Candidate says it's time

WASILLA -- There's a new politician in town, and he's looking to win his first battle.

Steve Menard is playing what some would call the role of the underdog in the three-way race for the Mat-Su Borough seat. The son of longtime Valley politician Curt Menard Sr., with considerable history in the field himself, Menard's red and blue signs have cropped up across the Valley in the last few weeks. Although he's a Republican running in a campaign in which the party has already pledged its support to former Wasilla police chief Charlie Fannon, Menard said he's working to do more than win the race.

"I just feel it's time -- I'm actually an aspiring politician. It's hard to get started in the political field, as far as getting your name out there," Menard said. Beyond getting his name out, he said he'd like to encourage greater voter turnout. "Especially in my demographic, the 30- to 40-year-old range, there's a real low turnout."

Menard said he's been involved in politics since he was 18 -- and before. His dad was involved in the Alaska Legislature for many years, he said. But he got his start in the public service field while serving as the student body president at his alma mater, Wasilla High School -- where, coincidentally, his name lives on as the author of the Wasilla Warriors fight song. In college, Menard got involved in a local college Republican Party group, then returned to the area to work for then-Representative Scott Ogan and later as an intern for Ted Stevens.

Menard is running a low-budget, high-energy election, borrowing a few of his father's campaign ideas to help him get people talking. The signs have the lightning bolt found on his father's signs and simply state his last name -- no political office, no character qualities, no plea for votes. It gets people asking, he said, which Menard is running, and for what seat, and in a race in which his party has already pledged support to another candidate, he said, word-of-mouth information is vital. But Menard said he's banking on the family name in other ways, too.

"I feel that I bring a lot of history of the growth in the Valley," Menard said. "A vote for me is a vote for my family."

In politics, he said, it's not what you know, it's who. And he believes Valley voters can trust they'll be able to reach him about problems and get results.

"If you need something and you have an issue, I'll be there," Menard said.