Alaska politics: always entertaining
August 20, 2008 by John Proffitt · 2 Comments
I know I’m way late for an update on the changes at work and how they fit into a larger strategic approach to the future, but I have an excuse! It’s the week before the Alaska Primary and we’re doing a big meet-the-candidates thing on our TV and radio stations for three nights this week and it’s sucking all the time out of my days and nights.
In the mean time, here’s a little extra treat.
In a tiny state (by population) like Alaska, the barrier to entering statewide politics is fairly low. Or at least the barrier to entering a political race is low — you still generally can’t win unless you’re at least somewhat credible. Still, in a state of less than 700,000 people total, the odds of any particular citizen winning a statewide office are pretty good — much better than most states. Of course, when the odds are good, the goods are often odd.
Case in point… Perennial candidate Daniel DeNardo, currently up for Alaska State House district 31. He appeared on our election coverage show on Tuesday night and explained to the world, well… he explained a lot of things. It’s best if I just let him talk. Enjoy!
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P.S. Best line from the moderator: “And how do you work on that in the legislature? They seem to be bogged down in the school budget.”
For the last 15 years I've done what comes naturally to anyone with degrees in English, earth science and education: I taught high school for a year then worked as an IT pro in healthcare, banking, consulting and government contracting (of course!). But I also spent nearly 5 years in Alaska's largest public media company, taking the traditional radio / TV / statewide news operation online and realizing traffic gains of more than 700% in just 18 months. These days I simply turn over the occasional public media rock and tell you what I see.
DeNardo is state treasure.
Amazing.