Days of Change

Alaskan Bush People

Sarah Palin “lost” a contest for the single House seat in Alaska yesterday. I put lost in quotations because there are too many factors involved to leave it at that. MSNBC was wetting themselves over it because Sarah Palin was Donald Trump before Donald Trump. Here’s a few reasons to take the results with a grain of salt.

• The “winner” gets the right to serve for four months. This was a special election and most of the same candidates will have a do-over in November. The results could change, but they might not due to the next issue.
• Ranked choice voting is a fake runoff. While I support actual runoff elections, the fast food version of runoffs puts the voter in a “sour grapes” mode where they choose the next rank based on the assumption their candidate lost without knowing the actual alternative. In the case, however, it probably had more to do with the next issue.
• Alaskans are Bush people. Alaska is a very Republican state and that means mainstream Republican affiliation. When Palin was rooting out corrupt Republicans, she was doing the state and the party good. Being a Trump supporter is less endearing. This leads me to my last point.
• The Republican split is moving the voting public in the GOP’s direction, but a three-way split will hand over elections to Democrats. Aside from the actual cheating, Democrats are making use of their probably-should-be-illegal tactics to manufacture consent.