Alaska: Republican News

While the nation’s lone Independent Governor, Alaska’s Bill Walker, has not yet formally declared his intention to seek re-election he is expected to soon do so.  Questions still remain about whether he will again run as an Independent or ostensibly under the Democratic Party label.  The state party is attempting to change their by-laws to allow a non-Democrat to run on the party ticket.  Now, movement is beginning to occur on the Republican side.
 
Ben Stevens, the former Alaska State Senate President and son of the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R), is openly considering running for Governor next year.  Mr. Stevens retired from elective politics in 2006 largely as part of the US Justice Department’s bribery case against his father, a trial verdict that was later overturned largely due to the law enforcement officials’ inappropriate actions that resulted in prosecutorial misconduct.  Now, away from politics for more than ten years, Mr. Stevens may be on the verge of re-emerging and will be a serious gubernatorial contender should he decide to make the challenge.   

--Jim Ellis