It’s inevitable in a contested primary with an incumbent running that the incumbent—in this case Governor Sean Parnell—will be a virtual dartboard for his competitors.

This race is made all the more peculiar since part of what Parnell—appointed in the wake of former Governor Sarah Palin’s abrupt 2009 resignation—is running is a Palin-initiated program. Many of Palin and Parnell’s fellow Republicans have assailed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), signed into law by Palin in 2007, which had the support—then—of all but one legislator. That legislator was Ralph Samuels, who’s one of the two primary competitors for Parnell in the August 24 primary.

Parnell has mostly kept his head down—to the point his opponents have labeled him a debate dodger—except for his veto of a bill to raise the eligibility level for Denali KidCare. Denali KidCare is the state’s health care program for poor children and pregnant women, and the bill would’ve changed the qualifying threshold from 175 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent. Parnell had supported the bill’s passage during the legislative session, but when the bill and appropriation for the raise in eligibility hit his desk, he vetoed them, saying he was concerned that, by federal law, medically necessary abortions were provided under the program. Parnell also recently suffered a setback with his hiring of a sitting legislator, Representative Nancy Dahlstrom (R-Eagle River), to a cushy position as an advisor on military affairs. The state Department of Law had originally signed off on Dahlstrom resigning, the position being created, and Dahlstrom’s hiring. Then conservative talk radio host and Parnell critic Dan Fagan began a barrage of criticism which ended with Attorney General Dan Sullivan issuing a decision that questioned the constitutionality of the hiring, and Dahlstrom stepped down.

Both Samuels and Bill Walker, the other primary candidate with significant money and organization, fired with both barrels in press releases against Parnell. And hardly a week goes by without a press release from one of their camps blasting the governor for something. Walker recently filed a public records request asking that the results of the open season for AGIA, in which producers negotiate terms of delivery with TransCanada, the pipeline operator under the act, be publicly released after the open season ends on July 1.

As we speed towards the primaries (and remind our readers that although the Republican primary is supposedly “closed,” it is open to voters who aren’t registered to a party) here’s a look at Governor Parnell and his adversaries’ pitches for why they should be the next chief executive.

Each candidate’s approach to these interviews was markedly different: Parnell nearly couldn’t schedule time for an interview, and eventually granted 15 minutes on the phone; Walker came unaccompanied to the Press office; and Samuels hosted a reporter, along with his campaign manager and a campaign operative in what had the potential to be the most stifled of the three interviews, but proved to be the most wide-ranging and informal.

(A note: Although there are other contenders in the Republican primary, by virtue of their war chest—or lack thereof—and space considerations, we’ve limited these profiles to Parnell, Samuels and Walker.)

Parnell

Unlike his two opponents, Parnell has a record, albeit limited, to run on. Since his swearing in last July 26, Parnell’s been through one legislative session.

“My focus has been on economic growth and creating opportunities for families, and everything I’ve done in the policy realm is in those areas,” Parnell says. “Ensuring more jobs for Alaska, whether it’s for tourism incentives; whether it’s through deferred maintenance, which puts our small and mid-sized contractors to work; a healthy capital budget—it’s all tied to putting Alaskans to work.”

Parnell also touts his Governor’s Performance Scholarship plan, which passed in the final days of the session after Parnell threatened a special session if it didn’t pass. As is, only a framework for such scholarships for Alaska students passed the legislature; Parnell’s idea had been to reward students who excelled in more rigorous high school courses with tuition scholarships, but some legislators argued that financial need should be considered as well.

“That was the proposal at the time,” Parnell says. “The legislature thought that working out the criteria on who would qualify for those scholarships was enough of a legislative lift for this session, and they set up a task force to study funding mechanisms before our next session.”

He also managed to pass a package of bills aimed at addressing domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska; you’ve probably seen the “Choose Respect” commercials he stars in. The legislative package created the position of response coordinator for domestic violence and sexual assault; it allows courts to consider aggravating factors in sex crimes; it tightens child pornography laws; and it adds rural Village Public Safety Officers.

Looking ahead to a four-year Parnell administration, he says he’ll advance economic opportunities for Alaskans. “I’m going to keep coming back to that because if we don’t have a strong economy, if we don’t have safe families in their homes and having opportunities both from an education perspective as well as in the job market, we will not have as great a future as we could have.” To that end, Parnell mentions “continued progress and movement on the gasline,” along with his five year deferred maintenance plan.

As for his Denali KidCare expansion veto, Parnell says, “from my perspective, Denali KidCare is to care for kids, it’s not meant for abortion related services. Frankly, I wonder, I’m asking whether any children are being left out for routine medical care because we’re funding these abortions in the existing eligibility pool.” (It should be noted, in a document provided by the Alaska Department of Heath and Social Services, $384,000 was spent on abortion-related services provided by Denali KidCare, out of the program’s $216,586,319 budget in 2009. That’s less than 1/50 of 1 percent of its budget.)

Though none of the three candidates seem to be actively pursuing a Tea Party endorsement like Fairbanks attorney Joe Miller has received in his Republican primary race against Senator Murkowski, Parnell is sympathetic to the movement. “I think anybody who stands up for freedom, I’m on their team. And that’s what I’ve been doing, whether it’s fighting for the state’s right to develop our own lands, our people’s right to invest in business and create jobs here, fighting the federal government at every turn… When it’s about freedom, which I hear from most Tea Party folks, I’m very supportive of that.”

Parnell’s pitch seems to be continuing the initiatives he started this past legislative session—along with the AGIA pipeline, of course. “My passion is for people, it’s not about the numbers,” he says. “To the extent we can grow our economy, and create opportunities for people, that’s what you see me doing. Whether it’s in fiscal policy, education policy, to my initiative to stop the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault, it all comes back to creating a better future for Alaskans and for future generations.”

Samuels

“Leadership NOW” is Ralph Samuels’ campaign slogan, plastered in large print on his signs. And he’s aiming that statement directly at Governor Parnell. Samuels, a former chair of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Holland America tour company, says, “If I look at the economy and the role the state can play and the leadership and the tough decisions that it’s gonna take, it’s far easier to make these decisions now than sit and wait. And I don’t see the guy that’s in the chair willing to make the hard calls that are coming, and show the leadership, and explain to the public, ‘this is why we’re doing this; here’s our problem; here’s some of our solutions; and here’s the actions we’re going to take to get there.’”

Samuels got into politics in 2002, winning a race for the Alaska House of Representatives. That came a few years after a protracted battle to get legislation that would allow for the conviction of his brother’s murderer, a juvenile. “I started to get involved in other things—I needed to get away,” he says. “You’re talking to women who were raped, families of murder victims…” His involvement in the Chamber of Commerce exposed him to policy issues of all different types, and he spent six years in the house, the last two as majority leader.

Samuels’ primary concern is the budget, and reinvigorating the economic engine that drives it, namely oil production. “As the production of oil goes down, the only thing that has saved us from these discussions on cuts or revenues is the price of oil,” he says. “It’s time to make tough calls, and while you’ve got cash in the bank, that’s the discussion Alaskans should be having. What I call the dirty little secret of gas pipelines—we get all wrapped around the axle on these pipelines—is none of those things provide enough revenue to the state to fill the hole, as Prudhoe declines, with money. You have to start making calls, and you have to set policy that’ll get you more oil in the [Trans-Alaska] pipeline because there’s just not enough of us to pay the bills.”

He’s critical of ACES, the oil tax, and Palin and the legislature’s “cash-grab,” as he calls it. (Samuels opposed the tax during his legislative tenure.) “I think it was not well thought out and it was really good for government in the short run. But if production runs out and you get one hundred percent of that last barrel, you have a problem.”

As mentioned, Samuels was the only vote against AGIA. “I thought it was silly when we voted on it,” he says, “but now I think it’s a monumental failure in public policy.” Samuels supports a bullet line to bring cheap energy to operations like mines in the north, the refinery in Fairbanks (as well as helping power Fairbanks itself) and then down to Southcentral Alaska. Cheap energy and an abundance of land have the potential to attract investment, he says. “The Commissioner of Commerce should be your state salesman; they should go tell companies, ‘we’ve got affordable energy, we’ve got land, come invest in Alaska.’”

Samuels grew up in rural Alaska; his father worked for the weather service and the family traveled the Bush—he graduated high school in Metlakatla. He thinks the rural education system we’ve had in place for the last few decades—little schools in little villages, rather than in hubs—has failed. “A whole generation of Alaskans didn’t get the education somebody who went to West [High, in Anchorage] got. You got a bad education for a whole lot of money.” He admits he doesn’t know a solution offhand, but that a better education system in rural Alaska (along with more state troopers, as opposed to the Village Public Safety Officers Parnell is increasing) would help address the low graduation rate, high suicide rate, and prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in those parts of the state.

“We need to start the discussion. As governor, if you can engage the parents, the mayors, the [Alaska Federation of Natives] and the corporations—get them in the room, say here’s the rules, I think you can do a better job with less money,” he says.

“The campaign comes down to, who is going to show the leadership to make the tough calls? Hope oil gets to $90 a barrel? That’s not a strategy that shows leadership. My message isn’t sugarcoated at all: Here are some challenges, a lot of opportunities, but at the end of the day, as the oil starts to decline, you’re going to have to start weaning yourself, and ask, what are we going to do to get the private sector involved up here, and it’s going to take leadership to do it.”

Walker

“I say I am a one issue candidate,” Bill Walker admits. An attorney who’s worked for three decades to get an all-Alaska gas pipeline built, with international export permits to sell liquefied natural gas to the Asian markets, Walker’s entire campaign is predicated on this one idea.

Walker had the support of recently deceased former governor Wally Hickel, who was behind the all-Alaska gasline plan. He also serves as general counsel to the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.

In Walker’s view, neither TransCanada (the approved AGIA gasline constructor and operator) nor the North Slope producers should own the gasline; it should be Alaska’s. He likens AGIA and other private sector gasline construction projects to asking trucking and shipping companies to have constructed the Parks Highway. “No one owes us a pipeline,” he says. “Sometimes we shower the owners [of the gas] with carrots for a while, then they say they need fiscal certainty, all that. They don’t really want a pipeline; we need to do it ourselves.”

Walker says that, unlike competing gasline ideas, the all-Alaska line has the necessary permits to build and export gas (his opponents and critics disagree). But the gasline isn’t necessarily Walker’s endgame, either.

“Ideally, I’d like to see us go all-renewable energy here in Alaska; if anybody can do it it’s us,” Walker says. “With the hydro we have, the geothermal we have, the wind opportunity we have—we need the gas as a bridge fuel to do that, as the economic stimulus, then we’re exporting the nonrenewable and we’re using the renewable so we’re not just kicking the can down the road like we did with oil.”

As to what we’ll term the “one issue” issue, Walker responds, “When you’ve got a hole in the bottom of the boat, but yeah, the windshield wipers might be crusted up, fix the damn hole in the boat! We’re taking on water.”

Walker’s pitch rests on his business experience and his years working for the all-Alaska gasline. “I’m not doing this to go on and run for congress, and be a professional politician. We need a business mentality in Juneau—stop waiting, get out of AGIA, let’s go to work.”

bjk@anchoragepress.com