News-Miner Editorial
Historic convergence
Tuesday's primary shows the power of the voter
Published Thursday, August 28, 2008
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Stumble It!Tuesday’s primary election was held precisely 50 years after the day on which voters approved statehood for Alaska.
On Aug. 26, 1958, Alaskans accepted what Congress had offered earlier that summer: ownership of 103 million acres and authority to establish the laws governing all 365 million acres.
The vote back in 1958 drew a record number of Alaskans. They turned out because they recognized the importance of what was happening and wanted to be a part of it. The extremely close results of Tuesday’s Republican congressional primary election illustrated that every Alaskan of voting age can still be a part of shaping this state’s future direction.
We’re still working to get Alaska’s land, we’re still arguing about those laws and we’re constantly pondering who to elect to oversee it all. The election night margin between Rep. Don Young and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell — just 145 votes — shows just how influential a handful of Alaskans can be in these decisions.
Young and Parnell offered Alaskans differences in style, substance and experience.
Young, the 35-year incumbent, is a fighter both for Alaska’s prerogatives and for its share of the federal pie, with a quick, blunt lip that would never apologize for steering federal money where he believes it should go.
Parnell, a former Anchorage state senator, is a soft-spoken attorney who focuses on the need to stop deficit spending and criticizes Young’s willingness to fling about the federal dollar, particularly through earmarks made in a process that is sometimes closed to constituent input until after the fact.
Those Alaskans who selected the Republican ballot on Tuesday were almost exactly split between the clearly different approaches offered by these candidates. Our representation in Washington, D.C., which still governs so much of Alaska 50 years after statehood, potentially hung on a difference of fewer than 200 votes as of Wednesday afternoon.
That’s something each of us should keep in mind for the general election in November as we send Alaska into its next 50 years.
Community Discussion
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A car crash is a historic convergence, too.
50 years to become what is probably the State with the most corrupt group of State Legislators and other officials in the history of the United States. Only a matter of time before the next indictments are server. What happen to the dream of the people back then.
The Republicans showed that at least fifty per cent of them believed that unethical behavior will be tolerated. What is the difference between those who tolerate it and those who do it. It has come down to bringing home the bacon, rather than standing on your own two feet and making it on your own. The Alaskan dream of bringing out the best in people has become a nightmare of voting in the worst of people.
if you are a member of the libertarian, alaskan independance or democratic party you don't get a choice which ballot you get. many of us in alaska didn't get a chance to vote in the parnell and young race. and no, i'm not going to switch parties just because of this silly rule.
free darfur why do you think alaska is the most corrupt state? i actually find that as a personal insult. we're just the only state catching them and prosecuting them. alaska isn't any worse than any other state. i urge you to take a look at louisiana, to start with. you and your ilk have just used these corruption cases as an excuse to pound the liberal drum. you might as well stop. it isn't going to work.
Free, seriously. Read up on Louisiana. In comparison they are pros & we are still in the minor leagues, though we are working to catch up rapidly it seems.
Less than 700,00 population. A legislative body that is smaller than most State's various city councils. The legislative indictments are not even finished. A US Senator and the sole representative , one indicted and the other being investigated. Compare the ratios. It wasn't the State that caught them, it was the Federal government (FBI) that got our State legislators.
It was a primary election, polar bear do you understand what that means, it was not an open election. Your feeling of a personal insult should be directed at the people who have taken a oath and then turned around and abused every citizen in this State. Liberal. libertarian, Republician, etc. those found guilty betraied everyone no matter what their political leanings. Place blame where blame is due.
The editorial staff at the Newsminer never cease to amaze me with their vision of Alaska and Fairbanks. Do you bring in outsiders or is it just filled with people that got here last week?? The ONLY reason that the statehood vote was passed was that the military was allowed to vote and voted for statehood exclusively. They were the largest block of population here at that time. Had they NOT been allowed to vote, statehood would have lost, and soundly at that. It was a mistake then, and still a mistake today, but with no Joe Vogler around anymore, it probably will never be brought up again.
I don't think the military was behind the drive to draft a state constitution or set up a lobbying office in Washington, YJ.
No, Preston, they were not, but they voted "lock step" for statehood. The only military that should have been allowed to vote in this matter were the troops FROM Alaska. I am ex military and have been an Alaskan resident for almost 30 yrs.
Would you really want to be under the control of the Federal Government as a Territory today? Could have, would have, should have. We will never know how that would have turned out today.
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