If there's one idea Ethan Berkowitz wants to plant in voters' minds by Nov. 2, it's that he's a pro-development, pro-business candidate for governor.
Meet Alaska Democrat, 2.0. Berkowitz is liberal on social issues, but when it comes to the economy and resource development, his ideas sound Republican.
Berkowitz has dubbed his campaign "Energize Alaska." He says he's got the best plan for getting the state a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope, which has been on the state's dream list for decades. He says business taxes are too high. He says a long-term plan for balancing revenue and spending is overdue. He's pushing a range of ideas: Lifetime hunting and fishing licenses for Alaskans. Ethics reform. The chance for every young Alaska child to go to preschool, for free. Much of it is under the banner of what he calls the "Alaska Ownership Stake."
The difference between him and Gov. Sean Parnell, Berkowitz says, is that he will shake things up, while the governor is sticking with the agenda set by the Sarah Palin administration.
"It's all about solutions. I'm not married to the status quo. And I'm definitely, definitely not beholden to anybody. Not party. Not Palin. Not anybody," Berkowitz said in an interview at his West Anchorage home.
Whether voters are buying in is the big question. Conservative commentator Paul Jenkins recently praised Berkowitz for his "big, business-friendly Republican ideas" then went on to say "too bad he's a Democrat."
Berkowitz, 48, represented downtown Anchorage for 10 years in the Legislature and stood out as the well-spoken minority leader for eight of them.
His most famous moment was a speech on the state House floor in 2006, a few months before the FBI investigation of corruption in the Legislature erupted into public view. The House was debating a tax credit for oil companies, and Berkowitz didn't like what he saw happening during a recess, the way lobbyists were pulling strings to get legislators to vote their way.
"This is our floor. Our floor," Berkowitz said, angrily. "No telephone call is supposed to change what we're doing. No lobbyist is supposed to peer over the railing and tell us to change our mind. It never should happen. I'm frankly dismayed about the course this debate has taken. I expect more from this Legislature."
Berkowitz has a video of that speech on his campaign Web site.
Now he's making his third run at a statewide office. Four years ago, he was the lieutenant governor candidate on the ticket headlined by former Gov. Tony Knowles. They lost to Palin and Parnell, who moved up last year when Palin abruptly resigned.
In 2008, he ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Rep. Don Young.
For this year's run, Berkowitz's supporters say he's well-versed on the issues and he's trying to appeal to voters in the vast middle.
20 YEARS OF ROOTS
Berkowitz grew up in San Francisco in a family of Democrats. His mother's parents came to the United States from the Netherlands, fleeing Hitler. His grandfather became a San Francisco-based exporter, shipping out everything from rugby shirts to semi-conductors to carrots.
He graduated from Harvard University, got a master's degree in polar studies from Cambridge and went to Hastings College of the Law.
In 1990, he moved to Alaska for the adventure of it. He worked as a law clerk and a state prosecutor, and in private practice. Six years after arriving, he won his first elected office. It was his toughest campaign to date, he says, partly because the vote counting dragged on until December. He edged Casey Sullivan by 28 votes for an open state House seat but in reality was running against an iconic Anchorage political family. Casey's older brother Dan is now Anchorage mayor and their late father, George, of Sullivan Arena fame, was mayor years earlier.
Early on, he was criticized for not having long enough Alaska roots. He says by now he should been Alaskan enough for anyone.
"I've been here 20 years. ... I've hunted. I've herded reindeer. I've fished, and I got two kids who were born here. I think I've got as many credentials as you could hope to have."
He is married to Mara Kimmel, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alaska Anchorage. They have two children.
His house is on an old homestead near West High School that he spotted knocking on doors during his first campaign. He kept the log cabin as a rental unit and built a new home with views of Westchester Lagoon, the downtown skyline and the Chugach Mountains.
Berkowitz often walks or rides his bike to his campaign headquarters, in an office building he owns at 880 H St. Chevron used to be a major tenant, and so did Green Star, the recycling and conservation nonprofit. The office building provides a big chunk of family income, almost $80,000 last year, according to Berkowitz's state financial disclosure. Not all that was profit, he said.
He owns a small interest in two eclectic Anchorage restaurants, the Spenard Roadhouse and Snow City Cafe. He also works as a part-time consultant. Last year, he helped develop a business plan for Intelligent Energy Systems, which is working on a wind energy project in the Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim region. Another firm, Kodiak Kenai Cable Co., paid him $31,000 to help it get permits and apply for federal stimulus money for an undersea fiber-optic cable project in rural Alaska.
In all, Berkowitz reported more than $200,000 last year from rental income, stock and business investments and consulting work, plus another $49,000 from his wife's teaching income, according to his financial disclosure. But once business expenses are factored in, the family's actual income was much lower, he said.
GHOST OF A TAX VOTE
In the Legislature, Berkowitz quickly rose to become the House Democrats' top leader.
"The most interesting quality about Ethan, now that I've sat in the same seat, is that Ethan was a fearless leader," said state Rep. Beth Kerttula, a Juneau Democrat who succeeded him as minority leader. "I got to watch him under a lot of pressure, and it shines through."
He worked with moderate Republicans on a number of issues, including a personal income tax proposal that he supported in 2002.
Parnell now is making a campaign issue out of that vote. In one debate, Parnell said that when he was in the Legislature "we did not reach, as a policy matter, for the tax lever." His campaign posted a recent news story about the 2002 vote on its Web site.
But former Republican legislators including Andrew Halcro of Anchorage and Jim Whitaker of Fairbanks said that the tax was a political compromise between Republicans and Democrats, an odd hybrid of an income and a sales tax at a time when oil prices were about $20 a barrel and the state was running deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The reality was something had to be done and Sean Parnell wasn't around," Halcro said. Parnell's last year in the state Senate was 2000.
"There was a need to deal with the situation, rather than ignore it," Whitaker said.
The measure passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
TAPPING ALASKA'S RICHES
Berkowitz is aggressively challenging Parnell at every turn.
The Democrat has proposed allowing natural gas pipeline investment from Alaska businesses and residents, who could buy in through their Permanent Fund dividends. The Alaska money could help finance the multibillion-dollar project, he says.
When Parnell criticized the idea, saying Alaskans shouldn't be asked to invest their PFDs "on a pipeline project without a buyer, seller, shipper, or concrete plan," Berkowitz pounced.
"That's an astounding admission," Berkowitz said in a Sept. 22 press release. "Sean Parnell has just announced to the world that (his own gasline project) is now officially a failure."
The governor shot back when Berkowitz took on the Parnell administration's gasline project in his TV ads.
"We're in historic territory with a plan that allows for a route to Valdez for (liquefied natural gas) export, and Berkowitz wants to stop and start over?" Parnell said.
This fall, Berkowitz began touting the idea of an all-Alaska pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez, while the thrust of the two projects being pursued by industry would route a pipeline into Canada. Berkowitz courted Republican Bill Walker, who surged in the summer's Republican primary by championing an all-Alaska pipeline but ultimately lost to Parnell.
Walker recently announced that he had accepted Berkowitz's invitation to head his pipeline team, if the Democrat is elected.
Alaska's oil, gas and mining industries like the gist of the campaign pledges from both sides when it comes to resources, said Mark Hylen, president of The Alliance, an industry trade group made up of about 500 companies.
"To hear both parties, both candidates, the governor and Ethan, speak so affirmatively about resource development, I think it's a great sign for the state," Hylen said.
Still, Berkowitz hasn't supported every big resource project, said House Speaker Mike Chenault, a Republican from Nikiski. Berkowitz led the Democrats in opposing then-Gov. Frank Murkowski's pipeline plan in 2006, which could have brought the long-sought project, Chenault said. Berkowitz said Democrats and many Republicans panned Murkowski's plan, which "ultimately collapsed under its own weight."
"Ethan is making a play for the business community, who is just not very happy with Parnell," Halcro said. But: "You have those that remember the campaigns or the rhetoric of the past. And ... it's diminishing his ability to kind of convert people to move to his side."
Berkowitz said he's always backed policies that generate jobs, and if people are calling him Republican-like for doing that in this campaign, he takes it as a compliment.
'WE'RE CHARGING'
Berkowitz has campaigned in almost every hub community, from Nome to Fairbanks, Barrow to Kotzebue, Kodiak to Ketchikan.
In his campaign office, he sits at a small round table strewn with papers and works his campaign cell phone.
"I need some help," he tells one potential donor. The person on the other end mentioned that Berkowitz is lagging in the polls. "What are you talking about?" Berkowitz responded. "We're within single digits and moving! We're charging!"
Most independent polls haven't had Berkowitz within striking range. But polls are often wrong. The Daily Kos, a national political blog with a liberal bent, did a poll Oct. 9-10 that put Berkowitz within nine percentage points of Parnell. And among women voters, he was just two points back.
While most Alaska voters aren't registered with any political party, Republicans far outnumber Democrats, and far more Alaskans consider themselves conservative than liberal. Democrats usually don't win statewide office unless something odd happens: a split conservative vote, a criminal conviction, a crackpot opposition candidate.
Berkowitz says something odd is happening this year, too: the wild U.S. Senate race.
"Scott McAdams is energizing the Democratic base. That helps me," Berkowitz said. "Lisa Murkowski is working hard to get rural Alaska enthused and out voting. That helps me. And every time Sean Parnell hugs Joe Miller, that drives the Murkowski supporters in my direction."
WORKING THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
At the South Anchorage Rotary Club earlier this month, Berkowitz made his pitch to a crowd of community and business leaders.
"If we continue on the path that we're on, we're going to get in real trouble in a real hurry," Berkowitz told the Rotary audience over the tinkling of forks. "What we can do to encourage more resource development or even the expansion of business is in jeopardy until we have a state fiscal system that's in order. And none of this has come to pass."
The Parnell administration, he said, is complacent and out of touch.
Audience members pressed Berkowitz hard for specifics, questioned whether he intends to expand government and expressed skepticism on how he would pay for it all.
Don't environmentalists often use government permitting requirements to slow or stop the big projects Alaska needs? What would he do about that? one man asked.
"I think you make sure you have a process that's not subject to that kind of manipulation," Berkowitz answered.
A couple of people said in unison: How do you do that?
People laughed. Berkowitz shrugged. There was an awkward pause. "You want me to answer that question?" The Rotarians did.
"You put a finite time limit on these things. ... You make sure there's one person or one agency that's charged with ... leading a permit applicant through the process so you don't get jumped at the last minute by new requirements. You need to have someone who's willing to advocate, within the state government, for a project."
Berkowitz was getting wound up.
"If you think that Sean Parnell is solving those problems, then you vote for him. OK Ed, you vote for him," Berkowitz said, looking at philanthropist Ed Rasmuson, a former banker who had been mentioned as a possible Republican candidate this year.
"Don't look at me," Rasmuson answered.
The crowd busted up laughing.
Berkowitz told the crowd he'll listen and be open minded.
"The thing that I fear more than anything else," he said, "is Alaska stagnating, Alaska being mediocre, Alaska doing nothing while the rest of the world is moving ahead."
Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.
By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com