In tight race, Alaska Senate candidates play to the Bush

[Blue_In_AK]

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/10/22/alaska-senate-nativesullivanbegich.html

When Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan visited Alaska’s largest rural hub city for the first time Friday, even his tour guide supported the other guy.

“All (rural voters) hear on the news is that Republicans are going to cut Medicare, the Republicans are going to get rid of Obamacare,” said Buck Bukowski of Bethel, who greeted Sullivan wearing a handlebar mustache and a sticker blaring his loyalty to incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Begich. “The Bush needs those entitlements.”

“The Bush” is the collective name Alaskans use for the small towns and remote villages outside the major population centers of Anchorage and Fairbanks. The areas offer wide-open spaces and abundant hunting, but few social services or urban conveniences, and are often only accessible by planes, boats or snowmachines.

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That Sullivan, Alaska’s Attorney General under former Gov. Sarah Palin, made his first trip to Bethel and surrounding villages over the weekend is a key step for the campaign in what has become the most expensive political race in Alaska history. Every village vote will count, and Begich has aggressively pursued rural Alaska for years. The Democrat launched a robust ground game, including three times as many field offices as his opponent across the state, to win voters face-to-face.

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The problems of rural Alaska are staggering. Villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where Sullivan also visited the communities of Hooper Bay and Aniak over the weekend, are among the poorest in the country. More Alaskans are on welfare, per capita, than in any other state. The Indian Justice Commission has labeled law enforcement services in rural Alaska the worst in the nation, with residents in one village saying they were forced to wait 14 hours for authorities to arrive by plane following a recent double-homicide.

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