Bad luck, Begich

Speaking of Republican Senators, it looks like we're close to getting a new one in Alaska.

Begich’s campaign promised to attack Sullivan’s record early on. But it was forced to pull down an ad accusing Sullivan of letting “sex offenders get off with light sentences” while he was attorney general, including one who is accused of murdering an elderly couple after that couple’s family demanded the ad be taken off the air.

Yes, the family's reaction to the ad would be exactly my own. There's a gray area with regard to sharing public information, but in my opinion that area ends at or before the exposure level of television advertising.

Begich’s allies found another way to hit the issue by asking Maryland’s tax assessor whether Sullivan had properly claimed tax breaks for his East Coast home. The assessor said on Tuesday that he was entitled to them because he’d been a Maryland resident during that period, triggering a wave of local coverage in the state.

But those attacks, so far, haven’t done much to halt Sullivan’s rise. Though the state is notoriously hard to poll accurately, he seems to have captured the upper hand in public surveys with a month to go.

When you serve in the US Military you are protecting your own state, plus 49 others. Are the Democrats going to attack every veteran of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines on the issue of residency? I surely hope so. Lead balloon city.

In response to Democratic attacks on his positions on women’s issues, Sullivan has rolled out a powerful new surrogate: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who cut an ad for the GOP nominee.

“The Lisa endorsement is big. She’s popular, she’s seen as the voice of reason by a lot of moderates up here,” said GOP pollster Matt Larkin.

Begich has responded with a pair of positive ads, one featuring his mother and wife and another with a Republican former first lady of Alaska touting his candidacy.

Uh-oh. It turns out Sullivan doesn't have the Radical Muslim view of women any more than any other Republican does.