The Koch brothers and conservative PAC's are spending millions to defeat Mark Begich in Alaska. So here come the labor unions to the rescue.

AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami with Rachel Maddow

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Republicans' most likely path to retaking the Senate in November requires GOPers to pick up seats in six key states: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Of the six, Alaska—where Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is facing off against former Republican Attorney General Dan Sullivan—may be the closest race. That's why right-wing groups backed by the likes of the Koch brothers and Karl Rove are dumping millions into the state—and why Alaska unions are pulling out all the stops this year to make sure Begich, a fierce supporter of labor, carries the day. 

"This is literally the most active we've ever been in an election cycle," says Vince Beltrami, the president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, which represents nearly all unions in the state. 

Union members have been working the phones, pushing out mailings, and canvassing on behalf of Begich. Volunteers have even taken the unusual step of door-knocking in areas far outside of Alaska's urban centers, says Jerry McBeath, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Because of the unprecedented level of campaign action this year, Beltrami says, the AFL-CIO had to rent out an extra 7,000-square-foot warehouse.

The giant push by labor this year comes not only because the race is one of the most competitive in the country and could decide which party controls the Senate. The wave of union action is also a backlash against the onslaught of money pouring into the state in support of Sullivan from the billionaire Koch brothers' dark-money group Americans for Prosperity and GOP operative Karl Rove's super-PAC, American Crossroads. The groups—which support the rollback of collective bargaining rights and back right-to-work laws, which prevent unions from compelling employees to join or pay dues to a union—are dumping money into the Alaska Senate race for the first time ever. 

"They're up here on the airwaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trying to tie Mark to Obama," Beltrami says. "They say things 50 times a day on the airwaves that aren't true. You gotta push back."

Don't forget these are ALASKAN union members fighting against forces outside of our state throwing truckloads of money at this election in order to elect an outsider who will jump through any flaming hoop they hold up for him.

We are fighting for our very lives up here, and this is absolutely a David and Goliath story of a local Anchorage man facing off against giants of industry willing to bury him under a mountain of campaign spending.

I know Vince though, and if this thing can be turned around with good hard work and a never say die attitude then he and his union brothers and sisters are certainly the ones to make that happen.