Alaska Democratic Party headquarters vandalized

The headquarters of the Alaska Democratic Party were vandalized this weekend, an act the party's leader thinks is due in part to violent feelings being stoked by Alaska's former governor.

"There has become this inflammatory rhetoric, and Sarah Palin is leading the charge," Patti Higgins, state chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, said. "In the beginning I didn't think she knew what she was doing, but now I think she does."

Sometime Saturday or early Sunday morning someone hit the front window of the party's Midtown headquarters, breaking the outer pane and damaging the metal trim. The window's inner pane was unbroken. An Anchorage Police Department spokesperson said police received a call from the party on Sunday just before noon.

Democratic Party headquarters had been receiving "threatening and menacing phone calls" during the week prior, according to statewide party organizer Dave Metheny, who handled most of the angry calls. Over the past week, Metheny said, he's fielded about a call a day from various screaming, swearing callers, along with calls from Alaskans who are angry with the party but express it more calmly and rationally. The focus of the anger is, unsurprisingly, the health care reform bill that passed Congress last weekend. When health care reform passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich voted in favor of the bill.

None of the nearby buildings were vandalized. Metheny said the police officer who responded to the scene called the vandalism a "smash and run," adding that it was probably not a random act.

"It was a message," Higgins said. "Random acts of violence are a form of domestic terrorism and they need to knock it off."

Palin, the former governor of Alaska who last year resigned partway through her first term, has been criticized recently for using gun-related rhetoric to encourage her Twitter and Facebook followers.

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.