Shooting (at) the messenger ...

There is nothing quite like waking up in the morning, checking messages and seeing the following tweet from one of Alaska's most widely read political columnists:

Ted Cruz and Sean Parnell -- off the top of my head I'm not sure those are the two I would pick for the author to be thinking about when she is finishing a piece on me.

So, rather than roll over and hit the snooze button as I normally do at 4am I clicked on the piece.  It seems Amanda has been receiving a few texts and messages of her own:

Brad Keithley, one of the potential independent candidates for governor, must have the Republican establishment scared. I know this because I get texts and emails from those political activists who appear to be scared. They are going through his voting record, trying to make the case that he’s a Democratic operative who moved to Alaska just to sabotage Gov. Sean Parnell, much like Vic Vickers, who moved to Alaska to run against Ted Stevens in 2008.

I started laughing.  "Democratic operative ...."  Good lord.  Whoever has been texting Amanda must not have been paying attention when, in response to some of my columns, Rep. Les Gara occasionally calls me an "oil shill," or when Shannyn Moore, as recently as a few weeks ago, told me I am "boring, really boring" (and thought worse, I am fairly confident).

For the record -- and for the umpteenth time -- I don't want to run for Governor (or anything else for that matter, just to make that point clear as well to my soon-to-be-new State Senator, who I strongly support, and my State Representative, who I would support if he stopped helping pass the Governor's recent, sustainable-busting budgets).

And Vic Vickers?  Hahahaha, Vickers moved to Alaska at most a nano-second before (and actually, maybe after) he announced his run against Ted Stevens.  He never held a job here.  Me?  Heck, Les Gara has been calling me names at least since the mid-2000's.

Seriously, "Republican establishment," you want me to stop writing about the Governor's (lack of) job performance?  Then spend your time instead urging him to submit real, sustainable budgets and use his line item veto pen to bring the budgets back down to that level if the Legislature doesn't take the hint.

Actually, all of us would be happy at that point.  I could stop being the messenger of inconvenient truths and go back to planning my bluegrass concert tours for the coming months, and you could stop wasting time tracking down my voting (and let's see, what's next, my contribution) records.

Just to help out on that front, I gave $250 each to Senator Kelly and Senator Dunleavy last night.  You want some more inconvenient truth?  They don't like the budgets either.