Don't give up on Alaskans yet...

Local ABC channel 13 poll question of the week...

Do you agree with Senator Stevens adding ANWR language to the defense spending bill?

No 59.7%
Yes 38.8%

There's hope.

DU can help with that. ;)

:)

:)

That dude needs serious help.

I think he's lost a lot of Alaskans over the past two or three years. The public perception here used to be that he could do no wrong, but he's become too transparent in his senior years -- his greed is showing, and it's not very flattering.

Hope you are keeping warm. It is finally getting below freezing at night here in NC.

Yes/No.

That is the answer that will decide whether or not I give up on Alaska after the next election.

We can't afford to have this man in our government anymore.

BTW...I'd love to keep Alaska...it's truly the greatest place I've been on earth. But...gotta draw the line at Stevens.

I mainly wanted to post this poll just so people on DU would know that we're not ALL losers up here. I read one post today that suggested Alaska be given back to the Soviets which kind of hurt my feelings a little. If you're going to give us to anybody, give us to Canada. I want to be a Canadian.

how Don Young's daughter will benefit from the bridge if they are built? We got a trifecta here.

It's just pathetic. I want to see them ALL gone...Stevenses, Youngs, and Murkowskis, of all generations. Lisa at least answers my mail, I'll give her that, but what I wouldn't give for an Alaskan dem in Congress.

Lovely state, like nowhere else I've ever been.

...but the people up here are pretty fantastic, too, in a contrarian, libertarian sort of way. Yes, we have some pretty messed up politicians, and our state Republican party can do corruption with the best of them, but our state constitution has one of the strongest privacy clauses in the nation. We have legal marijuana, no death penalty, evolution taught in school, a culturally diverse population. Our state supreme court just ruled that same-sex couples employed by the state should get equal benefits as married couples. There is a strong peace movement and some serious environmentalists. We have the Alaska Permanent Fund, which was a brilliant strategy for making sure that ALL Alaskans share in the oil profits, not just the big companies. I really would have a hard time living anywhere else, and I do get my hackles up when people trash us, especially people who have never been here and know nothing about the state or the challenges that we face.

This poll suggests that AK (like nearly all states) may be far more Dem in leaning than the make-up of its congressional delegation would suggest.

Is there any chance that this recent effort by the Dems in AK to recount the last election to clear up the tremendous discrepancy between the paper results and the machine results will succeed?

It is an internet poll and has no more relevance whatsoever.

...but the state is not as pro-Stevens as many down south would like to believe. A lot of us are against drilling in ANWR and everybody I know was against the bridges, especially after the hurricanes. Alaska was originally a Democratic state. Both Don Young and Ted Stevens replaced dead democrats. It's been terribly hard to get rid of the two of them for some reason, but I think (hope) their day is coming.