Porcaro says working a Juneau state job at home in Anchorage is a little easier on a guy who is 75
Radio talk show host and adman Mike Porcaro led the “red pen” campaign in 2019 to harass legislators who balked at Dunleavy’s plan for $1.6 billion in budget cuts that would slash every state and local government service.
Porcaro claimed the government could be smaller, with no income tax and no reduction in Permanent Fund Dividends. That was a complete fantasy, of course.
Porcaro provided links on his website asking his audience to spend $19.99 to send 100 red pens to Juneau for smaller government. His website still includes a form letter calling for budget cuts to government and bigger dividends.
“I am one of the 145,000 Alaskans who voted for Governor Mike Dunleavy. I am sending you this red pen to help you remember to keep our spending in line with our revenues,” Porcaro’s form letter says. “I am happy to send you more red pens upon request.”
“P.S. - I am confident you are doing all you can to assure your constituents receive a FULL PFD this year.”
Porcaro has long used his radio show to attack government at all levels and preach about the virtues of budget discipline. Shrinking government is a regular theme.
He was given a state job by Dunleavy last August, a job that Porcaro says he did not ask for. A 2015 audit said that the three commissioners of the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission had to work less than 15 hours a week and shouldn’t be collecting benefits.
Commissioner Porcaro, who never stops attacking government waste, may have the lightest workload of any government employee in Alaska.
Now that Porcaro is a state employee, getting $136,000 a year for working at home, though the office is in Juneau—he said it is a little easier for a guy who is 75 to work at home—he claims his red pen stunt was just show business.
During a confirmation hearing Tuesday before the House Fisheries Committee, Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot asked Porcaro about the red pens.
He laughed and said:
“You have a situation where you have a radio show. And you have an audience and your audience feels a certain way,” Porcaro said.
“As far as the red campaign was concerned, I think it took on more of a life of its own. Our basic philosophy there was to say, if it can be trimmed, let’s do it as efficiently as possible. And it ended up with us giving the governor a gigantic—I don’t know if he even still has it—inflatable red pen, which I’m sure he doesn’t use,” said Porcaro.
“But that was it and all of the other things that we do politically, if you’re worried about that kind of stuff now, I would say don’t. I’m kind of in a different mode and in a different stage of life. But part of my job on the radio is also to get ratings. And it got ratings.”
“We did what we did. We thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I won’t send you a red pen,” he said.
Porcaro, who has been ill, said he may return to the radio for one hour a day, not three, which would give him more time for his state job on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, a post for which he is not qualified.
Porcaro returned to the radio this week and told his audience he did not have the strength to do three hours.
On his one-hour show, he attacked the Anchorage assembly over taxes and the budget and defended Mayor Dave Bronson, reading a Bronson press release. Porcaro complained about his taxes going up and agreed with his co-host that politics is about lying and money. He complained that the schools no longer teach “critical thinking.”
The Legislature doesn’t need a red pen, but there is no need to confirm Porcaro to a job that should have been eliminated years ago.
The Legislature will meet in joint session Tuesday at 11 a.m. to confirm or reject a wide range of Dunleavy appointees to boards and commissions.
In 2019, Dunleavy pretended that the red pen campaign was a grassroots movement, not a stunt from one of his supporters.
Dunleavy took the flood of red pens from Porcaro’s audience and the readers of his online website as evidence of public support. He was mistaken,
Dunleavy abandoned most of his budget cuts because of intense public opposition, which led to the recall campaign.
Porcaro’s Anchorage talk show has been on hold since he was hospitalized with sepsis in March. He said he doesn’t expect to return to a three-hour show, in addition to his full-time state job.
“And I’m thinking about maybe just doing an hour at five o’clock and that’s pretty much I think all that I can do and my time, I guess, would be devoted to working for CFEC, as opposed to working for radio,” he said.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.
Write me at dermotmcole@gmail.com