Ethics Flap Creates Whiff of Trouble for Alaska Rep. Young — and Dems Follow Scent

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Ethics Flap Creates Whiff of Trouble for Alaska Rep. Young — and Dems Follow Scent
By Rachel Kapochunas | 6:24 PM; Sep. 20, 2007


Candidates are lining up for the 2008 contest to take on Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, whose current brush with ethics controversy is producing an unusually strong challenge to the political dominance he has enjoyed over more than three decades in the state’s sole House seat.

Young — who has been in Congress since winning a March 1973 special election — has denied wrongdoing and has not been officially accused of anything. But a series of news reports about his ties to Alaska corporate interests and his campaign fundraising methods has Democrats viewing him as unusually vulnerable for next year’s election.

Attorney Jake Metcalfe, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party, and 2006 nominee Diane Benson, a little-known candidate who nonetheless held Young to an unusually low 57 percent of the vote, have already announced their 2008 candidacies. And they may soon be joined by additional, and even more prominent, competitors.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/09/ethics_flap_creates_whiff_of_t.html