Watching some of the political football being played in Alaska is prompting a profound sense of déjà vu.
With Wyoming and Alaska being the lowest-populated states in the union, both also are predominantly Republican and have lightning-rod members of Congress who bring national importance to states that otherwise normally wouldn’t register on the political Richter scale.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney has been in the crosshairs of the far-right GOP and former President Donald Trump for her continued mission to hold Trump accountable for his influence in promoting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Lisa Murkowski, the U.S. senator from Alaska and former lone House member for The Last Frontier, also has raised some hackles for publicly holding Trump’s feet to the fire. She was one of just seven senators to vote to convict the former president after his second impeachment.
Alaska’s longtime lone U.S. House member, Rep. Don Young, recently died, ending an at-times-controversial legacy of service to the 49th state. I interviewed Young a handful of times, and clearly remember the first. He was quick to anger over some tough questions and had to be calmed by his wife to not walk out in a huff.
It’s fascinating to see the parallels between Alaska and Wyoming politics and the turmoil roiling through both states.
Before moving to the Cowboy State, I spent more than seven years as managing editor for a newspaper in the 49th state. That sleepy, small-town, home-grown newspaper was the Mat-Su Frontiersman in Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin’s hometown. I was there in 2008 to report on and experience what can only be described as the most wild, unpredictable and memorable political season I’ve covered in 30 years newspapering.
Now Palin, apparently tired of chasing the national media spotlight and watching her family crash and burn on reality television, wants to take Young’s place as Alaska’s next congresswoman.
It’s a good thing U.S. House seats are only two-year terms, because that’s apparently the limit of her working for the people before more selfish interests intervene. After she and McCain lost the election, she quit as Alaska’s governor mid-term to chase a national broadcasting contract with FOX News.
The day it all changedOutside the petty bickering of local politicians and a few stories that left readers muttering “only in Alaska” (like the time an off-duty Marine survived for a week lost on a glacier by killing and eating a porcupine with his bare hands), it was business as usual.
Then one morning in late August 2008, very early because Alaska is four hours behind Eastern time, I got the call. It came a whole three hours after putting that day’s paper to bed.
“You better get to the office,” the publisher said.
“Wait, what?” I groggily answered.
“Palin’s been picked as (Sen. John) McCain’s running mate,” she said. “We’ve got to go in.”
And that’s what started more than two months of what became some bizarre and surreal community journalism.
While I’ve covered stories that would turn some stomachs and cause disbelieving headshaking (like the insane woman who killed and ate her boyfriend or the woman who stabbed her sister to death at their father’s wake), Palin’s run as McCain’s running mate still tops the list.
As the hometown newspaper of suddenly the most famous and polarizing name in the country, who was then a total unknown outside Alaska, Wasilla became the center of the political universe for a time.
I’m sorry to say that some of the tabloid behavior most “respectable” journalists frown upon was all in play for reporters from some of the nation’s largest and most respected institutions. They would rip pages out of our archived editions and more than one was caught rooting through the Palin family trash.
The sideshowWhile Cheney and Murkowski are both squarely in the spotlight, it was a different animal for Palin. Who knows how much of the sideshow will follow through her run for the House.
In the weeks after Palin’s selection, the hyper-personal vetting of everything around her revealed her husband, Todd Palin, would insert himself into state issues and the day-to-day workings of government. He’d attend official meetings, was copied on emails detailing state business and liked acting the big man on campus because he was the governor’s husband.
While Todd Palin referred to himself as the state’s “First Dude,” I dubbed him Alaska’s Yoko Ono.
Who’s her running mate?With all the intense scrutiny of Palin, it got lost in the shuffle to a degree that she was McCain’s running mate, not the other way around.
If the entire Palin for VP circus has taught us anything it’s that politics can be amazingly entertaining.
And for the record: No, I could NOT see Russia from my house in Wasilla.
A parting shotJust a random-yet-related observation: Anyone else look at Lauren Boebert, the controversial conspiracy-embracing Colorado Republican, and see Palin 2.0?
