GOP imports volunteers from Outside to help Sen. Murkowski
Up to 100 supporters to come to Alaska to campaign for U.S. senator
ANCHORAGE - Volunteers organized by the National Republican Senatorial Committee will be imported to Alaska for the last weeks of the Senate campaign, part of a final push by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski to gain an edge over former Gov. Tony Knowles.
Murkowski's campaign said that 65 to 100 volunteers, made up largely of Senate staffers from Washington, D.C., will arrive in Alaska for the last two weeks before the November election. They will be sent statewide to canvass door to door, make phone calls and send out mailers touting Murkowski's record, said Murkowski spokeswoman Kristin Pugh.
"This is a group of volunteers who are very dedicated to getting not only President Bush elected but to retain the Republican majority in the Senate," Pugh said.
The Murkowski campaign in radio advertising earlier this year criticized Knowles for "shipping in Outside activists with Outside agendas" to canvass door to door. The ad was referring to state Democratic Party volunteers the Murkowski campaign said had out-of-state addresses.
Murkowski spokesman Elliott Bundy said the congressional volunteers are different from the paid college students with Knowles.
"Volunteers with a vested interest in retaining Republican control in the Senate are different from an army of paid college kids from Outside with no interest in Alaska whatsoever," he said.
Pugh said the volunteers are taking leave from their jobs and are paying for their own flights. The campaign is looking for free housing, some of which will be provided by other Murkowski volunteers based here. The Murkowski campaign has about 30 staff members and volunteers who do the work that the new volunteers will help with, Bundy said.
"We're never going to turn down volunteers who want to work with Sen. Murkowski and spread her message across the state," Pugh said.
The volunteers will be paired with Alaskans who can answer questions specific to the state. Pugh said she was part of such an effort to elect Sen. Wayne Allard in Colorado.
Bundy said the strategy of sending people to campaigns at the last minute is not unusual, and people dispatched by the Republican party in the 2000 presidential election made a difference.
Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said his organization will not send Outside volunteers to Alaska. The committee is a Washington, D.C.-based group committed to electing Democrats to the Senate.
"While Lisa Murkowski is recruiting Gucci-wearing Washington lobbyists to tramp around the snow in Alaska on her behalf, we're going to let Gov. Knowles recruit and hire the people and the Democratic Party recruit and hire the people in the state of Alaska to go out and make the case on his behalf," he said.