Anchorage Daily News

Alaskans seem no less astonished than people in the rest of the country by John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the Republican Party nationally, it seems like an act of desperation, particularly coming on the eve of the perfectly organized and executed Democratic Party convention, with its message of populist change.

McCain is gambling that the addition of a young woman, demonstrating that he is actually in touch with evolving American culture, will more than counter what he loses on the argument for experience; but many voters will be disturbed that a person with very little actual history governing, and no foreign policy engagement whatsoever, could easily become President. Alaska will no longer be in play for the Democrats, but its three electoral votes are unlikely to decide the election.

But it will help Alaska's image nationally, whether or not she is elected. Across the country now people are reading about a different Alaska than the "bridges to nowhere" debacle, the congressman who is spending a million dollars on legal fees for who knows what and the indicted senator.

Now they're pondering an Alaska that elected a whistle-blowing, reform governor, a woman, a Republican, one who killed one of the bridges, and who halted the road north from Juneau. The Democrats won't be able to make much out of "Troopergate," and will not look good if they try. And she is, let us remember, a beauty queen.

Outcome: McCain loses, Alaska wins.

Steve Haycox is a professor of history at University of Alaska Anchorage.

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