 at 6:07pm

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 It might be me but I don't recall Sarah uttering many original thoughts which she didn't revise, retract, repudiate or deny. People cite her ability to woo crowds but even then her spontaneous remarks are blooper material.  And this is after less than a year under the looking glass?  She couldn't handle a sprint and her fans believe she's prepared for a marathon.

  Since more than a few national contenders have been eliminated for a gaffe or a few, I doubt the competition in her own party will cut her slack at their expense. Since McCain knows her as well as anyone and he can barely include her in a discussion I wonder what he knows and isn't talking about.  

  The right can boast the intellectual elite isn't relevant. But she'll have to win over more of her own party's thinkers than she did last year and I don't see her scoring points with them if this trend of dodgy behavior continues. So far, her backers are people who rely upon ratings, not votes. That can't be a complete formula for success if she plans on winning a national competition.

- michael

April 15, 2009 at 6:24pm

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Rhubarb's opining that it's win-win for Palin to minimize the number of Democrats in the legislature misses the point entirely, but he's right in line with George W. Bush/Karl Rove governance: Do whatever is necessary to accomplish your political objectives in the short run, even if that means violating your trust as a public official, and abrogating your responsibilities to the public.  Alaskan law requires a Democrat to be appointed to the seat, and it assumes that the governor will act in good faith to get it done.  Palin is--transparently--playing games.  It's in Palin's long-term interests to pursue politics on the national level; these childish pranks of hers will surely mark her as a lousy governor in campaigns to come.  That, combined with her birdbrain intellect, will consign her to the dustheap alongside Dan Quayle and other Republican luminaries who couldn't think and did nothing much to disguise it.  Rhubarb suggests it's wrong to assume she's "some civic minded professional," but nobody's making that mistake.  Her problem is that she's deaf and blind to all but her most rightwing  constituents.  Which of course is precisely why the Republicans are in such disarray.  They ardently believe it's because they simply haven't made their principles clear, while the public perceives them as a ratpack pursuing their own self interests and nothing else.  And Palin is an especially glaring example.  

- rbroun2044@comcast.net

April 16, 2009 at 10:34am

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Points to iccy for the "Yes, Prime Minister" reference, which is probably drawing a lot of blanks.

- Nari224

April 16, 2009 at 11:08am

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Hey, I love lima beans.  Cook 'em up good with a nice hamhock and get 'em just to where there's a little give in the bite...

oh, wait, we're not really talking about lima beans, are we?  

<runs away embarassed>

- cspencef

April 16, 2009 at 11:32am

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"get 'em just to where there's a little give in the bite..."

No, we weren't, but you got the mood just right.

- icarusr

April 16, 2009 at 3:01pm

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THE WRONG WAY TO ESTABLISH A RECORD.... U.S. News' Paul Bedard reported this week that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "bright star has fast faded in the eyes of Washington Republican officials and analysts." Bedard quoted a GOP strategist who has...

- Anonymous

April 17, 2009 at 3:51pm

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Former Sarah Palin booster (and TNR alum) Reihan Salam has had enough : Palin’s campaign antics can be

- Anonymous

April 20, 2009 at 11:15am

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