During a debate this week in the Alaska House race in which Rep. Mary Peltola (D) is running for a full term of two years against challengers including Trump-backed Republican Sarah Palin, the longtime public menace who was also on the GOP presidential ticket in 2008 — which Trump mentioned in an endorsement message — was rhetorically all over the place.
Asked about responding to a future pandemic, Palin undercut the seriousness of the pandemic the U.S. and world have already been facing. “We make sure that Fauci is not head of the CDC,” Palin said, discussing her ideas. “We depoliticize the agency that did play politics. The whole COVID crisis was more about control than it was actually about a virus.” Tell that to the untold numbers of families whose loved ones are dead from a very real virus. Palin also remarked nonsensically about former President Barack Obama — who, of course, hasn’t been in office for over five years but who Palin and John McCain faced back in 2008. “You know, Barack Obama is still calling a lot of these shots,” Palin said. “Remember he promised to fundamentally transform America, so if a bill came over that represented anything that he’s representing — no, absolutely not would I work on it.”
There is no conspiracy in which Obama is actually pulling the policy strings of the Democratic Party. Besides, what’s so terrible that he is even representing? Democracy? Preserving the American system of government has been among the former president’s concerns he’s recently expressed. During the debate, Peltola — who won a special election earlier this year to serve for what remained of the last term of the late Rep. Don Young (R) — sounded stabler than Palin. “The fact that across America people can go on television and radio and print media and online and tell lies and there are no repercussions, I think that being able to broadcast lies has really caused a lot of division on things that should be an open and shut case,” Peltola remarked at one juncture. She also expressed support for bipartisan cooperation: “This is the most important thing we can do, as a sitting legislator, is work to heal the divisions in our country, and it starts with me and any relationship that I can build with anyone who is interested in helping Alaska and helping our country.”
During her closing statement, Peltola spoke about the work she has already put in while representing Alaska in the House. “I’ll continue to make sure you’re getting the federal help that you need,” she said. Peltola is a former state legislator. In the election, Alaska voters can rank multiple candidates, and the candidate with the lowest total of first-place selections is eliminated, with their supporters’ ballots reallocated until someone passes 50 percent, assuming nobody reached that level of support in the first round. Polling suggests Peltola is in a good position.
Congresswoman Mary Peltola provides her closing statement for tonight's debate pic.twitter.com/QWcHO1Wo1E
— Alaska's News Source (@AKNewsNow) October 27, 2022
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
