My Turn: After GOP wins, get it right or get out
The Nov. 5 election will be a surprise only if there is not a landslide for Republican candidates from Sen. Ted Stevens, to Rep. Don Young, to Gov.-elect Frank Murkowski, to members of the Alaska Legislature. The figures favor Republicans.
Stevens won re-election six years ago with support of 77 percent of those who balloted. Young won two years ago with 67 percent. Nothing indicates they will attract less support this year; probably more as Alaskans seek more federal funds and favorable legislation.
Between June 26 and Oct. 13 this year, 10,714 new voters registered to ballot in the Nov. 5 election. Of those, 3,070 registered as Republicans, taking their total to 116,450. Only 698 registered as Democrats, taking their total to 72,323. Most registered as non-partisan or undecided who now total 225,131 of Alaska's 460,855 registered voters. Those undeclared give Republicans and Democrats something to work on but the trend favors Republicans and pro-development.
In the municipal elections a month ago, Ketchikan Gateway Borough residents overwhelmingly elected a mayor and Assembly members who were strong for economic development, and turned out two incumbents who weren't. Haines and Sitka, strongholds for environmental organizations, each elected pro-development mayors. Petersburg voters resoundingly defeated an effort to convert more than 300 acres of city land into a park.
Even in Juneau, headquarters for several environmental organizations, a poll shows that 62 percent of the community is opposed to locking up more of the Tongass National Forest in wilderness by banning roads in roadless areas.
In the legislative races, the Democrats failed to field candidates in 17 of 40 House races and four of 20 Senate races. Republicans failed to field candidates in only five rural House races. The Republican edge is obvious.
What has happened since 1955-56 when Alaskans drew up their state constitution? At that time the 22nd Territorial Legislature was controlled by the Democrats 33-7. A few years later, when statehood was approved in 1958, Alaskans elected Democrats Bill Egan as governor, E.L. Bartlett and Ernest Gruening as U.S. senators and Ralph Rivers, congressman. Alaskans elected 18 Democrats and two Republicans to the first state Senate and 34 Democrats, five Republicans and one Independent (Jay Hammond) to the first state House.
It was understandable. The battle for Alaska statehood was led primarily by Democrats - Alaska workers - with a few exceptions such as Robert B. Atwood, a Republican and publisher of the Anchorage Times and Mildred R. Herman, Juneau attorney. Atwood was chairman and Mrs. Herman was secretary of the Alaska Statehood Committee. Opposition to statehood came mainly from those representing Outside businesses, especially salmon cannery owners. They owned fish traps, outlawed by Alaska's new constitution. Those business interests feared statehood would bring more taxes and loss of control in fishing, mining and timber industries.
The big change came in 1972 when George McGovern, with support from campus radicals and the anti-Vietnam War crowd, sought the presidency as a liberal Democrat. He inspired formation of the Ad Hoc Democrats in Alaska, who promptly bounced out of party office all of the Egan Democrats and welcomed the new radicals, extreme environmentalists.
Since that time, many Alaskans have deserted the Democratic Party as they lost job opportunities to environmental activism. They joined Republicans when national Democratic administrations of President Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton sought more and more reserves in Alaska and opposed Alaska development - private sector jobs. Alaska isn't the only state so affected, which is why George W. Bush carried the rural West and many of the breadbasket states in 2000.
Alaskans used to worry about how much money the canned salmon industry, mining and timber companies were using to lobby the Alaska Legislature. Now they worry about having any jobs left as environmental groups protest - administratively and in court - every development, and vote Democratic.
But take heart. All things change. If Alaska's problems aren't solved in the next four to eight years, many Republicans will be back to wintering in Seattle, San Francisco or Arizona. The Democratic Party might throw off the yoke of Outside environmental dollars and favor jobs instead of the status quo like pre-statehood Republicans.
Vote Tuesday. The Republicans asked for it. Give it to them with the admonishment: Get it right or get out. It's the only way to get rid of the Carter, Clinton and the extreme environmental and Ad Hoc Democrats for the good of Alaskans.
Williams is retired publisher of the Ketchikan Daily News and a former member of the University of Alaska Board of Regents.