The Frank & Lisa Murkowski Dynasty must be very pleased at the way this US Senate election is shaping up. The more candidates running against Murkowski, the more voters will pick familiar names and waste votes on candidates who have no chance of winning.
Nineteen candidates are running in the top-four primary for United States Senate in Alaska on August 16, 2022.
| Photo | Candidate |
|---|---|
 | Lisa Murkowski (R) |
 | Edgar Blatchford (D) |
 | Patricia Chesbro (D) |
 | David Darden (Independent) |
 | Dustin Darden (Alaskan Independence Party) |
 | Shoshana Gungurstein (Independent) |
 | Sid Hill (Independent) |
| Jeremy Keller (Independent) |
 | Buzz Kelley (R) |
 | Huhnkie Lee (Independent) |
 | Samuel Merrill (R) |
| Pat Nolin (R) |
 | John Schiess (R) |
 | Kendall Shorkey (R) |
 | Karl Speights (R) |
 | Joe Stephens (Alaskan Independence Party) |
 | Ivan Taylor (D) |
 | Sean Thorne (L) |
 | Kelly Tshibaka (R) |
Murkowski is a Republican Progressive Legend.1
Having recognized all of that, one candidate is appealing to fed up Alaskan Patriots. Placing among the top four in the Jungle Primary could cause his message to resonate to like-minded Alaskans in the general election.
Patriots of Alaska Must Stand Together to Save America
KARL W. SPEIGHTS THE PATRIOT’S VOICE: “FIRST CHOICE FOR THE LAST FRONTIER”
But, for now big Outside money is on Lisa.
Murkowski Legend Revealed
Murkowski, as the incumbent has done something not done in any state since US Senator Strom Thurman, in 1954 won a write-in vote.2
In 2010 the Good Ol’ Boy Alaska Republican Party was out-maneuvered by it’s right flank during the Closed Primary, when Fairbanks attorney Joe Miller WON against Murkowski! This required status quo Republicans to join Democrats, Pro-abortion advocates and other special interests, to return their girl to Washington D.C.–where she has well served new masters.
The lesson: Primary Elections are important and changing how a Primary Election is run could change the outcome of the General Election. Since Alaska has nearly 2 to 1 registered Republican-to-Democrat voters, the only way to elect Democrats is to run them as Republican posers, or cheat, by not allowing majority party Republicans to have meaningful choice in a Jungle Primary election.
In 2016 Alaska Republicans embraced Murkowski’s re-election bid. But this year the Republican Party of Alaska has endorsed Kelly Tshibaka.
Speight’s Mission:
I don’t view myself as a politician running for election; I see myself as a qualified applicant for an important job—US Senator, explained Karl Speights after a firm handshake. I’ve never been an elected official. I’ve never had any drive other than to support people. This is out of my comfort zone.
Speights continued: I am running on three things: 1) stemming the overreach of the federal government, 2) addressing unpayable debt we are foisting on future generations, and 3) confronting the full assault we are seeing on our American system at every level.
Cherished values that have made this the greatest country in the history of mankind are under attack, according to this candidate, who insists Alaskans must make politicians and public servants fully accountable.
I have managed Operational Contract Support (OCS) policy and doctrine, in my senior role at Joint Forces Command, and while consulting for the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff OCS Office at the Pentagon, previous colleagues were prosecuted under anti-deficiency act rules of contract administration, Speights said. Several of those colleagues went to jail.
As a state with a waterfront view of Russia, Alaska represents a front line for the United States of America. This writer has always been in awe of our military and the people who bring such added value to our communities when they are assigned here. Many return to give even more to the Last Frontier AFTER military service.
Speights is a guy who has stepped up in the past and is ready to do that again in the face of what he sees as a national crisis.
I’ve had multiple opportunities to brief very high level government proceedings while being assigned in senior positions in multiple commands: the HQ US European Command in Stuttgart Germany, USAF International Affairs in the Pentagon, NATO, United States Atlantic Command and HQ United States Joint Forces Command, said Speights. I’ve brief the National Security Council on Dual Use Technology, and provided their staffers with specific information white papers related to National Security Strategy inputs, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) command inputs, Defense Military Strategy (DMS) recommendations, and for Congressional Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) residual abatement costs and timelines for Europe. Nearly all issues we presented went through a thorough vetting and Judicial Reviews.
My wife and I have been engaged in National Politics as well, continued Speights. We drove an estimated 3000 plus miles to march on the US Capital steps, in Washington DC, during a winter ice storm, letting our elected officials know that the forty or fifty demonstrators were against the on-going vote to fund our enemies in GAZA
This was important service at the highest level of our military-government interface.
I was drafted in probably the last draft and joined the Air Force. I went to Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Quam. I was trained as an engineer, said Speights. At Lackland AFB I was told I would be assigned to a place called Manzano Base.
They were starting a new program, called Special Weapons Center—Nuclear Weapons, Speights continued. I had to sign a 20-year nondisclosure agreement and couldn’t talk about what I was doing to anybody, even family. I didn’t know what I was getting into until I went through the briefing. Now I can talk freely about it, but it was the dismantling of the last two atomic weapons from the Manhattan Project.3
I was a multi-functional munitions specialist and handled or transported warhead material from MANZANO Base which is now an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) facility in a very secure mountain complex in New Mexico, about forty miles from Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque NM.
Deployment of the Atomic Bomb ended WWII but it had to be de-activated in peacetime.
I’m running as the Patriot’s Voice. I’m in the American Legion. I’m a disabled vet. So with 23 and a half years–I was both enlisted and officer, I’ve been a Mustang–and it is hard to fathom what has happened to our country, said Speights. Women’s rights and Child Services are attacking women in Alaska! The drug issue is out of control to the point where it’s causing an epidemic for suicides. Nobody’s writing about that or speaking up for that.
Late in my career I became a Middle East expert on terrorism, Sharia Law and the threat posed from Islamic Extremists. I retired from military service on November 2, 2002 after receiving my 20 year letter. I retired from government service on June 20th 2009, after leaving a staff meeting with General Jim Mattis, my Joint Forces Command, commander. My staff was tasked to review and make changes in multiple policy, doctrine and training publications-and it was something I couldn’t do- I felt it was ethically wrong.
I was one of the Command’s Division Directors. He said: “Karl, you need to go over to Joint Forces Staff College and remove everything that says Muslim or says terrorist or ISIS, you know, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, said Speights. This was under President Obama. I said: “I can’t do that, and retired immediately.”
But THEY did it! They sanitized everything; all doctrine, policies, war plans. They removed anything that touched it; an Obama edict.
Later Mattis became 26th Secretary of Defense under President Trump but I don’t think he was ever a Trump Guy, added Speights.
Speights: I’m a constitutionalist. The Constitution provides voting rights. It gives us labor rights, it gives child rights, it gives family rights, it gives all the rights in seven articles and twenty-seven amendments to those articles.
Attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/02 empowered the federal government to take control of everyone’s lives. It was a national emergency like we’ve never seen in our history, said Speights. What was the first thing they did? They drafted the Homeland Security Act of 2002 signed by President George Bush under the Presidential Powers Act, that established the Department of Homeland Security As a new department of the Executive Branch under his control. It became the nucleus or template for all Presidents to respond to large-scale emergencies as a top down directed Federal Government priority. It effectively removed the responsibility from the military or State’s National Guard to respond. Now, Customs, Border Patrol, TSA , FEMA and Coast Guard are the Executive Branche’s new law enforcement arm-primarily by utilizing National Security Letters to bypass Constitutional Laws.
Our federal government is out of control.
When elected I will seek input from my constituents. I’ll say “This is the issue. And this is what’s driving it. These are the pros and the cons.” I will represent the collective wisdom of Alaskans.
Alaskans deserve no less. Check out these other stories on Election candidates for this election season:
Western Alaska Deserves Better in Juneau: Willy Keppel Says He Can Make a Difference
Huhnkie Lee; Social Media Sensation
Watch Candidate Joe Wright: Voters here will have to make some calculated choices with RCV
Charlie Pierce says “Let’s Put Alaskans First”
- Ballotpedia: Lisa Murkowski: https://ballotpedia.org/Lisa_Murkowski [↩]
- Wikipedia: Strom Thurman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
The incumbent U.S. senator from South Carolina, Burnet R. Maybank, was unopposed for re-election in 1954, but he died two months before the Election day, and the Democratic Party selected Edgar A. Brown to replace Maybank without conducting a primary election. Thurmond organized a write-in campaign for the vacant senate seat. He pledged that if he won, he would resign in 1956 to force a primary election and won the 1954 election easily. His victory made him the first person to be elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate.
Thurmond co-wrote the first version of the Southern Manifesto, stating disagreement with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, that desegregated public schools. He was part of the group of Southern senators who shared a commonality of being dispirited with Brown v. Board of Education. In early 1956, he resigned from the Senate, keeping the promise he made two years earlier. He won the primary as well as the general election unopposed. Thereafter, he returned to the Senate in November, 1956. [↩]
- The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic weapon during World War II. [↩]
