Neuman ready to reconvene

WASILLA — Mark Neuman said he didn’t campaign much in his race to retain his state House of Representatives seat, but then he didn’t really need to.

As of press time on election night, all districts reporting in his district, Neuman had 5,844 votes. His challenger Lew Dischner had 1,631, giving Neuman a commanding lead for the District 15 seat.

“I make it a habit — it’s not a habit, it’s a policy — to try to return every phone call and e-mail to my office personally,” Neuman said.

Because of that policy, just in sheer numbers, Neuman said he talks to thousands of his constituents each year. That kind of personal contact is hard for an opponent to match.

Most years, though, Neuman said his campaigns have tended to involve a lot of sign waving and not so much knocking on doors.

“This is the kind of precinct that people don’t appreciate you knocking on their doors,” Neuman said.

But even the sign waving, he said, this time around didn’t happen as much as Neuman would have liked.

Reached at home, Dischner had noticeably little to say.

“Where I live also kin- of dictates, I know I live in an area that tends to vote Republican,” Dischner said. “It’s always worth giving it a shot and giving them a choice.”

Neuman, though he said he was confident going into the election, was still not quite sure. When the numbers started coming in Tuesday evening, he was relieved.

“You just never know,” he said.

Neuman said his priorities for the coming term include bringing industry to Alaska. With the natural gas pipeline coming, he said Alaska could benefit hugely from industry turning natural gas into solid products.

He said he’s already started working on talking to venture capitalists.

“That’s kind of what I’ve been doing the last few years, is going out there beating the bushes to find people who want to come to Alaska,” he said. “That’s another 400 to 500 jobs that we could be creating here in Southcentral.”

And, Neuman said he is going to try again to move the state capital to the Mat-Su Valley. The move is something that has been often tried but never, so far, successful.

“This is an opportunity that we’d have to get kids up here, school kids to be able to get up here and see how government is run,” Neuman said.