Politics

Boots on the ground at Public Official Speed Dating

speed_dating
Maia Nolan photo
Rep. John Harris talks with voters at Elevate Alaska's Public Official Speed Dating event Thursday in Anchorage.

Sen. Lesil McGuire and Rep. Harry Crawford have been dating.

Before I get a phone call from McGuire's attorney (who probably bills double on the weekends), maybe I should back up a little.

Earlier this year, I joined a group of other civic-minded Alaskans of my generation -- reporters and policy folks and graphic designers and attorneys and legislative types and other all-purpose professionals, a mix of Republicans and Democrats and (in typically Alaskan style) unaffiliated voters who identify simply as "Alaskan" -- to talk about the future of the state. Eventually we got ourselves a name -- Elevate Alaska -- and a mission -- encouraging young Alaskans to engage in politics and bringing the civic dialogue out of the land of talking points and sound bytes -- and a logo and a Web site, and last week we had sweatshirts made, which makes it all legit. Nothing's more official than sweatshirts.

The driving force behind Elevate Alaska is Nils Andreassen, who you may recall as the genius behind last spring's Mayoral Speed Dating event, which put young Anchorage voters face-to-face with some of the million or so folks who campaigned for the job now held by Dan Sullivan. With a statewide election looming next year -- and some candidates who have been on the trail since January -- and municipal elections coming up in Fairbanks and Juneau, Elevate Alaska decided the time was ripe for Speed Dating 2.0, with events scheduled in Alaska's three largest cities last week.

Public Official Speed Dating (as it was rechristened) in Anchorage Thursday night drew a group of politicians that included not only Crawford (who recently threw his hat into the ring as a potential Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Don Young) and McGuire, but gubernatorial candidates Bill Walker, Sen. Hollis French and Bob Poe; Reps. Les Gara, John Harris, Chris Tuck and Sharon Cissna; and even Anchorage Assembly member and onetime Mayoral Speed Dating participant Matt Claman, among others. Attendees (mostly young professionals) moved from table to table in groups of three or four, spending four minutes with each candidate.

The funny thing about having a mix of statewide and local candidates was that sometimes you ended up sitting at the table of someone for whom you wouldn't be able to vote -- but to the politicians' credit, they took the non-constituent questions seriously, too. It also gave citizens who don't get down to Juneau (where one evening at the Triangle Club can show you that our state government functions something like a state college, after hours, anyway) the chance to see legislators as human beings who know that political differences don't necessarily have to make sworn enemies.

It's the unscripted moments that make politics interesting, and Public Official Speed Dating was pretty much one long unscripted moment: Jay Ramras (who was there to hang out, not to date), leaning against the wall sipping a Red Stripe, watching McGuire laugh uproariously with a table of Democrats, some of them legislative aides, one of whom was then given a friendly hard time by Harris, who tried to get her to tell him when her boss was going to declare his run for lieutenant governor, while Channel 2's Megan Baldino navigated between tables with a videographer on her tail and Cissna and I sat at the bar debating the merits of the various Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts stores around the state (Cissna says the one in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley is incredible).

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Just when the evening wasn't going to get any better, master of ceremonies David Nicolai grabbed my arm.

"Could you go find Nils and tell him Gov. Hickel's downstairs?"

Indeed he was. Former governor Wally Hickel, along with his wife Ermalee and longtime advisor Malcolm Roberts, was headed up the stairs from the bar. After he was introduced (and applauded), Hickel grabbed himself a seat at the nearest open table -- Walker's -- and started asking his own questions.

I suppose, then, I stand corrected -- if there's one thing that can make a group more official than sweatshirts, at least in this state, it's a visit from Wally Hickel.

Contact Maia Nolan at maia_alaskadispatch.com.

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