The state of Alaska is providing with one of those great entertaining moments from a mostly one-party state: When members of the same party, in this case the Republicans, start openly ripping each other apart.
Congressman Don Young has broken from the calls by Sarah Palin and the Alaska Republican Party, who say that Democratic Sen. Mark Begich should resign because he was only elected through the botched prosecution against Sen. Ted Stevens. After Stevens was convicted of several felony counts, Begich went on to narrowly win the election — but now the Justice Department has dropped all the charges in light of prosecutorial misconduct. Young doesn’t like the result, but it is what it is.
Young is going a bit further, however, and making a suggestion for another way that Ted Stevens could make a political comeback: Running for governor in 2010. This would presumably involve Stevens running against Sarah Palin, a giant of her state’s politics. Now why would Young suggest such a thing?
“Personally I’d like to see him run for governor, and that’s my personal feeling,” Young said yesterday. “So, we’ll see what happens down the line. He probably won’t, but I think that would be a great way to cap off a great career as being the governor of the state of Alaska.”
It’s important to remember something about Palin and Young. In 2008, when it appeared that he would likely lose re-election because of ethics scandals, Palin went out of the way and endorsed her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, in a very heated primary challenge to bring Young down. And it turned out to be really tight, too, with Young only winning by 304 votes out of about 105,000 — indeed, it wasn’t until a few weeks after the primary that a winner was officially determined.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Don Young won his re-election campaign despite all the polls that showed him losing. But now that the state GOP establishment that tried to dump him over accusations of scandal are seeking redress for Ted Stevens, he’s not on board. It’s a pretty simple progression: Palin tries to knife Young; Young survives; Palin calls for Stevens to come back in a new special election; Young opposes the special election, and suggests Stevens come back by knifing Palin.
And who knows, if Ted Stevens were to mount a comeback against Palin — which seems unlikely, considering Stevens is 87 years old — he’ll have an ally right in his corner.
