WASHINGTON — Alaska's four-decade congressional representative Don Young has only seen two presidents deliver State of the Union speeches in person: Richard Nixon and Barack Obama.
This year, Young attended Obama's address for two reasons: "I just want to see how many more untruths he's going to tell America," Young said of the president. "And that's going to be one of the reasons I'm going."
Young didn't expect to agree with much of the speech. Obama will "try to convince the American people and the Congress that everything that he's done is really a great milkshake — a banana split. And we all know it's not a milkshake, it's weak tea, and it's probably spoiled cheese," Young said.
"Secondly, my wife wants to go, so she's going to be sitting up in the stands and probably get more interested than I will be. But I will be there," he said in an interview hours before the speech.
Young, 82, got married in June in a small ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, and his new wife, Anne, has shown more of an interest in attending major events in Washington. The pair spent the night at his office to see the pope speak in September.
For most of his first four decades as Alaska's representative, the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union addresses did more to push Young away than draw him in, he said.
"I did go the first time," Young said. President Richard Nixon ("I wasn't a big fan of his," Young said) delivered his final address in January 1974, before he resigned from office that August.
"But when I walked into the chambers, I looked around and there was the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the vice president, the president, in fact, everybody in a leadership role in the United States was under one roof. And even before 9-1-1, I thought, 'Wow, this is a natural honey stand — everybody under one roof — one bang and everybody's gone. That was my first instinct … So I didn't go for years. I'd watch it on television," Young said.
The details of what changed Young's mind are muddled in his memory now, but it essentially boils down to an effort toward bipartisanship in 2011, after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. In an interview, Young said lawmakers were encouraged to sit with a "date" from across the aisle.
As Young's spokesman Matt Shuckerow clarified later, Young attended his first State of the Union since 1974 in 2011 and sat with Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif.,? and Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.V., along with then-Sen. Mark Begich, also a Democrat.
A framed and matted copy of the night's program and photo of Young, Begich and Rahall hangs in the lobby of Young's office. It includes a note, dated Jan. 24, 2011, from Rahall: "Don, If I get this 'politically incorrect' please forgive me as it's my first time ... Would you be my date for the State of the Union Tues. night!?!?!"
At the time, Young's spokeswoman Meredith Kenny said Rahall had convinced Young to attend.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski and others pushed the bipartisan seating chart again the next year, but the bipartisan seating approach has since fizzled.
Young's concern about the safety of so many U.S. leaders gathered under one roof has not subsided, he said Tuesday. "Now, frankly, I think it's still a dangerous thing. But I'm not too worried about it personally," he said.
"And the other factor is the substance of it," Young said. "Really -- what's it for?" he asked. Half of the crowd will "believe" and the other half won't. "But is he going to say anything new? No," Young said, recounting what he expected from the speech: discussion of Obama's "legacy," climate change, regulations, "yada yada yada. It's not going to be really new."
Young likened the annual address to the party conventions that will take place in August to formally choose presidential nominees. "Why would anybody go to the convention? Everybody knows who's going to be the nominee."
What the president should do, Young said, is talk about the budget. "That's a speech people would pay attention to," he said.