Kohring’s fall hits home

From the beginning of a federal investigation into corruption in the state Legislature, Vic Kohring has proclaimed he is a small fish caught in a wide-sweeping net trolling for sharks. Now that a jury has found him guilty on three counts of corruption perhaps Kohring has finally learned that it doesn’t matter if he is a small fish in a large pond of bribery, extortion and conspiracy.

What does matter is that he was in the pond in the first place.

Here in the Mat-Su Valley, we trusted Kohring. We trusted him so much we elected him seven consecutive times to the state House of Representatives. That he would be caught up in this ongoing scandal of vote-selling and bribery is a black eye for the Valley. In the end, he was either too naive to recognize profiting from his friendship with former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen would not go unnoticed, or so consumed by his personal financial problems that he allowed undue influence of his elected office. Either way, somewhere along the road Kohring took a wrong turn.

We don’t believe Kohring extorted or demanded oil money in a deliberate attempt to get rich or to satisfy his greed. However altruistic or innocent-seeming the cause, as an elected official you simply cannot act as Kohring did. Innocent people do not meet clandestinely with oil company executives in a hotel room and ask for $17,000. Innocent people do not have telephone conversations with those same executives about how to manipulate legislation.

Although it had no bearing on the jury and its deliberations, we were surprised when Kohring elected not to testify in his own defense. Of course, this is his right; however, following months of hearing the former Wasilla lawmaker proclaim his innocence loudly from every mountaintop he could find before his trial, he didn’t when the time came to do the same for his jury.

What’s most difficult about the Republican’s fall from grace is Kohring is a likable guy; a person one believes can be trusted. This is also what makes his conviction harder to swallow. We did trust him. We wanted to. He promised us he would prove his innocence at trial and he didn’t. On the contrary, federal prosecutors proved he did take money from Allen and Smith, and VECO expected something in return.

A small fish, perhaps. But a fish nonetheless.

Kohring’s fall from grace takes away our innocence. His campaign signs proclaimed Kohring as a honest, hard-working conservative. Somewhere along the way, he let us down on the most important of those promises.