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#28 Alaska’s At Large District Mary Peltola vs. Nick Begich vs. Sarah Palin
- 2022/11/02
- 再生時間： 19 分
- ポッドキャスト
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サマリー
あらすじ・解説
Compared to all the other districts we have reviewed Alaska almost seems like another planet both in the issues on the ground and its utter size, fully half the nation’s coastline is in Alaska. Listening to debates in Alaska some of the major hot buttons are mentioned but they pale compared to more local issues like fishing rights, their marine highway system, housing, childcare and the need for bridges to make towns more accessible. This seat had been held for nearly 50 years until this march by Don Young a republican, who was until his death the most senior member of the US House. Young was a tireless advocate for his state bringing home federal dollars and pushing for economic development back home, often clashing with the more environmental types who he called a “self centered bunch, the waffle stomping , Harvard graduating, intellectual idiots.” Young was replaced in a shocking upset by a democrat whose win was assisted in winning the Trump + 10.5 % state by the novel system of voting called ranked choice voting, which so far in congressional races seems to uniformly benefit democrats. In the system you rank your candidates by order of preference and in the event that one first ranked candidate is less than 50% they reallocate the second choices of those whose first choice was eliminated to the remaining candidates until one candidate has more than 50%. Voters only vote once, but the process still takes more time as one needs to certify the original results before moving onto tabulating the second choices. In the special election for the Don Young seat earlier this year, the GOP vote was split between Sarah Palin (31%) and Nick Begich (28%) with Begich coming in third, so his votes were then allocated between Palin and Peltola (39%) depending on the individual voter’s preference on their ballot, this pushed the democrat Peltola to 51% once that was tabulated beating Palin’s 48.5%. Maine’s system of Ranked Choice voting also benefits democrats in a heavily GOP district. Expect democrats to push for this as “election reform” in the coming years. While the special election featured Peltola, Palin and Begich so too does the general election. Sarah Palin hardly needs any introduction she started her political odyssey going to PTA meetings for her kids, got further involved and got elected to the city council in Wasilla, Alaska in 1992. She became Mayor in 1996. She lost a bid for lieutenant governor, then was appointed to the Alaska oil and gas conservation committee, finally in 2006 she was elected governor of the state becoming the youngest in its history at age 42. In 2008 she was tapped by John McCain to become the Vice Presidential Nominee catapulting her to national status, remaining a television personality ever since. Like Trump who she has been an ardent supporter of Palin is somewhat of a lightening rod, people tend to either love her or hate her. Also like Trump she has often been treated unfairly by a press seeking to belittle her turning her into the butt of jokes in matters where she was in fact correct… you actually can see Russia from one of Alaska’s islands. Unfortunately this lightening rod quality is precisely her disadvantage in the ranked choice voting system recently adopted in Alaska, which favors more colorless candidates over the more bombastic (see Golden v Poliquin in Maine’s 2nd District). Palin’s politics are conservative on nearly all issues. But one is surprised how unlike her characterization by the media she actually appears in debates and appearances there, she has a depth on issues one would expect from someone who has served as governor while still retaining a down to earth manner of explaining issues. She doesn’t use 10 dollar words when a two cent word will do. And she showed discipline and restraint against Begich in a debate when she was being attacked by him. A classic political rule of debates is to not lose your cool or you seem unhinged and out of control. Nick Begich III is the other republican candidate in this race, as his name suggests he comes from a prominent Alaska family, which is kind of a theme in Alaska politics (Lisa Murkowski is the daughter of a governor of the state and former US Senator Frank Murkowski). Begich’s grandfather was a democrat US Congressman who vanished on a flight in Alaska in 1970, his uncle Mark Begich was the democrat US Senator for the state from 2009-2015 and he has another uncle who is currently a state senator. Begich however goes out of his way to stress that he was raised as a republican and his been one his whole life despite the family history. Begich does a good job tailoring his message to his audience and got one of the only applause lines of a debate when questioned about housing saying they needed to build a bridge to in the area to solve the problem. Begich at times sounds too professorial in tone and Palin does a better job than him reducing issues to the personal level. He truly ...