MY 2010 CAMPAIGN FOR U.S. SENATE
By Ted Gianoutsos
November 11, 2009

Veterans Day 2009 is an appropriate day for an Alaskan Vietnam-era vet to launch his one-year campaign for the United States Senate.

I am running to use the bully pulpit as a candidate for Senate for two reasons:

1. To change LEAST care into BEST care in terms of health, housing, education, and employment for America’s serving military, veterans, and their families.
2. To open ANWR right now with my proposed ANRA - Alaska Natural Resources Act - legislation that will also create a National Endowment for Wildlife - NEW - headquartered right here in Alaska where it belongs.

Truth be told, I don’t really want to go to Washington to replace Lisa Murkowski. I like Lisa, and my wife Francoise and I love Alaska - we far prefer to stay here!

What I want to do in my one-year campaign is to make America’s serving military, veterans, and their families aware that they hold the key to changing LEAST care into BEST care in their hands, in terms of votes and money. I also want to open ANWR and create the NEW right NOW!

First come serving military, veterans, and their families because without them America and Alaska would simply not exist in their present free state. For more than 100 years, America’s serving military, veterans, and their families have gotten LEAST care instead of the BEST care that they deserve, because its cheaper to give them LEAST care and lip service.

Both Republican and Democratic politicians talk a lot about their support of military and veterans, but they actually do the LEAST they can get away with. Both Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich are perfect examples of LEAST care politicians. Neither one actually served in the military to put their own lives on the line to protect America. They talk a lot about their support of military and veterans, but do little except token efforts.

The way to change LEAST care into BEST care is quite simple. It requires only votes and money placed into two organizations, a veterans party and a veterans foundation.

My wife Francoise and I have already done both right here in Alaska. We don’t talk about our support, we DO it and have put our money where our mouths are for both a veterans party and a veterans foundation.

We are founding members of the Veterans Party of Alaska and have put $5,000 into it. I have registered 1,000 voters in the Veterans Party, and Francoise who is not even a veteran has registered another 500. About one-half of all Alaskans are either serving military, veterans, or blood-related to them. In America the percentage is about one-third.

If only 50,000 Alaskans and 50 million Americans are registered to vote in a veterans party and they each pony-up only 100 bucks ($5 million in Alaska and $5 billion in America), that is more than enough to change the political Republican/Democratic LEAST care status quo into BEST care in a big hurry!

I am running for U.S. Senate as a nomination petition candidate to promote the Veterans Party. I already have thousands of signatures on my nomination petition.

As for money, that’s where a veterans foundation comes in. Here again, Francoise and I don’t just talk, we DO it! We are founding members of the Alaska Veterans Foundation and have put $20,000 into it. We have also established a Veterans Endowment Trust -VET - fund within the Foundation that is solely invested in U.S. Treasury securities.

We are by no means wealthy. Our yearly income from social security and Francoise’s part-time school job is under $40,000. For the 10 years that we have been Alaskans we have never used one dime of our Alaska Permanent Fund Dividends (an average of about $1,500 per year each), giving the money instead for veterans and for wildlife conservation.

The same 50,000 Alaskans and 50 million Americans putting only $1,000 each into a veteran’s foundation would yield 50 million dollars for Alaska, and 50 billion dollars for an American veterans foundation. That kind of money is more than enough to place sufficient pressure, along with the registered voters in a veterans party, to change LEAST care into BEST care.

In the end the equation is very simple. No military, and no veterans, equals no America and no Alaska. They and their families deserve nothing less than BEST care, and I am DOING - not just talking - all that I can to see that LEAST care is changed into BEST care during my one-year campaign for United States Senate.

In contrast, you have never seen Republican Senior Senator Lisa Murkowski or Democratic Junior Senator Mark Begich urge Alaskans and Americans to register to vote in a veterans party and contribute money to it or to become members of a veterans foundation and contribute money to a VET fund. You have never seen them tell serving military, veterans, and their families the obvious truth that by putting votes and money together in two organizations - one a political party and the other a non-profit foundation - they can change LEAST care into BEST.

The reason that Murkowski and Begich don’t really help serving military, veterans, and their families obtain BEST care is because they are only too happy to continue to give lip service support to those who put their lives on the line. They are only too happy to ask serving military, veterans, and their families to send them money for their campaigns to sit in the senate for the next 40 years.

I don’t want anybody’s money for my campaign. I will not accept anyone’s campaign contribution. I can spread my message through the Internet. I prefer that you instead send your money to the Alaska Veterans Party and the Alaska Veterans Foundation’s VET fund. If you want to help me spread the word about how to change LEAST care into BEST care, register to vote in the Veterans Party and become members of the Veterans Foundation. Put your money where your mouth is for both and then use the Internet to spread my message.

Now you tell me if a veterans party in Alaska with 50,000 voters and $5 million in the kitty, and a veterans party in America with 50 million voters and $5 billion in the kitty, along with a veterans foundation in Alaska with 50,000 members and $50 million in its VET fund, and a veterans foundation in America with 50 million members and $50 billion in its VET fund won’t change LEAST care into BEST care overnight? Of course it will! There is no reason that it can’t be done during my one-year senate campaign from Veterans Day 2009 until Election Day 2010. All it takes is enough people spreading the word, especially over the Internet. Please help me do that!

The second reason that I am running for Senate is that Francoise and I CAN OPEN ANWR RIGHT NOW! during my one-year campaign. Indeed, Lisa Murkowski could and should have opened ANWR 8 years ago with Francoise and me and my NEW-ANWR legislation that we personify and that we literally put into her hands. But she has failed to do that year after year.

Opening ANWR and creating the NEW is worth more than 2 trillion dollars to America, Alaska, and wildlife. ANWR’s oil and gas trillions are good for Americans, good for Alaskans, and good for wildlife and wilderness. Those trillions reduce our dependence on foreign oil and gas, bolster our economy, and reduce military deaths overseas. Yet Lisa Murkowski has failed to do what she so easily could have done during the past 8 years, and can still do right now in her last year before the election.

Lisa failed for the same reason that her father failed in the senate. They both tried to open ANWR from the low PR ground with budget legislation that voters don’t understand. Worse, they handed their ANWR opponents the PR high ground on a silver platter. The most incredibly stubborn thing they did year after year is not to use their own Alaskan constituents who personify the PR high ground on ANWR better than anyone else to help them easily open ANWR.

The plain fact is that ANWR has nothing to do with budgets. It only has to do with wildlife and oil. The wildlife is on top of the refuge and the oil is underneath it, and that is just the way it is in the PR “debate” on ANWR that has been going on for more than 20 years.

Francoise and I are in a unique position in that debate. We can open ANWR from the high PR ground with my ANRA - Alaska Natural Resources Act - legislation. It is very simple and people easily understand it. My ANRA legislation splits ANWR oil and gas revenue 3 ways. One-third goes to Alaska, one-third to the Federal Government, and one-third goes to create a multi-billion dollar NEW - National Endowment for Wildlife - invested only in U.S. Treasury securities headquartered in Alaska funding wildlife and wilderness conservation in all the states based on their proportion of wildlife and wilderness.

We have already gotten similar legislation through Congress. Indeed, we are the only couple in American history to get an entire generic wildlife Act (the national Fish and Wildlife Foundation Act of 1984) through a divided Congress (Senate in Republican hands and house in Democratic hands in 1983/84) in a few months to unanimous passage with 60 co-sponsors including 22 chairmen and the leaders of both parties and both houses of Congress. That has never been done before or since. We were able to succeed in doing that because we gave our estate to our country in 1983 and came to personify the legislation. We can do the same thing with my NEW-ANWR ANRA legislation. Documentation will be posted along with videos shortly.

More details, documentation, and videos will be posted soon on our website as well as several social networking and other websites. I will also post documentation and videos concerning Lisa’s repeated ANWR failures and lies.

As I said at the beginning of this declaration of my senate candidacy, I like Lisa. She is a lovely lady, intelligent, and has a great personality. What I don’t care for in Lisa is her recent arrogance, her lies to us, and especially her repeated failures on opening ANWR when she could have so easily succeeded with us. She still can. She has a whole year to open ANWR with us in the most beneficial way for America, for Alaska, and for wildlife.

I far prefer the lovely Lisa to the lying Lisa. I far prefer to see Lisa change her failing ANWR strategy, pull out all the stops in supporting my ANRA legislation, and succeed in creating the lasting legacy of the responsible development of ANWR’s natural oil and gas resources - the National Endowment for Wildlife headquartered here in Alaska.

Finally, I far prefer to open ANWR from the high ground with the NEW with Lisa and thus help Lisa get reelected. I don’t want her seat. I’d rather stay home in Alaska. Now is the perfect time to open ANWR with NEW from the high ground. The ANWR opponents have gone to far with their global warming/climate change hype. They have unintentionally handed us ANWR proponents a golden opportunity with their green energy push. There is plenty of time for Lisa to introduce my legislation, use Francoise and me to personify ANRA, and succeed.

But, if Lisa fails yet again to do what is right on ANWR, I will reluctantly go to Washington if elected and succeed where she has repeatedly failed.