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Sat 1 Jul 2006 9:43
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
[Alaska]
[Get Offa My Lawn!]
[SARAH!]
[Yippee-Ki-Yay!]
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Having former lite-gubnor Jack Coghill endorse John Binkley was bad enough.
The state of Alaska’s second governor, Walter J. Hickel, is backing Republican candidate Sarah Palin in the race to become the state’s ninth governor.
“She’s a very straightforward woman, talks very plainly, and she understands the problems of Alaska,“ he said Friday from Anchorage. “And she’s never going to sell Alaska out.“
The Palin campaign made the endorsement public in a news release Thursday.
Hickel said he had decided to back Palin a few days before. Gov. Frank Murkowski needs replacing, he said Friday. Binkley is good, but “Palin doesn’t care who’s in the room,“ he said. “She says what she thinks.“
Hickel credited Palin for her service as Wasilla mayor and argued the state needed a “manager” or “executive” rather than a politician to effectively manage and develop the state’s publicly owned natural resources.» Bee: Hickel backs Palin
Some Alaska gubernatorial history:
In 1990, voters in the Republican gubernatorial primary nominated Arliss Sturgulewski, a liberal, to run against then-Anchorage mayor Tony Knowles for governor. This was during a time when Alaska had a truly open primary ballot and anyone could vote, cafeteria-style, in any party’s primary at any point on the ballot. Knowles was such a strong candidate for the Democratic nomination that many non-Republicans voted in the Republican primary for governor. This outcome was revolting to many Alaska Republicans. As a result, a deal allowed Republican former Gov. Walter J. Hickel (if his name sounds familiar, re-read the first graf of that excerpt up yonder) to run on the November ballot as the nominee of the Alaskan Independence Party—with a guy named Jack Coghill as his running mate.
In the November balloting, Knowles came in second. Sturgulewski came in third. The Hickel-Coghill ticket was elected. And the Republicans adopted a Republicans-only primary ballot, contrary to state law—but as a federal court ruling held years later, the state law imposed an unconstitutional burden on a party that wanted to protect its nominating process from hostile interference, so the two-ballot system persists to this day.
In 1994, voters participating in the Republican nominating process chose Jim Campbell, a moderate, to once again face Tony Knowles. This time the AIP nominee was Jack Coghill. Many conservatives (myself included) refused to back Campbell, who came in second to Knowles.
In 1998, John Lindauer secured the Republican nomination for governor, only to be exposed afterward as having lied in financial disclosures. The party revoked Lindauer’s nomination, but then-lite-gubnor Fran Ulmer, who was seeking re-election on then-Gov. Knowles’ ticket, refused to remove Lindauer from the ballot. A write-in ticket with state Sen. Robin Taylor (whom I had backed in the primary) managed to come in second to Knowles, with Lindauer a distant and disgraced third. I think by then Lindauer had already moved out of state.
It wasn’t until 2002, with then-U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski running for governor as a Republican, and Lt. Gov. Ulmer seeking the governorship, that Republicans actually managed to win the election.
So. Now it’s 2006. And the Alaska GOP’s old train-wreck ways are reasserting themselves. Murkowski shot holes in his own boat early on by putting his daughter in his old Senate seat—an act that, by itself, might not have been fatal. After all, Princess Lisa not only won a full term in that seat, but she did so by beating Tony Knowles, then (and, I’m thinking, still) the most popular Democrat in Alaska.
Murkowski also made a number of other unpopular moves that might not have hurt him badly—but in the end his delay in announcing for re-election has gotten him into some serious trouble. If not for his other mistakes he’d probably still be fairly secure in seeking his party’s re-nomination; had he announced months earlier his other mistakes might very well have been too little to threaten his chances.
The other day I said that John Binkley would be bantha pudu against Tony Knowles. Sarah Palin? Hickel might as well endorse Michael Palin for all the good it would do in November.
Update, 2008: My opinion of Sarah Palin has evolved over the subsequent two years. She has developed an impressive record as governor and had I known about her accomplishments before running for governor I would almost certainly have been rooting for her in 2006.
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