SITKA, Alaska – Now the boats are tied down against fall storms, and the streets of the island town where I live smell of soy sauce and brown sugar as people brine sockeye, preparing it for the smoker. Talk is that it’s going to be a rough, rainy winter – to say nothing of the gust of media attention that has been blowing up from the Lower 48, swirling around our United States Senate election in November, bringing with it more outside money than has ever been spent on a political campaign in the state.
Well, if you want to gauge the political mood around here, sit down at the Backdoor Cafe with a cup of coffee and a salmonberry scone, pick up The Daily Sitka Sentinel, have a chat with folks, and you’ll learn that not much is predictable in the 49th state.
From all appearances, the Republican candidate, Dan Sullivan, a good-looking, amicable Marine officer and former commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, should have little problem beating the Democratic incumbent, Mark Begich. Mr. Begich, a first-term senator, slid into his seat in 2008 by just under 4,000 votes, ousting the G.O.P. candidate, Ted Stevens, who had been convicted of felony corruption charges (though the indictment was later dismissed). The governor, Sean Parnell, is a Republican; Republicans control the state legislature and have the state’s only seat in the House of Representatives, along with the other Senate seat. President Obama is unpopular; he lost the state by a large margin in 2008, and again, by a smaller margin, in 2012.
Image credit NYTimes.com
