Welcome Governor Walker

Like a lot of the state, we at the Frontiersman weren’t really sure who would prevail at the ballot box to claim the office of Alaska Governor.

Gov. Sean Parnell had a track record everyone seemed more-or-less satisfied with, even if they weren’t falling over themselves to say how much they loved him. Independent candidate Bill Walker seemed to have more personality than Parnell, or at least one that seemed more relatable. But he’d lost to Parnell before.

It was definitely a toss-up on election night, and it was a close race to say the least.

We’ll leave it to the pundits to say what issues pushed voters over to Walker’s side.

But we would like to say, welcome, Mr. Walker. We feel we’ve gotten to know you about as well as any statewide candidate during your long rise to power. You’ve certainly stopped by the Frontiersman as much as, if not more so than, any of the rest.

We hope that your promises of bipartisanship are more than just campaign rhetoric. Although your running mate, Byron Mallott, is a Democrat, the structure of state government leads us to believe there’s little he can do to force bipartisanship on you now that he’s the Lt. Governor. We don’t expect him to twist your arm into submission. But we do expect you two will have vigorous behind the scenes discussions about a variety of issues as you move forward and govern together.

That said, it’s really up to you, Mr. Walker, to deliver on your promise to work with all Alaskans, not just the ones who elected you.

We found some promising signs that this might actually be occurring in our reporting for today’s edition on Walker’s transition team.

“It’s been a long while in Alaska since people of different philosophical beliefs actually sat together and set aside all the ideological disagreements and focused on what we were asked to focus on,” former Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright and a member of Walker’s finance transition team said in that article.

Rupright ran for the state House of Representatives as an independent and lost this season.

Democrat Bob Williams, a Colony High School math teacher and another high-profile candidate who didn’t manage to eek out a win, also cited that inclusiveness as a reason he enjoyed serving on transition team.

Just one more hope we have for this administration: we hope that the natural gas pipeline deal, if it’s as far along as Gov. Parnell has said, doesn’t fall apart.

Like a lot of you, we’ve read some of the reporting coming out post-election about the oil industry’s wariness over Walker’s win. The gist seems to be that Gov. Parnell had been in the middle of some pretty important gas line negotiations. A transition has a lot of people wondering how Walker’s going to proceed.

We like what we’ve seen so far — Alaskans erasing party lines to work together for all Alaskans. We hope Walker will bring this same willingness to work with all parties to the table with gas line negotiations, too.

It may not be his preferred project, but if it is good for Alaska, we hope he will keep it moving forward.