Knowles, Palin in November

By KYLE HOPKINS, TOM KIZZIA and KATIE PESZNECKER
Anchorage Daily News
August 22, 2006

Tony Knowles and Sarah Palin celebrate their victories in the 2006 primaries.

Former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin knocked embattled incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski out of office in the Republican primary race for governor Tuesday, setting the stage for a general election showdown with former two-term Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles and for a potential shake-up in her own party.

Palin’s advantage looked insurmountable while Knowles walloped lesser-known challenger Eric Croft, an Anchorage state representative, after a wild election day marked by flooding in the soggy Mat-Su Valley, downpours in Anchorage and a Murkowski campaign volunteer falling victim to stray gunfire.

Throughout the primary, candidates for governor told voters why they’d do a better job than Murkowski, but with the incumbent out of the race, the contest changes. Now they must sell Alaskans on the way they’ll launch a much-anticipated natural gas pipeline and how they plan to steer the state from here.

Knowles and Palin offered a similar message Tuesday night. With her supporters sensing victory at her campaign party in the Hotel Captain Cook, Palin talked about the problem with “politics as usual.” Someone in the crowd shouted “Let’s take Alaska back!” to roaring applause. Former Alaska Gov. Wally Hickel, a Palin supporter, smiled and raised his fist.

Maybe half an hour later, Knowles and his running mate, Anchorage Rep. Ethan Berkowitz, addressed the Democratic faithful. “This is our state and we’re taking it back,” Berkowitz said, drawing cheers. Knowles said it was time to reclaim the state from cronyism and favoritism.

The Republican contest emerged as election day’s main event, because it could — and did — guarantee a new governor at a time when Alaska politicans are trying to spark the next economic boom with a natural gas pipeline. John Binkley, a former state senator and Fairbanks businessman, was in second place — well ahead of Murkowski but with no chance of catching Palin.

Palin presented herself as a straight-talking, anti-politician throughout the campaign, clobbering Murkowski who has been struggling with low approval ratings for months despite the promise that he was the only candidate who could deliver the pipeline.

For some voters, casting a ballot wasn’t easy Tuesday. Parents found themselves juggling voter’s guilt — I’ve got to cast a ballot today! — with getting kids to and from the first day of school in a punishing downpour.

Valley families struggled to rebound from the week’s flooding as rains returned in the Mat-Su, but Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, who oversees the Division of Elections, said late Tuesday that no polling places actually closed and turnout didn’t appear to be significantly down statewide.

Tuesday was the first time the state used new touch-screen voting machines, but the Alaska Democratic Party urged voters avoid them, saying the kiosks weren’t reliable. The Division of Elections said the new technology is secure, but when Leman visited a Turnagain polling place, volunteers told him only one of the more than 400 voters had actually used the new technology.

In the 2002 primary, Murkowski won 70 percent of his party’s vote . But a lot has changed in the past four years since Murkowski left the U.S. Senate to become governor.

A series of unpopular decisions — cutting the Longevity Bonus, a cash payment to seniors, appointing his daughter to his old U.S. Senate job, pursuing the lease of a state jet — eroded Murkowski’s support early in his tenure.

Even when his administration increased state education spending — usually a safe political move — Murkowski came under fire as opponents said he wasn’t saving enough money from soaring oil revenues.

“He didn’t have a plan when he came in and he’s proved that. I don’t think he’s done the state any good at all,” said Dano Bollman, after voting against Murkowski — he wouldn’t say who he did choose — at the baby-blue North Slope Borough administrative in Barrow. “Get him out.”

When the governor looked to pitch new oil taxes and terms for a natural gas pipeline to the state after two years of negotiations with oil companies, many of his critics — and many voters — were no longer listening. A new oil tax package recently passed the Legislature, and Murkowski plans to ask lawmakers to tackle the gas pipeline terms in September, but the governor found himself practically apologizing to voters in a recent campaign ad while Palin appeared to weather a battery of last-minute jabs from opponents.

With his defeat looking likely Tuesday night, Murkowski said from his campaign headquarters that he will forge ahead with plans to get the Legislature to pass terms for a natural gas line contract.

Murkowski said he would support Palin in the general election.

Binkley seemed surprised when Murkowski announced he would run for re-election right before a filing deadline and has said he started the contest looking to gain ground on the well-known incumbent and the rising star, Palin.

He wasn’t well known outside his base of Fairbanks, where he lives, and Bethel — where he served in the Legislature — but raised the most money of any candidate and built name recognition with campaign stops and frequent television commercials.

Two days before the polls opened, Binkley launched a nonstop tour of the Railbelt. While he’d slept maybe five hours of the previous 60, he looked surprisingly crisp as he met well-wishers in a campaign office Tuesday night.

“I feel as though we did everything possible,” he said as his supporters waited for ballot results. Earlier in the week, Binkley’s wife, Judy, had said that the couple wasn’t campaigning in hopes of building name recognition for a future run at the governor’s office. As far as she knew, this was it, she said.

In his campaign, Binkley often talked about trust and presented himself as a thoughtful alternative to Murkowski’s sometimes gruff style. Palin painted Binkley as part of the same Republican party machinery that she defied as a member of a state oil and gas commission when she told the state that party chairman and fellow commissioner Randy Ruedrich was mixing his political and state jobs.

Will the party rally in support of Palin now that she’s the nominee? “That’s a good question,” she said. “I never had help from the party from the beginning, it’s been an independent run.”

Later, Palin suggested Ruedrich should resign.

Ruedrich said he doesn’t intend to step down as head of the party. “I was elected for four years through a normal process and I look forward to working with her (Palin).”

On the Democratic side, a Knowles victory was never really in doubt and while other campaigns were sprinting to the primary election, the Knowles camp was preparing for a marathon in the general. Croft is well-known for his role representing Anchorage in the House of Representatives and for, among other causes, championing a ballot initiative that he says would force oil companies to build a pipeline soon but that Murkowski calls a deal-breaker.

But Knowles enjoys nearly absolute name recognition across the state from his roles as Anchorage mayor and then governor from 1994 to 2002. While talking about education and putting other gas pipeline proposal on the bargaining table, Knowles kept a relatively low-profile during the primary — quietly amassing money and support for his battle against the Republican nominee.

As it became clear the Palin would win the Republican primary, people began to hand out “Goodbye Frank” stickers at the Knowles victory party at Snow City café in downtown Anchorage.

Daily News reporter Alex deMarban in Barrow contributed to this story.

Alaska pipeline at risk