Paul Bauer: My response to Randy Ruedrich’s commentary about me

By PAUL BAUER

May 1, 2026 – Randy Ruedrich’s April 29 commentary is not an honest assessment of my record. It is a selective political attack from the old Alaska Republican Party establishment, which is the same personality-driven structure that helped bring us to where we are today: Anchorage is weakened, the Legislature is borderline Democrat, and Alaska is drifting from red to purple and potentially blue.

Ruedrich wants delegates to look only at losses, not at service. He wants them to look only at numbers, not at the political environment. He wants them to ignore the very reason I am running for Vice Chair: because the Alaska Republican Party must become operational, accountable, aggressive, and serious again.

Randy Ruedrich: Don’t vote for Paul Bauer for Republican Party vice chair. Here’s why.

Ruedrich did not tell you that I was the last conservative Assembly member from East Anchorage. I served on the Anchorage Assembly from 2005 to 2008, during one of the most difficult political periods for conservatives in Anchorage. At that time, Republicans had enough strength on the Assembly to challenge the direction of Mayor Mark Begich’s spending, but too many failed to use that strength. The previous Mayor George Wuerch budget was approximately $287 million. Under Begich, the budget climbed dramatically, reaching roughly $435 million in four years. Anchorage never fully recovered from that kind of government expansion.

Ruedrich did not tell you that I, along with then-former Mayor Dan Sullivan, stood against those school and MOA budgets when it mattered. Democrats went relentlessly after me because I was not there to be quiet, comfortable, or managed. I was there to fight for taxpayers and conservative principles in East Anchorage.

That is the history Ruedrich leaves out.

Ruedrich also fails to explain the political history between us. I opposed him as Party Chair because I believed the party needed a different direction even then. In the 2004-2005 period, while I was campaigning for the East Anchorage Assembly District 5 seat, I was encouraged by Ruedrich and Pastor Jerry Prevo to step aside from my District Chair position and focus on my campaign. I did so. I won. But there was also a major district-money issue. My district, which at that time included Scenic Foothills before redistricting, had more than $30,000 in the district account, with our own APOC reporting. In my view, that money should have been used for district-level voter work and GOTV.

Instead, it was pushed toward three East Anchorage state candidates and spent in a way I believe was ineffective – including premium office space that looked good but did not produce wins. All three candidates lost, and the money was gone. That is not operational leadership. That is old-establishment politics.

Ruedrich also forgot to mention his support network around Lisa Murkowski when conservative Republican Joe Miller won the primary. I worked as Joe Miller’s primary campaign manager, and we won that race. Afterward, Murkowski allies and media advocates conducted a smear campaign against me as campaign manager, much like Ruedrich is doing now. Murkowski then ran as a write-in independent. The rest is political history.

He also fails to mention the Dan Coffey mayoral race and the reasons I opposed Coffey taking higher office. Coffey was a Vietnam Draft Dodger. In my view, Coffey represented the same moderate, establishment lane that had already weakened the Republican brand. I used my military and investigative background to examine his public record and challenge his candidacy. As a retired U.S. Army NCO, a field intelligence collector and veteran, I took that race seriously becauseAnchorage has one of the largest veteran populations in America. No Draft Dodger was going to lead this city. I was not playing personality politics. I was making a political and character judgment.

Ruedrich tries to frame my electoral history as failure. That is selective memory – or, as I called it before, a serious case of political brain fog. He leaves out that I have stepped aside in contested races when I believed it served the broader Republican interest. I dropped out after a call from Mayor Dan Sullivan to help Adam Trombley. I later stepped aside to allow Cody Anderson to take the East Anchorage race against New York thug Martinez. I have never been afraid to fight, but I also know when to move for the larger mission.

After the 2020 redistricting, East Anchorage became even more difficult territory. The Democrats consolidated strength through areas dominated by Democrats and liberal-leaning voters, including the University-Medical area. Dunbar, Wielechowski, and Andrew Gray represent the type of political environment Republicans I now face in that part of Anchorage. Ruedrich writes as though East Anchorage is still the same battlefield it was twenty years ago. It is not. That is precisely why the party needs new operational discipline, not old commentary from the sidelines.

Ruedrich’s claim that I should have worked jointly with Jordan Harary is also misleading. Harary was not a long-standing Republican candidate in the district. In was a former Democrat who changed registration at election time to run as a Republican, with political relationships that raised serious questions. His wife was connected to Democrat media operations, and they were active in the Campbell Park Community Council. He did not drop out. He remained in the race and received the lowest vote count. Make the comparison.

Calling that a Republican team effort ignores the facts on the ground. I was not going to legitimize what I believed was a false-flag Republican candidacy just because the establishment wanted a cleaner story.

Ruedrich attacks me for District 20 having only one delegate going to Soldotna. Here is the truth: I tried hard to recruit delegates, and I can prove it. The cost of attending the convention – travel, lodging, registration, food, and time away – can approach $1,000 for two days. Add voter fatigue, frustration with the current Republican Party, and lack of confidence in the organization, and you have the real reason many grassroots Republicans do not attend. I suggested a tiered pricing system to help younger and newer participants attend. That idea was not adopted.

So yes, I may be going to Soldotna with one delegate. But I am going with the truth, with my record, and with the willingness to say what others avoid. Ruedrich mocks that as going with a musket instead of a loaded six-shooter. I see it differently: I would rather go with one honest round than a full chamber of establishment blanks.

Ruedrich’s attack on District 20 turnout also ignores the larger municipal problem. If Republican voter turnout is weak in East Anchorage, that is not merely a Paul Bauer problem. That is an Alaska Republican Party problem. It is a data problem, a voter-roll problem, a volunteer problem, a field-operations problem, and a confidence problem. That is exactly what I have been saying. The party cannot keep losing and then blame the people demanding reform.

That is why I am running for Vice Chair.

I am running because I am fed up with the good-ol’-boy structure that has allowed Democrats to gain ground year after year. I am running because the Vice Chair should not be a decorative title. It should be an operational office with duties, reports, accountability, and measurable performance. I have submitted rule changes and reform proposals to move the Vice Chair position from symbolic to functional. I have pushed for district input, stronger reporting, better organization, convention transparency, and a party that works like a serious political operation.My background speaks for itself: retired U.S. Army airborne combat arms and field intelligence experience; decades of operational security leadership; former Anchorage Assembly member; professional investigator; District Chair; political advocate; and a Republican who has stayed in the fight for more than twenty-five years. I do not quit because the terrain is hard. I do not quit because the establishment throws trash. I do not quit because someone from the past wants to protect the old structure.

Ruedrich’s commentary is not just an attack on me. It is an example of the exact problem inside the Alaska Republican Party: personal attacks substituted for operational analysis, selective memory substituted for truth, and establishment preservation substituted for reform.

Action is needed now, not later. We need a Republican Party with intestinal fortitude. We need active leadership. We need candidates, district chairs, SCC members, and delegates who understand that politics is not a social club. It is an organized fight for Alaska’s future.

We cannot be a personality-driven party any longer. We must become an operational-driven party. At this convention, the SCC and delegates will decide whether the Alaska Republican Party continues down the same road of decline or finally begins the hard work of rebuilding. Randy Ruedrich can defend the past. I am running to build the future.

Paul is running to HELP for change in the Party as the new Vice Chair. He has a long history in the city, elected local official with several years of training, instructing, helping our at-risk youth, ROTC college students and transitioning servicemembers and their families into the civilian workforce.