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Alaska Republicans overplay an old hand and pay at the polls

Politics can be a fun spectator game. The Alaska scene plays as if scripted for musical comedy in the Gilbert and Sullivan mode, (which of our "Lord High Executioners" is "Poo-Ba," which "Ko-ko?). But the consequences of an unextended Medicare are deadly serious.

Gov. Bill Walker and President Barack Obama are stuck in similar situations, first described by Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: "The single most important goal we want to achieve is to make Obama a one-term president." While Alaska's legislative leadership has been smart enough to avoid using this phrasing, the obstructionism of the recent legislative session and beyond has similar characteristics: Block any initiative that could count as a Walker success.

However, this strategy has boomerang potential. The Republican problem is that, as implemented, their bête noir, Obama's health initiative, is becoming a popular success. Consequently, Bill Walker seems likely to move into a second term even as President Obama's administration looks to transition smoothly into eight years of President Hillary Clinton.

Many members of the congressional majority are changing the subject or even changing their minds now that Obamacare is "fixed." But will Hillary and Alaska Democrats let the subject drop? Unlikely.

Seven years ago, national Republicans decided that by steadily attacking the president's health initiative (catching up, part way, to the level of service offered throughout Europe), they could bring it down, and him with it.

Sure enough, for the early years, picking on inevitable glitches in any major new program, the Republicans were able to push down public support. The glitches arose from use of the insurance industry as the payor/payee, a bow to the conservative approach used by then Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Obama hoping for political support that never came.

As the program caught on, glitches were sorted out and medical services extended. The public has begun to support it. "Obamacare" now enjoys the support of a strong majority of Americans and, increasingly, Alaskans. This trend is not going to change. The Republican Party is stuck flogging a dead horse.

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Beyond McConnell's epic blunder, another problem handicaps the possibilities for an early Republican revival: the alliance with the evangelical Radical Right. Originally, this strategy brought great success. Known as Nixon's Southern Strategy, it began with Republican appeal to the anti-civil rights South, alienated by President Johnson's civil rights revolution. The demographic included Midwestern white males, concerned about job competition from blacks previously held to entry levels. This demographic had also a southern regional coloring since the South had long been evangelical Baptist.

As a political strategy, Nixon's redirection of the party of Lincoln was successful for decades. The business community, the Republicans' traditional constituency, was willing to swallow mild distaste for the delicious repast of resulting power.

The strategy brought in a disproportionate number of men, even as women, seeing Democrats more willing to do for them what Johnson had done for blacks, shifted into a Democratic demographic. What Republican leaders failed to see was that increased voting by blacks and other minorities would eventually balance the additional white male vote. Also, a young, new generation was not as comfortable with the racial tinge of hard-right radicalism. As a proportion of the whole electorate, the radical right has shrunk since the tea party was founded.

But the "unholy" alliance being made, Republican power remains dependent on keeping this group within the tent. As is widely recognized, the minority within the congressional majority calls the shots. Compromise is out.

Alaska Republican leadership, unlike the Hickel and Hammond days now taking its cues from its Outside counterparts, is creating the same dilemma for itself. Berkowitz won the mayor's race on a "no" vote. A broad spectrum of Republicans could not stomach the radical right's candidate after splitting their votes in the pre-runoff election. Berkowitz is safe in three years only if the radical right wins "the primary" again. Watch him, in the meantime, cultivating the business community. Walker is safe anyway. He will strengthen his majority so long as the legislative leadership continues to write musical comedy.

As a youth John Havelock sang Gilbert and Sullivan as a cast member in "Pirates of Penzance." He is a former Alaska attorney general.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com

John Havelock

John Havelock is an Anchorage attorney and university scholar.

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