We heard last week that some Alaskans \u2014 including some here in Juneau \u2014 are asking Mark Begich to launch a write-in campaign for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d like them to think bigger. We\u2019d like him to be Secretary of the Interior.<\/p>\n
Now, we know that\u2019s out of our hands to a large extent. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pick their cabinet members. Interior Secretary isn\u2019t an elected position, but we know Begich can make sure he\u2019s available and prepared for the job.<\/p>\n
If you think about it, it\u2019s a perfect job for him, and it\u2019d be good for Alaska.<\/p>\n
Now, the polls indicate Clinton is likely to win in November, but if things go the another way, we\u2019d still like to see an Alaskan \u2014 someone like Sean Parnell, perhaps \u2014 in the seat. For better or worse, however, no one is talking about Parnell. They are talking about Begich, who has shown up in stories handicapping Hillary Clinton\u2019s prospective cabinet.<\/p>\n
Right now, Lisa Murkowski is chairwoman of the Senate\u2019s energy and natural resources committee, which guides the Department of the Interior\u2019s actions. She\u2019s also chairwoman of the subcommittee that controls the department\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
Having an Alaskan in charge of the department would be a big deal \u2014 the 49th state would be in a unique position to guide its destiny at the federal level. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a big deal, especially now. In the next year, we\u2019re going to see Alaska Native tribes put land into trust for the first time. We\u2019re going to see the state face continued challenges over oil drilling, climate change, land ownership, and pretty much everything associated with the Arctic.<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t think of anyone better for the job than someone from Alaska.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s already four mainstream candidates for this year\u2019s Senate seat (alongside a host of smaller stars in that constellation). Begich would be the fifth mainstream candidate and he would run at a huge disadvantage.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the role of Interior Secretary, the opposite is true. That job has traditionally gone to someone from the West, where the federal government owns the majority of the land.<\/p>\n
The rumored frontrunner for the job, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, told Politico about a month ago that \u201cI would say it\u2019s pretty unlikely that I would take a cabinet position, to be pretty blunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s other candidates out there, including Mark Udall, the former U.S. Senator from Colorado, and David Hayes, a former Interior Department official; but an Alaskan is a better fit.<\/p>\n
Begich has the federal background, the history in Alaska, and he knows the issues that are important here. Forget the U.S. Senate: We need an Alaskan on the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We heard last week that some Alaskans \u2014 including some here in Juneau \u2014 are asking Mark Begich to launch a write-in campaign for U.S. Senate. We\u2019d like them to think bigger. We\u2019d like him to be Secretary of the Interior. Now, we know that\u2019s out of our hands to a large extent. Hillary Clinton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10415"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}