By Paul A. Bauer, Jr.
Alaskans are being asked to choose our next governor, but after watching this election unfold, I am left with a basic concern: Have voters actually been given enough opportunity to determine who is prepared to govern?
We have seen candidate forums, introductions, short answers and carefully managed appearances. What we have largely not seen are genuine debates where the leading candidates challenge one another’s assumptions, defend their records, explain their differences and demonstrate how they respond under pressure.
When several experienced and credible candidates occupy broadly similar political territory, a forum can actually make the decision harder. Candidates receive a question, give their allotted answer and move on. Everybody can sound competent for 60 or 90 seconds.
A debate is different.
A debate exposes differences in judgment. It allows follow-up questions. Candidates must defend their numbers, challenge each other’s plans and explain why their approach is better. Leadership becomes visible when a candidate cannot simply move on to the next prepared answer.
This year, it has been remarkably difficult to distinguish among several of Alaska’s top gubernatorial candidates. So rather than asking simply, Who do I like? or Who has the right endorsement?, Alaskans should ask a much tougher question: Who is actually capable of being Alaska’s chief executive?
Qualities of a Capable Governor
I believe there are at least 14 qualities we should be examining:
- A clear vision for Alaska: A governor should be able to describe what Alaska will look like 10 or 20 years from now. Jobs, population, infrastructure, resource development, healthcare, education and energy should fit into a coherent strategy.
- Executive leadership experience: The governor manages an enormous organization. Alaskans should examine whether candidates have actually managed people, budgets, operations, crises and difficult personnel decisions. Legislative experience is valuable but debating legislation and administering the executive branch are different skills.
- Economic development: The next governor should spend far more time talking about how Alaska creates wealth. Oil and gas remain important, but our opportunity extends to mining, fisheries, tourism, aviation, cargo logistics, military investment, agriculture, technology, data infrastructure and industries we have not yet fully developed. Government cannot simply redistribute Alaska’s existing economic pie. We need to make the pie larger.
- Reverse population loss and outmigration: One of the most important measurements of Alaska’s health is whether people want to remain here. Why are young Alaskans leaving? Why are skilled workers difficult to recruit? Why should a family choose Alaska instead of Idaho, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona or another growing state? The next governor should have an answer.
- Fiscal discipline: Alaska needs fiscal restraint, but fiscal discipline is more sophisticated than cutting everything by an arbitrary percentage. A governor must distinguish among waste, essential services and investments that generate economic returns. The Permanent Fund, PFD, state spending and development of new revenue-producing industries must all be considered together.
- Responsible resource development: Alaska possesses extraordinary natural resources. The governor should view those resources as an economic and strategic advantage while ensuring projects are economically sound, environmentally responsible and capable of surviving regulatory and legal challenges. Development that never reaches construction does not employ Alaskans.
- Healthcare and senior care: Healthcare is rapidly becoming one of Alaska’s defining economic and quality-of-life issues. Provider shortages, high costs, senior care, assisted living, rural access, home-based services and healthcare workforce recruitment require serious executive attention. Our aging population makes this even more urgent.
- Public safety and functioning government: Alaskans expect government to perform its most basic responsibilities. That means effective law enforcement, prosecutors, corrections, emergency preparedness and systems capable of dealing with repeat offenders and behavioral-health challenges. Public safety cannot become another government program measured only by how much money is spent.
- Education accountability: Alaska’s education debate too often begins and ends with funding. Funding matters. Outcomes matter more. What are taxpayers receiving for additional education dollars? Reading proficiency, mathematics, graduation rates, vocational education, teacher retention and preparation for employment should be part of every serious discussion.
- Ability to work with people who disagree: No governor gets everything he or she wants. The Legislature will contain competing personalities, regions, parties and philosophies. Our governor needs firm principles but must also know how to negotiate, build coalitions and move legislation without surrendering those principles.
- The ability to build a strong cabinet: This may be one of the most overlooked responsibilities of a governor. The governor does not personally operate every department. Commissioners and senior administrators do. A strong governor recruits exceptional people, establishes measurable expectations and replaces officials who consistently fail to produce results.
- Courage to challenge entrenched systems: Alaska has no shortage of programs, agencies and processes that continue because “that’s how we’ve always done it.” The next governor should be willing to reorganize government, modernize technology, improve procurement, eliminate obsolete programs and challenge bureaucratic and political interests when performance demands it.
- Integrity and personal discipline: Character matters. How does a candidate handle money, employees, criticism, political pressure and personal relationships? Campaign promises are easy. The real test comes when the governor must make an unpopular decision without cameras in the room.
- A genuinely statewide perspective: Alaska cannot be governed as Anchorage versus rural Alaska, Southeast versus Southcentral, or Republican versus Democrat. A governor must understand Anchorage, Mat-Su, Fairbanks, Kenai, Southeast, the North Slope and rural Alaska. The geography, economies, and challenges are different. The governor has to represent all of them.
Five questions every gubernatorial candidate should answer
If I were moderating a real gubernatorial debate, I would ask every leading candidate these five questions and insist on specific answers:
1. At the end of your four-year term, what five measurable things will be better in Alaska because you were governor?
Not aspirations. Not talking points. Measurable results.
2. Name three state programs, policies or practices you would eliminate or fundamentally restructure.
Every candidate says government can operate better. Tell us specifically where.
3. What new industries, employers or major projects will you personally work to bring to Alaska?
Economic development requires more than issuing permits. A governor should be Alaska’s chief economic-development advocate.
4. How will you reverse Alaska’s long-running outmigration and convince young Alaskans to build their futures here?
A state that continually exports its children and workforce has a long-term problem no budget maneuver can solve.
5. Who are the strongest people you would recruit to run Alaska’s major departments, and are you prepared to dismiss commissioners who fail to produce results?
Personnel is policy. Leadership means accountability.
These questions could have produced the distinctions Alaska voters needed. Instead, too much of the gubernatorial campaigning has consisted of forums where candidates appeared beside one another but rarely had to challenge one another. That is unfortunate because there are serious candidates in this race.
Precisely because several candidates have credible resumes, voters needed genuine debates more than ever. We needed candidates questioning candidates. We needed follow-ups. We needed disagreements. We needed candidates defending their records and explaining specifically how their administration would differ from the person standing beside them.
The next governor will face difficult decisions involving the Permanent Fund, energy, spending, public safety, healthcare, education, infrastructure, workforce shortages and economic development. That office requires considerably more than winning an election.
Which brings me to what I believe should be the central test for Alaska voters: Don’t elect someone merely to be Governor of Alaska. Elect someone capable of being Alaska’s chief executive, economic-development advocate and long-range strategist.
That distinction matters.
Alaska does not lack resources.
We do not lack opportunity.
And we certainly do not lack opinions.
What Alaska needs is executive leadership capable of turning those advantages into jobs, investment, affordable energy, effective government and a reason for the next generation of Alaskans to stay. Before casting our votes, we should expect every candidate asking to become governor to demonstrate how he or she intends to accomplish exactly that.
Paul A Bauer Jr; is running as a non-partisan with conservative principles and values for State House in his District 20 – UMED area, is a 22 yr US Army Veteran, Commandant of the Alaska Military Youth Academy, former Anchorage Assembly Member, and USDOL Transition Assistant Facilitator and currently operates his business on public integrity strategies. This op-ed is not a campaign message.
