Why I'm voting for Bob Lyons in the Alaska Special Election

​I’ve had entirely enough of career politicians. It would be a simple thing to segue from that statement into a discussion of term limits, which I heartily support at both the state and national levels, but that’s not the purpose of this missive. Instead, I want to explain why I’m voting for Bob Lyons in the upcoming special election for the Congressional seat left vacant when Don Young passed away. Now if he wasn’t an example of a career politician, then I guess I don’t know what one looks like. 

There are currently forty-eight (!) individuals vying for Young’s former seat, and I only recognized a few of their names when my mail-in ballot arrived. (Mail-in balloting needs to be eradicated nationwide, by the way.) I glanced through the list of names and immediately discarded all Democrats. I’m currently reading The Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and am nearly finished with the second of its three volumes. If you haven’t read it, you should. And if you believe Marxism, Socialism and Communism are the way to Utopia, then you really should read it. Since the current Democrat party is so enamored with these incestuous, destructive and murderous ideologies, and since I’m so diametrically opposed to them, then, mirabile dictu, I simply can’t vote for anyone affiliated with the donkey party.

So who does that leave? Why independents (on the ballot they're marked as "Undeclared" and "Nonpartisan") and Republicans, of course. I haven’t voted for a Democrat in any election since the Clinton administration. (Back then I was largely undecided in my political opinions and voted based on criteria I’d rather not reveal; I’m slightly ashamed of my one-time ignorance and less-than-logically-sound former voting methodology.) Information on all forty-eight candidates was not provided with the ballot. Which is as it should be. If one is going to cast a ballot in an election in the United States of America, then it is incumbent upon that individual to educate themselves concerning the candidates and issues. And that’s exactly what I set out to do. 

The State of Alaska’s Division of Elections features a Candidate page where one can find contact information for each person running for office. It also displays a link to a website, should a candidate choose to create one for their campaign. This is where I started my research. Many candidates did not have a website listed, and I simply skipped over those. Everyone has a website these days, even me. If you’re going to run for the lone seat in the US House of Representatives from the state of Alaska, and you can’t be bothered to create a website describing yourself and where you stand on the issues, then I can’t be bothered to vote for you. And sorry, but I’d rather not devote any more of my time and energy to Facebook or Twitter, for reasons those who agree with me politically will, I’m sure, understand. So if you’re a candidate with a presence on either of those platforms but who doesn’t have a website, I’m probably not going to find you. Nor will I go looking for you on either of them.

I spent probably an hour looking at websites of candidates whose party affiliations were not Democrats, and eventually whittled it down to three. Instead of making a decision right then, I went to bed and looked at those three candidates again the following day, then made my decision. The person I will be voting for is Robert “Bob” Lyons. Now let me tell you why.

He’s like me – a political outsider. I have no friends in politics, no connections, no influence. And that is the kind of person I want representing me. I’ve had my fill of the establishment, of career politicians who know nothing more than the ways of the swamp, be it in Washington D.C. or Juneau. These people have been in office for years, in some cases decades, and has anything gotten better under their stewardship? Bob Lyons, according to his website, operated trucks and equipment. So have I. His father was in the service. So was mine. He built his cabin, where he still lives, by hand. I can’t do that, but I admire those who can. Our opinions on issues are also very similar. But what I really liked about him were the pictures of he and his family that he posted on his website. He’s not afraid to show himself having fun, smiling on an amusement park ride, or making a funny face and giving a thumbs up in front of a Trump sticker pasted on some vehicle. That’s the kind of representative I want – one who has opinions that align with mine on the issues, which Bob’s appear to do, but who also doesn’t take him or herself too seriously. Too many politicians are more concerned with the optics of things, how they are going to appear to the public. ‘Oh no! My tie is crooked and has a spot on it! What will my polls look like in the morning?!’  Bob seems to be more interested in showing the voting public who he is instead of who he thinks they want him to be, and I respect that. 

I’ve never met Bob Lyons, had no idea the man even existed until a couple days ago. It’s also possible that my conjectures about him are completely wrong. But I don’t think they are. At least, my gut tells me they aren’t. I really did look at several candidates' websites, and there were a few whom I could have voted for and been content, but I went with my gut as I always do. So when it comes time to cast my ballot for the person to replace Don Young, I’ll be casting mine for Bob Lyons. 
 
Mark Sowers
May 10, 2022
Wasilla AK