Posted By: Stonecipher

Nov. 6, 2008

John McCain is going to come out of this election just fine.

Steve Schmidt is going to pack his bags and leave forever, Rick Davis is going to apologize to Mr. McCain for being such a disaster and then, hopefully none of us ever have to see, listen to or even hear about Nancy Pfotenhauer ever again.

But Sarah Palin is going to stick around. Her SNL character played perfectly by Tina Fey was right on the money when she said "I am not goin' anywhere. And I'm certainly not goin' back to Alaska."

We may not have to deal with the entire McCain Campaign anymore, but we are certainly going to be exposed to more Sarah Palin. Whether she sticks around for more than six months or not is another question for another time, but for the short-term, we're stuck with her as she takes center stage in the coming, internal battle for the GOP's soul.

That internal battle is another topic for another time, but the smart money is not on the Palin faction of the party. Six months, a year from now, Palin will likely be an unfortunate footnote in Presidential politics. She'll be remembered more for Tina Fey's ability to impersonate her. She'll be the "'Wasilla Hillbilly' looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast". She'll be the wildly unprepared and uninformed "Hockey Mom"caricatured with a fake Disney movie trailer.

Some might feel bad for Governor Palin, but the real tragedy is for the people of Alaska. They aren't going to come out of this Election season looking too good.

The problem for Alaskans with those of us in the Lower-48 is that we're susceptible to these stereotypes about the people of The Last Frontier because we don't know any Alaskans. Less than one of every 330 Americans is an Alaskan, and how often do they wander down here? Not very.

With no direct contact with Alaskans, all us Lower-48ers have to go on is who we see in the media, and hardly anyone of any fame what-so-ever is from there.

Apparently Curt Schilling was born there, but he grew up and played high school baseball in Arizona. Also the singer Jewel is from Alaska. Other than those two, all I could come up with is the first female Iditorod winner, Libby Riddles - sorry Alaska, we don't keep a very close eye on the dog mushing scene down here.

The point is, before the 2008 Election most of us could not name a single person from Alaska. But now, many of us can name four. In addition to Gov. Palin, the names Don Young, Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel are going to ring a bell for anyone who watches the news.

This foursome of Alaskan politicians is all we have to base our opinion of our northern-most countrymen on. And what can we determine? That all Alaskans are either crazy (Mike Gravel), corrupt (Don Young and Ted Stevens) or some sort of "Fargo"-like, hillbilly, religious-nut that has some bizarre form of Tourette's which forces her to spit out "Maverick" and "Joe the Plumber" every 15 seconds.

Let's start with Mike Gravel (D - AK) - being the most like-able of the group, he is no doubt the nuttiest. Gravel is the former Democratic Senator from Alaska who was one of eight other Democrats to lose to Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Primaries. While Gravel can put a smile on your face, he has also completely gone off the deep end - or at least the shallow end of a pond. The video below is an actual real commercial that Gravel produced during his 2008 campaign - and yes, that guy is the real Mike Gravel - you really need to watch the whole thing:

In fairness to Senator Gravel, here's a more traditional ad he ran on CNN:

Ted Stevens (R - AK) and Don Young (R - AK) are two members of Alaska's Congressional delegation. Stevens is a U.S. Senator and Young is Alaska's only U.S. Representative in the House.

What do the two men have in common besides being members of Congress from Alaska? Serious corruption charges against them.

In Steven's case, he has been found guilty on seven felony counts. Young still remains under investigation with close ties to fallen and corrupt Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Having two thirds of a Congressional delegation either under FBI investigation or convicted of a felony reflects poorly enough on a state. Stevens and Young, however, reflect even more poorly on the State of Alaska than they otherwise would for two reasons.

One, the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, while the governor herself was under investigation for ethics violations. The pick shined a new light on matters that, until then, were fading out of the headlines.

Two, and much more damning to the people of Alaska, is that Young won re-election this year quite handily and Ted Stevens appears to have won his re-election despite the fact that he became a convicted felon just a week prior to The Election.

Re-electing a known felon and his associate doesn't look to good to the rest of us.

Finally, there's everyone's favorite "Hockey-Mom", Sarah Palin. Since The Election is over, and we've already covered plenty of Palin's hate-filled, idiotic and outlandish moments, there's no reason to rehash all of that. But, the caricature of Sarah Palin that was created this year is going to stick to Alaskans for some time to come.

From Tina Fey to her real interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, from her real-life appearance on Saturday Night Live to continuing for five minutes with a radio show's prank phone call before figuring it out, Sarah Palin truly earned herself the name "Wasilla Hillbilly".

Of course it isn't fair to label all Alaskans this way, but these are the people they have elected to represent them.

In the case of Mike Gravel, he really never did anything wrong, nor did he do anything stupid. He just happens to be a bit eccentric and he was used in this piece (as he has been in many other scenarios) as some comic relief. In all seriousness, however, the remaining three, all of whom currently hold office in Alaska, are offensive to most of the rest of the nation.

When the voters of Alaska ignore felony charges, they ignore an FBI investigation and they ignore a woman's clear lack of understanding about the world around her, it leaves a bad taste in everyone else's mouth. Sure we've all elected some bad apples, but why so many in Alaska, and why allow them to continue once they've been exposed as bad apples?

There were a lot of great things that happened in this country on Tuesday Night, but while the majority celebrated a big victory, there were a minority of losers as well. Sadly, for the Land of the Midnight Sun, the biggest losers in this election were the people of the great State of Alaska.







