Opinion Notes from Palin country

Taxpayer rage has,of course,been the rule in Republican primaries lately. But it was hard to predict that the fury would spread to a state that has virtually no taxes.

Mitch McConnell,the Senate Republican leader who is looking like an endangered species himself lately,threw in with Miller and announced that Murkowski should “move on.” But where can she go? She’s already in Alaska.

Meanwhile,Scott McAdams,the Democratic candidate,is introducing himself to the voters. This will take some time because McAdams’s big claim to fame is being mayor of Sitka,a town of 8,700 with no road access.

His big adventure began when it was Sitka’s turn to hold the Democratic state convention this year and the delegates were looking under every rock,melting glacier,sleep-

ing walrus for a respectable candidate to face Murkowski. Voilà! A star was born,sort of.

McAdams is on a quest to do stuff for Alaska. He believes that,as a “young state,” Alaska deserves to be covered with roads,bridges and septic treatment plants like other states. “There was a time,” he says frequently,“when the transcontinental railroad was a Railroad to Nowhere.”

This scenario is playing out around the country: the new,empowered Tea Party Republicans preach their national agenda,which seems to involve not spending federal money on anything George Washington didn’t personally shop for. The Democrats respond with a hymn to crop subsidies and infrastructure improvements.

The rest of us may yearn for a new budding statesman,but the folks at the Anchorage senior centre had more practical concerns. Such as the fact that Miller does not seem to feel George Washington would have approved of social security payments.

“What about resources?” asked a woman who was worried that McAdams lacked the cash to take on the might of Miller,George Washington and Sarah Palin combined.

The national Democratic establishment has been ignoring McAdams. So many crazy Tea Party candidates to take advantage of,so little time. If places like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee forgot about Alaska before this week,they must be totally distracted now that the Republicans in Delaware have decided to nominate a woman who won’t tell

anybody where she lives because she’s afraid her political enemies will come and hide in the bushes.

McAdams may be an imperfect candidate,but he’s also an extremely inexpensive one. He theorised that the national Democrats are hanging back because people in the Lower 48 mistakenly believe that Alaska is superconservative — “this far-off land of Palin.” His own view,he told his audience,is that the state is full of “independent moderates.”

“A man who stands in the middle of the road gets hit going both ways,” called out a woman. It was one extremely tough group of senior citizens.