Dan Sullivan gives Mary Peltola a free viral moment; six seconds that will haunt his campaign

The moral of the story for Sen. Dan Sullivan is to pay attention. Choose respect even.

Sullivan wasn’t paying attention. He had his head down shuffling papers and he didn’t listen to the question at the Kodiak debate.

Flummoxed, he had to be told to answer the question he hadn’t heard. He didn’t know how to answer so he looked for guidance from Mary Peltola before he gave his reply. He saw that she had held up the "no” sign and he copied her homework.

If Sullivan claims he knew the question he was answering, which he will, then why was he on a five-second delay that only ended when he received a wake-up call from one of the moderators?

He needed a lifeline. The smart thing would have been for Sullivan to say he didn’t hear the question and to ask that it be repeated. He could have escaped without admitting he was not paying attention.

This flub has provided a real viral moment for Peltola’s campaign, an unexpected and revealing gift from Sullivan. It’s not exactly similar, but it reminded me of events in 2014 when Sullivan couldn’t name the state bird and thought the Salty Dawg was in Juneau.

The six-second interaction has generated national news coverage and is likely to become a staple of the Peltola campaign or an ad by a group backing Peltola.

The question that he didn’t hear was about whether fisheries regulators pay enough attention to impacts on subsistence users, salmon migration, habitat and indigenous ways of life.

Peltola’s response, “Happy to help, Dan.”

The full debate is below.

What struck me the most was what was said by Peltola and not said by Sullivan about the current war with Iran and how Trump’s war has pumped up the average gasoline price in urban Alaska to more than $5 a gallon. Diesel is pushing $6.50. More on this later.

Sullivan is trying to hide on this issue. among others, including who won the 2020 presidential election.

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