ANCHORAGE — Steve Lindbeck and Don Young barely took any time to celebrate easy primary victories Tuesday night before sharpening their message in the U.S. House race for the general election.
Lindbeck, a 61-year-old Democrat, cast Young and his 43 years in the chamber as emblematic of a do-nothing Congress. Young painted Lindbeck as someone who would side with Washington interests who want to “lock away” Alaska’s resources.
Young is the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House, but Lindbeck says it’s time for new leadership, not a 23rd term for Young.
“It’s a pretty broadly held view that Congress is broken, and he has been there a long time, and perhaps too long,” Lindbeck told The Associated Press after winning the primary.
“It’s also true that a lot of people feel like he has sort of left Alaska behind and that he’s working for special interests and for contributors, and so on, and that he’s not so closely in touch with Alaska as he used to be,” he said.
Young traditionally spends primary night at his home in Fort Yukon, above the Arctic Circle. In a prepared statement, he said Alaskans have a clear choice in the general election. Young said they could vote for him, who has “a proven record of standing up for Alaska.”
The other choice, Young said, is to vote for “a candidate who believes in big government policies and ‘Washington-knows-best’ solutions, someone who will support the very people working to lock away Alaska’s land and critical resources, someone with little to no ability to fight for our future in the face of an oppressive regulatory agenda that continues to jeopardize our state’s already sensitive economy.”
Democrat Tatiana Samuelson, 71, cast her ballot Lindbeck when she voted at Saint Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral in East Anchorage.
“I seem to see his name more often in the papers, seeing his name, doing things for the state of Alaska,” she said of the former newspaper editor and chief executive of Alaska Public Media.
Voting at Kincaid Elementary School in southwest Anchorage, Nancy Shefelbine and Gabriele Peterson chose Young.
Shefelbine called him a “known quantity.” Peterson said power comes with experience, and no one has more.
“He has been there the longest, he has performed for us, even though he’s a little strange sometimes, he gets the job done, and I am very disappointed with the Democrats and the way they run our government so far,” Peterson said.
But it doesn’t mean Young doesn’t have his distractors.
Anchorage voter Phil Cannon, who is registered as an independent, voted against Young, saying it’s time for him to go.
Another Anchorage resident, Republican Ken Owens, said there were no House candidates he wanted to vote for, so he didn’t vote for anyone in that race. Owens believes Young’s effective days are long behind him.
“He should have retired 20 years ago, gracefully,” Owens said.
Independent voter Dennis Bromley chose Lindbeck. He’s tired of gridlock in both Washington, D.C., and Juneau when decisions must be made, he said.
“Both sides need to come to grips with this, but I have a feeling that the Republicans have been stonewalling and have been against a lot of the positions that Obama has taken, be they good, bad or indifferent. But we have to move ahead.”
Young’s Republican primary challengers were little-known candidates Stephen Wright, Gerald Heikes and Jesse “Messy” Tingley.
The other Democrats running were William “Bill” Hibler and Lynette “Moreno” Hinz.
Libertarian Jim McDermott beat Jon Watts to advance to the general election.
