The polls say it’s not going to happen, but both state Senator Hollis French and former House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz are campaigning hard to upset the Republicans hold on the state’s executive branch. First, though, that contender must be decided in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

In a Rasmussen survey taken in May, neither candidate received more than 36 percent against either Governor Sean Parnell or former House Majority Leader Ralph Samuels (the 36 percent was for Berkowitz in a match-up with Samuels). In the 2006 gubernatorial race, Tony Knowles (with Berkowitz running for lieutenant governor) received just fewer than 41 percent of the vote; Sarah Palin won with 48 percent, and Republican independent candidate Andrew Halcro had 9.5 percent. In 2002 Republican Frank Murkowski defeated Democrat Fran Ulmer 56 percent to 41 percent.

Alaska is considered a solidly red state, but it can be argued we’re more purple than a cursory glance suggests. Currently the state senate is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, and in the state house the Republicans dominate by only 22 to 18; the Democrats hope to make gains in the legislature in November’s election, and despite the polls, it’s not impossible Berkowitz or French could upset the Republican candidate. But first they’ve got to face each other in the August 24 primary. Predictably, the two have more similarities than differences. Berkowitz served in the house from 1996 to 2006, and was minority leader from 1999 on. French has been in the senate since 2002 and chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee—he’s not up for reelection until 2012, so if he were to lose he’d still hold his west Anchorage senate seat.

Despite each of the candidates’ vehement opposition to our recent Republican governors’ policies, they do differ on certain policies themselves. Here’s what they’re offering Alaska’s citizens.

Ethan Berkowitz

Ethan Berkowitz is well known in Alaska; besides his aforementioned run for lieutenant governor (which pitted him against now-Governor Parnell in that slot), he also took on Congressman Don Young in 2008, and narrowly lost in a nail-biting vote count wherein Young wasn’t declared the winner until nearly a week after the election.

It was one of the slimmest wins Young ever experienced in his 19 terms. So why not go for the congressional seat again? “There’s somebody up in Fairbanks I talked to that’s lived here for 50 years, and what he told me is he’s fallen out of love with Alaska,” Berkowitz answers. “And that’s something that needs to stop; that’s something we need to reverse, and you can do that as governor. As governor you have the vision, the boldness, the platform to make a difference in this state. We have suffered from timidity, from incrementalism, from people who are unwilling to take risks and do big things for too long, and there’s a consequence to that, and the consequence is that this state has been treading water. And that’s not good enough; that’s what I want to reverse.”

One of the biggest differences between Berkowitz and French is on the ACES oil tax, implemented in late 2007 with French as a major backer of the legislation. Berkowitz wants what he calls a 100 percent royalty tax, where the state would negotiate what its share of oil from each field on state property is, with a commission established to do the negotiating with the producers.

Berkowitz is also a strong proponent of renewable energy projects and infrastructure in the state, not just to make communities energy self-sufficient, but also to provide jobs for Alaskans and stimulate our economy. “I’ve worked in the field,” he says. “I’ve worked to help produce low cost energy in rural Alaska. We’ve got to have it so every community is energy self-sufficient whether it be wind or tidal or hydro or geothermal or whatever asset is available to them. Because whenever you import a dollar worth of diesel, you’re exporting a dollar and you’re exporting a job. And unless that money stays in the economy, it makes it harder for those economies to be sustainable.”

He also supports an all-Alaska natural gas pipeline, with offtake points for our own energy as well as the possibility of exporting the gas. “I do not preclude state ownership, but the state has to do a lot better job of trying to get financing for the project. If you have a good project and you approach the right partners, you can bring private financing to the table, and Alaska’s never done that,” he says. He’d also like to see an option on the Permanent Fund application for Alaskans to be able to purchase a stake in the pipeline. “Once Alaskans know that they can own a piece of the pipe, they’re going to work that much harder to make sure that investment comes to fruition and becomes profitable.”

Like French, he’s critical of Parnell’s veto of increasing the eligibility for Denali KidCare, the Medicaid program for children and pregnant women. But his health care concerns go beyond that—he talks about bringing a medical school to Alaska and expanding the university system’s nursing program. He also supports universally available preschool, as well as technical and vocational training to address our education system’s failures.

“People should vote for me because they like the fact I’ve got a vision they can agree with; they agree with my ideas in terms of promoting energy independence, quality education and bringing jobs to this state,” Berkowitz says. “But fundamentally I want people to fall back in love with Alaska again. This is about finding Alaskan solutions to Alaskan problems and creating Alaskan opportunities. I’m an idealist and a pragmatist; we need solutions and we need to have an optimism about the future.”

Hollis French

Hollis French points to his accomplishments in the legislature when explaining why he’s running for the state’s top spot. “I am running for governor because Alaska is at a crossroads, and you need a governor who can do two things,” he says. “You need a governor with a vision of where to take the state, and the practical ability to bring those visions down to earth and make them real, and I think I’ve been able to do that during my time in the legislature, and I think I’ll be able to do it as governor.”

French became best known, in Alaska and nationwide, when he chaired the legislative committee in charge of investigating “Troopergate,” when then-Governor Palin was accused of using her office to pursue a vendetta against her former brother-in-law. French jokingly points out that he filed to run for governor on July 1 of last year—two days prior to Palin’s announcement she was resigning as governor. “I don’t want to draw any connections between my filing on the first and the former governor dropping out two days later, but that is the historical record,” he says.

He strongly believes in keeping the ACES oil tax, which he supported in the legislature, in place. “ACES has put the state on strong financial footing, maybe the strongest financial footing we’ve ever been on. We’ve got 12 billion dollars in savings,” he says. “Employment is up, investment is up, and profits remain strong. And the industry will dispute that, but those are the facts. The Department of Labor will show you that ACES was implemented in 2007 and there are more people working in the oil fields than in 2007. Investment is higher than it was in 2007, and profits, as we’ve seen with ConocoPhillips, remain strong.”

Like his opponent, French talks a lot about renewable energy. He believes the state should make “enormous” investments in renewable energy throughout the state. “That’s how you lay down the foundation for a strong economic future,” he says.

He says he’s “agnostic” about what form a natural gas pipeline should take, but that if one were built under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, “you get a fair economic deal out of it; you get rolled in tariffs, which means that you as a citizen of the state of Alaska get more money for your gas. That’s a fact. That’s not even subject to controversy. Whether it builds a pipeline or not, we don’t know. I said that the day AGIA passed.”

In the last legislative session French pushed a universal health care bill, Senate Bill 61, which ultimately failed, but was similar to Massachusetts’ universal health care system. “The imperative is, first things first, get everybody under the umbrella,” he says.

Another similarity he and his opponent share is pushing for voluntary statewide pre-K schooling. He also advocates for further investment the university system and revamping the retirement benefits system for teachers. “As a Democrat, I believe that’s how you give every single human being their chance in life, is you give them a quality education,” he says.

“We’re talking about two things principally,” he says of his campaign. “Energy and education. As I look across the field I believe I have the combination of the vision to lead the state and the practical and proven ability to get things done.”

French wants voters to examine his record in the legislature. “I’ve been in a bipartisan coalition for the last four years, Republicans and Democrats sitting down and working together and getting things done, and I’ve been very successful in that coalition,” he says. “I’ve had great success pushing major legislation through because of my hard work in the middle.”

bjk@anchoragepress.com