Anchorage Daily News

"Come back Shane, come back" So howled plaintively the small boy at Alan Ladd, the Western hero trotting off on the horizon in the epic film "Shane"(after dispatching the phenomenally menacing Jack Palance). Well, Sarah's shots missed, all to the good since Obama is a prince not a Palance.

Now, as Sarah Palin, unlike Shane, comes back to her job as governor, she needs to store her campaign guns in a lockbox and get down to the business of governing. She scored a good opener with budget recommendations on children's health and education though backsliding on comments on Obama in Canada. Talk of running against Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been squelched; bad idea anyway.

What Alaska needs from its four main statewide officeholders is a common agenda for national action. That agenda does not include attacks on the national administration that can only create ill will among those upon whose favor we depend for appropriations, critical decisions and favorable appointments. If Obama looks vulnerable in three years, then OK, maybe the Alaska Republicans can risk opening up that box again, even if it does Alaska no good; but not now.

Above all else, Alaska needs to grab a seat up front on the national energy agenda for the gas pipeline. There are a number of other important issues, rarely partisan, on which our big four can get together coinciding with national goals -- for example, infrastructure replacement: maybe a new ferry as well as bridge, airport or dock repairs. Something needs to be done with respect to public employment in Alaska and social security so state employment does not freeze out those who take state employment from continuing social security participation. Anyone looking at the market and what the state has since done to trash benefits can see that we were sold a bill of goods with private retirement accounts. There are more than a dozen other serious, federally related issues that need work in education, health, rural affairs, etc.

Sen.-elect Begich has met with Sen. Murkowski, a good start. They should all have regular meetings, including the governor and Rep. Young. The others will have to get used to the idea that Sen. Begich is the point man in federal relations -- who else among them can talk persuasively mano a mano to the powers that be? But the senator must be ready to share credit, where due.

Getting a gas line going is a near perfect fit with Obama's energy and economic recovery policies. Maybe we could even get the long-discussed railroad connection as part of the package -- environmentalists like railroads. Who can look forward to the Alaska Highway being taken over for four years by convoys of pipe and equipment haulers?

Please drop ANWR from the discussion, Mr. Begich. We couldn't get it with a Republican president and Congress; we are not going to get it with these folks. Every time we raise it, it just gives the American public the false impression that we don't give a damn about the environment. "Drill, baby, drill" may have felt good in context, governor, but it was a blow to Shell's ambitious Beaufort Sea plans, among other oil and gas development prospects. The governor needs to show Alaskans care about the polar bear and global warming to head off the use of the poor beast to stop arctic oil and gas development.

Environmentalists are OK with a pipeline for natural gas, the "interim fuel." A federal strategy is required to force the competing gas line proposals into a united effort. When the president of the United States sets out his view on how to implement a national purpose, it trumps the narrow strategies of any oil or pipeline company. Our big four should shape a proposal that serves both national and state interests for Sen. Begich to present to the president.

These are special times of both fear and opportunity. The Alaska penchants for internecine rivalry and bashing the national administration are out of tune with the times. Seize instead the opportunities.

John Havelock served as Alaska's Attorney General during the early development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

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