GOP old guard should heed message message

August 25, 2006

ON THE MARK/Mark Kelsey

Wednesday morning dawned bright and sunny, a deep blue sky making the previous few week's worth of rain seem a distant memory. It was almost as if Alaskans in Southcentral awoke to a whole new day.

Given the results of Tuesday's primary election, the symbolism was hard to ignore. A fresh sprinkling of termination dust on the mountains only served to further underscore that

symbolism.

With the overwhelming mandate given by voters to Republican candidate for governor Sarah Palin, Wednesday morning did, indeed, mark the beginning of a new day in Alaska politics. Voters tired of &#8220business as usual” used democracy's most powerful tool - the ballot box - to raise their voices in a chorus of assent to the fresh reshaping of this state's political landscape offered up by the former Wasilla mayor.

In saying yes to Palin, the candidate who made ethics a centerpiece of her always-positive campaign, voters also said an emphatic no to several other things. First and foremost, they said no to old guard Republicans, like corrupt state party chair Randy Ruedrich and his henchmen at the local levels.

They said no, clearly, to Ruedrich's anointed candidate, John Binkley, and his unauthorized and shockingly deceptive use of a nearly 10-year-old editorial from this newspaper in an 11th-hour act of political desperation designed to malign Palin.

Voters also said no to folks like local District 15 Republican chair Roy Burkhart, a member of the Ruedrich posse and supporter of Binkley, who gathered up a mountain of documents from three separate public records requests to the city of Wasilla from Palin's days as mayor. These preceded similar requests by others that culminated in the first volley in the effort to smear Palin.

On a related note, voters said no, too, to blowhards and character assassins like Paul Jenkins and his fellow propagandists at the Voice of the Times, whose efforts to spin those documents into a full-scale scandal were properly dismissed.

Voters also said no to talk-radio callers and the cowardly anonymous part they played in perpetuating the mudslinging.

Such public disdain for the Republican old guard was evident, too, beyond the race for the gubernatorial nomination. Voters in Eagle River said no to incumbent Rep. Pete Kott, a seven-term legislator. And voters in Anchorage sent six-term Rep. Norm Rokeberg, the poster boy for legislative term limits, back to the private

sector.

Rokeberg was wildly unsuccessful in his bid to outpoll fellow Rep. Lesil McGuire for the Senate seat held by the controversial Ben Stevens, whose early withdrawal from the race prevented voters from saying no to him, too. The race was marred by Rokeberg's own use of dubious campaign tactics that the voters of his district were savvy enough to see through.

Blinded by arrogance and intoxicated by the authority that came with his longevity in the Legislature and chairmanship of the powerful House Rules Committee, Rokeberg attempted to paint himself as the only true &#8220citizen legislator” in the race. This from the guy who entrenched in the legislative process such citizen-friendly practices as the closed-door

caucus.

Rokeberg's further thumbing of his nose at the people's will was evident when he led the charge in the late 1990s to do away with the term-limits pledge, and more recently in his open advocacy of circumventing the FRANK Initiative, a measure approved in 1994 by nearly 80 percent of Alaskans that ensures full public disclosure of all costs involved in any proposed capital move.

On a different note, in saying yes to both questions on Tuesday's ballot, voters twice were able to say no to the big money that has polluted the political process here in Alaska. Ballot Measure 1, which places greater limits on campaign contributions and tighter restrictions on lobbyists, is far from the final solution to a long-festering problem. But it is a much-needed step in the right direction.

Voters should pay close attention. An equally overwhelming mandate for campaign finance reform in 1996 did not prevent legislators, whose political lifeblood is campaign contributions, from overturning it seven years later.

A yes vote on Ballot Measure 2, which institutes a head tax on cruise ship passengers, also said no to cynics, including me, who thought industry's megabucks advertising campaign would buy it the outcome it wanted. Voters, happily, were able

to see through the glitz and deception.

The doom-and-gloomers in the travel and hospitality industries who preached imminent economic catastrophe at the passage of this initiative likely will continue to prosper in this state's tourism sector.

Despite losing out on this one, the cruise industry - which has gotten a largely free ride cruising Alaska waters and reaps huge profits in return - can take heart in this new day of Alaska politics. In the unlikely event that the tax genuinely affects industry's bottom line, those pesky limits on lobbying and campaign contributions mean fewer industry dollars will have to be spent trying to buy legislators.

Mark Kelsey is the Frontiersman's managing editor. Contact him at 352-2268 or mark .kelsey@frontiersman.com.