Great question, now where is that rubber stamp?

Frontiersman editorial board

Sometime this week we will know who will occupy the Senate seat recently vacated by Sen. Scott Ogan. A list of three names -- Charlie Huggins, Larry DeVilbiss and Rex Shattuck -- has been forwarded to Gov. Frank Murkowski, and he has until Sept. 25 to select Ogan's replacement. The list was compiled by 39 people representing the Republican Party for Senate District H. The governor is not required to select someone from the list, but it's likely he will. Huggins was the leading vote getter in what has been characterized as a tight race.

The committee of 39 chose to ask candidates only one question. Committee members wanted to know candidates' positions on supporting a full slate of Republicans in the coming general election. If it had been sandwiched between several other, pertinent questions, it might not have seemed like such a strange thing, but it was the only question asked.

We're left to wonder what critical decision-making information the committee hoped to gather from the answers. What candidate with any ambition to claim the seat would claim anything but undying support for any and all Republican candidates, regardless of qualification, criminal history or level of sanity? "Of course, I support a full slate of Republicans. By golly, if Fran Ulmer would have run as a Republican, I'd have supported her, too! If Tony Knowles would say he was Republican, this whole thing would be a lot easier in November."

These were Republican candidates selected by a Republican committee. Surely they could have come up with a few questions that would have at least given the impression that something other than party politics was at stake here.

This seat was vacated by a man who was almost the first Alaska senator to be recalled. The committee might have taken that as a sign that there is some dissatisfaction among voters in that district. This was an opportunity to reach out to those voters and begin the healing process.

Why not ask the candidates what they believe is the most pressing issue in the district? Why not ask where they stand on the contentious coal-bed methane issue? Why not ask if they'd thought out their priorities, and if they'd researched to see how those lined up with constituent priorities? They could have asked anything, and it would have seemed like this was a serious process. The voters will have an appointed legislator for two years, and it appears that they were little more than an afterthought in the process. What else is new?