Tammie Wilson applies for state House seat; leaves mayor option open
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Wilson, North Pole Mayor Doug Isaacson and six others applied before Wednesday afternoon’s deadline for a one-year vacancy in the North Pole area’s House district.
Results from the mayor’s race, featuring Wilson and Luke Hopkins in a close runoff, still linger following heavy voter turnout Tuesday.
Hopkins leads 52 percent to 48 percent, but with an estimated 2,800 ballots still to be counted Tuesday it’s technically either candidate’s race to win.
Wilson said her decision to apply Wednesday — the application deadline — for the District 11 House seat, which opened when John Coghill left to join the state Senate, doesn’t mean she has conceded to Hopkins.
“I had until 5 o’clock today to make a decision (on the House opening), and I wanted to make sure all options are open,” Wilson said by phone. “I truly am hoping that we will gain the votes we need next Tuesday and then I would immediately remove my name from consideration.”
A committee of Republicans from the district will interview qualified applicants before hosting a party meeting to review and score candidates’ information. The party will then forward three names to Gov. Sean Parnell for consideration.
Wilson has spent one year on the Borough Assembly, having previously grown into the role of neighborhood organizer. But she said she’s also found time to follow state issues and has a daughter who worked as staff for a Palmer-based state lawmaker.
Wilson said she worries state spending could be too high and also generally said the state could do more to help Fairbanks’ neighborhood-level road service areas.
Isaacson is starting his second term as North Pole’s mayor. A former mortgage broker who previously served on the city’s council, he beat a slate of challengers to keep the mayor’s post last month.
Isaacson said his experience with city issues would help him serve effectively at the state level, whether it be on statewide issues or direct help for North Pole. The town of 2,000 serves a much more populated surrounding area and hosts multiple oil refineries and electrical generation plants, making it a notable cog in the state’s energy wheel.
“We are not just a Christmas village. We are an energy production center for Alaska,” Isaacson said. “No other candidate for this position has worked on these issues as consistently as I have.”
Wilson first moved to Alaska seven and a half years ago, while others on the list of applicants have lived here far longer. But she said strong support during this fall mayor’s election proved voters support her largely conservative messages, something that could curry favor with the district committee as it considers long-term options for replacing Coghill. Whichever applicant emerges will need to run for a full two-year House seat in 2010.
“I talk to residents there more than anyplace,” Wilson, who spent much of her campaign for mayor knocking on doors, said of North Pole. “I expect a lot of this will be based on electability.”
Other applicants for the House seat include:
• Lynette Bergh, a former California teacher now teaching online graduate classes, who ran unsuccessfully for school board this fall. Bergh has lived in Alaska for 5 years and serves as board president and CEO for Santa’s Seniors.
• James Cotton, a former school bus driver and restaurant manager who has previously sought seats on the Borough Assembly and school board.
• Mike Prax, a former Borough Assembly member and current district vice chairman for the Republican Party. Prax works with the issues group Clean Team Alaska and is a former Republican Party district chairman for a separate district.
• Mike Welch, an incumbent North Pole councilman and one of the unsuccessful challengers for Isaacson’s city mayor’s post this fall.
• Information on candidates Rick Bienvenu and Leslie McFarland was not immediately available.
Way to be the news, instead of just reporting it (again), Mr. Boyce
I hope Mike Prax or Doug Isaacson get the job. They are loyal people from that district and have been here long enough to know the area's economics and they have the welfare of their community at heart. And no, Garry and I are not RINOs, we just couldn't support Tammie for multiple reasons.
Their reign of terror doesn’t end there, no siree bob! They forced the (Republican controlled ) Whitehouse and Congress to have a war on two fronts, and a war on terror, and other measures that increased government power, spending and the size of the deficit.
Wait, could RINOS be to blame? Nope, this just an excuse, or a little trick with mirrors. ANYTHING to deflect responsibility.
Remember the battle cry “responsibility for thee and not to me”, a credos all politicians live by.
First of all, Scozzafava was considered more liberal than quite a few democrats. I wouldn't call her centrist. (Just my opinion) Also, even though she dropped out, she still got 5% of the vote. That might have/might have not made a difference, but it was a factor.
The point that the "right-wing-nuts" are making is that there were a lot of people who voted for Obama that then voted for the Republican governor candidate. Was it a referendum? I don't think so either. However, there are a lot of people who disagree with what our Congress is doing. I thought the republicans were bad enough when they were in power. It seems that there are a few democrats that think that it is ok for them to protest when they disagree, but others shouldn't protest what they are doing? I believe that I read somewhere that dissent is patriotic. I think it was moveon.org?
Please, watch them closely. All of us need to watch our politicians closely; not just the "right-wing-nuts" but the "left-wing-nuts" and even the center people. It is our responsibility to watch all of them, not just the other party.
I think that it's even more telling that the GOP candidate supported by right-wing-nuts like Palin and Limbaugh (after throwing the more centrist candidate, Scozzafava, overboard) lost. That brings the count in the House to 258 Democrats and 177 Republicans. The fact that the particular seat in question had been held by Republicans for more than a century makes it an even sweeter victory.
"Obama's charm did not do much good.. a few million voters figured out what is going on." Where do you get "a few million voters"? Corzine lost NJ by 4% (around 100,000 votes). In Virginia, the GOP candidate won by 344,289 votes. Millions? Not quite, not even close.
The populist movement that brought us Tammie Wilson and Sarah Palin needs to be watched closely. These politicians, and others like them, preach to the masses of their distaste for "growing government", seeking to villify those in office, all the while seeking office themselves. This movement smacks of the fascist movement of Germany between WWI and WWII, when the Nazi party rose to power due to the populists' distrust of government, large corporations, and promises by the Nazi party that it would resolve the economic issues of the disenfranchised middle class. They promised to do something about the Jews, whom they blamed for a host of society's ills. They did something about them, all right...
Oh by the way that would be a majority of your fellow Fairbanksins....
Nothing like painting with a broad ignorant brush.
The women is an opportunist at best. She doesn't even live by the principles she says she believes in..
The reporter tells me that Wilson gave a brief and general answer to the question and that we extrapolated from it when we should have pressed her for details.
As for the quotation VanderKolk ascribes to Wilson: That is not a quotation that Wilson gave to our reporter. We do not possess such a quote.
The story has been updated online to present Wilson’s comment in the more general nature in which it was given.
Rod Boyce
Managing editor
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Are you kidding? TAMMIE WILSON would be a shoe-in for state representative if she somehow gets beat by Uncle Lukie in next week's count-off. The Republican Party in her district will advance her name to Sean Parnell and Parnell will give her the nod to "come-on-down" to Juneau...............if for nothing else, then at least to give the idiot Libs in Fairbanks a little roughing-up.
TAMMIE is one clever cookie. And the Libs know it.
TAMMIE's Intelligence Quotient: around 139 (and rising).
Uncle Lukie's IQ: around "Luke warm" and cooling rapidly. (for U Libs: that means below 98.6).