JASON CHAFFETZ: Democrats tried to trick Alaska voters. Peltola must answer
The Democratic Party and its U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska owe voters the truth. Not the denials Mary Peltola’s campaign keeps repeating, but the truth The New York Times documented this week.
The Times reported that Peltola campaign aides and DSCC staffers worked to recruit additional candidates — including a man named Daniel J. Sullivan — to run and peel votes away from incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan under ranked-choice voting.
Drawing on texts, documents and interviews, the paper reported that Peltola was "definitely aware" of the effort to seek out other people with the same name. The campaign and the DSCC denied involvement in the sham. But notably, none of the parties accused condemned it.
This is a character test for Mary Peltola. Alaskans deserve better than this kind of chicanery. Democrats clearly think voters are too dumb to figure it out. Nobody really believed Daniel J. Sullivan’s name ended up on the ballot organically. But now the Times has provided compelling evidence.
Peltola needs to come clean. If she wasn’t involved, then she needs to have the political guts to call this out.
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On the other hand, if the allegations are true, imagine what she might be willing to do once voters give her power. Someone who greenlights a namesake spoiler operation like this one, then denies it, demonstrates a lack of integrity and judgment that Alaskans should not expect from their U.S. senator. Instead of making a compelling case for Mary Peltola to represent the state, the campaign and its Democratic allies relied on lies and dirty tricks.
The denials make it even worse. All accused parties took that position in public and in the context of the federal litigation over certification. Yet we have the former campaign manager telling the Times that Peltola was "definitely aware" of the recruiting effort. We even have an Elias Law Group attorney who represents both the campaign and the DSCC being looped into related discussions. If those allegations hold, the whole team lied about it.
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These were disgusting, sleazy dirty tricks intended to cajole, manipulate and snooker voters instead of winning on the merits. The whole point was to create confusion under ranked-choice voting and distort voters’ choices.
Democrats didn’t try to persuade Alaskans. They tried to trick them. That is immoral and disingenuous, and it says everything you need to know about today’s Democratic Party — and certainly about Mary Peltola.
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She has not given Alaskans the truth. At this late hour, she still won’t call it out for what it is. That silence is the character test, and she is failing it.
Peltola owes Alaskans the truth. She has not given it.