Young's Gotten Old

Julian Sanchez | September 23, 2005

Having been dubbed the "biggest, oinkiest jerk in Congress," Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) is now apparently hated by conservatives and hated by liberals. Now, 17-term incumbents who bring home massive amounts of federal booty aren't typically considered "vulnerable"—since his first few wins, Young has snagged a series of huge landslides—but given that he seems to be unpopular with pretty much everybody, maybe to the point where he'll start embarassing his constitutents, is there at least a chance he'll have to start watching his back? He crushed his last opponent by some 50 percentage points, but there's also little incentive to run a credible challenger until there's blood in the water. I'm not exactly holding my breath here, but a guy can dream, can't he?

Comments

Bob|9.23.05 @ 3:15PM|#

It hasn't worked in West Virginia.

|9.23.05 @ 3:17PM|#

Liberals hate him?

Conservatives hate him?

So who in congress keeps approving his spending projects?

|9.23.05 @ 3:19PM|#

Yawn. Now that Shrub is safely tucked away in a second term, the dittoheads are out and about, pretending they have principles. The sorry bootlicks are self consciously rehabilitating. They have finally realized they've said nothing of principle, and little of meaning, for the last several years, and are trying to adapt to an increasing demand for "making sense."

Too little, too late, bitch.

|9.23.05 @ 3:20PM|#

By the way, I was referring to Malkin there, in case anyone was wondering.

|9.23.05 @ 3:22PM|#

I saw that dude on TV and his Captain Ahab facial hair tells me he thinks he's totally invulnerable. Face hair has been pretty much totally verboten in US politics since, when, the 1920s? (Recall John Bolton's problems were at times blamed on his child molester moustache).

Anyway, he seemed like a MAJOR LEAGUE butthole. Totally arrogant and pissed that someone would even question Alaska's entitlement to billions of pork.

|9.23.05 @ 3:34PM|#

Although, yeah, he seems to have been picked as the designated scapegoat for the cesspool the republican party has become. I guess they want him to catch the poo that they all should be getting.

|9.23.05 @ 3:34PM|#

"So who in congress keeps approving his spending projects?"

Yet another great reason why there oughta be a law limiting individual bills to one single issue. They keep approving his spending projects because they're tucked securely away with everyone else's spending projects, in one of those "marinated-in-bacon-drippings" omnibus spending bills. So if they didn't vote for the huge transportation spending bill, then they also lose their own pork. Omnibuses should be illegal. Riders should be illegal. And every congressman should be required by law to read every word of every bill before they vote on it. Hell, we should give them a pop-quiz too, just to make sure.

|9.23.05 @ 3:49PM|#

Sanchez,

I'll give you 100-1 odds that if he decides to run again, Rep. Young will cruise to victory.

you know where to find me.

|9.23.05 @ 3:58PM|#

Why don't you all just kiss me?

KipEsquire|9.23.05 @ 4:14PM|#

Don't forget Ted Stevens in the Senate, another tax-and-spend Republican and President Pro Tem of the Senate -- he's just as bad if not worse than Young.

|9.23.05 @ 4:14PM|#

Our system looks like it looks because people like being bought off. The idea that there could ever be too much pork going back home is grade A libertarian fantasy.

Larry Horse|9.23.05 @ 4:22PM|#

You can't help but wonder if we might be better off if we just spun off Alaska. I mean, the only reasons I can think of for keeping it are mercantilistic at best.

|9.23.05 @ 4:47PM|#

Nothing we would like better than to be spun off. We can take over the 60% of Alaska now owned and controlled by the federal government, allow oil development and mining freed from federal regulation, and be way richer than we are relying on the tidbits from Ted and Don.

|9.23.05 @ 4:59PM|#

AK Mike,

Not only won't that happen, but even if it did you could kiss your PFD goodbye as it's spent defending your "state" from Russia and China. And even then it won't be enough; you'll have to borrow.

|9.23.05 @ 5:17PM|#

You know, I'm starting to think that the sad state of politics today can be traced directly to tarring and feathering falling out of style.

|9.23.05 @ 5:42PM|#

Sage, you're dead wrong about cost. The US will pay us to let them keep some of their bases here to keep track of over-the pole traffic between Europe and Asia, and to watch over Siberia. It's not going to let a big source of petroleum get attacked by an aggressive power (doesn't this ring a bell?).

You know, the thought of being spun off is making me salivate. No more federal income tax or FICA! We can ship stuff to the US on cheaper foreign bottoms. Our PFD will multiply. We can get more room here in Anchorage for housing by taking it from Fort Richardson or Elmendorf Air Force Base without needing that "bridge to nowhere." We can start developing all those gold, copper, coal, etc. deposits now locked up in national parks, preserves, forests, refuges, etc. Offshore drilling! ANWR! It would be great.

Of course you are right that the feds would never let it happen. Best we can do is get a few crummy bridges and bus stations.

|9.23.05 @ 6:02PM|#

You can't help but wonder if we might be better off if we just spun off Alaska. I mean, the only reasons I can think of for keeping it are mercantilistic at best.

Can't we just sell it back to the Russians?

|9.23.05 @ 8:31PM|#

Must be kinda sad to be someone like the Independent Worm. His comments are just hate speech. Pointless opinions that add nothing.

|9.24.05 @ 10:06PM|#

You know, the thought of being spun off is making me salivate

Speaking of that, how much are you willing to pay to import food? Medicine? Technology? AK may have oil but besides the fisheries very little agriculture comes from there. A free Alaska would depend on NAFTA to survive.

|9.24.05 @ 10:16PM|#

Replace a drunken R sailor on a spender with one of the D variety? not likely.

|9.25.05 @ 1:55AM|#

AK may have oil but besides the fisheries very little agriculture comes from there. A free Alaska would depend on NAFTA to survive

All it would have to do would be to get rid of the tariffs the US currently puts on imported food, and then buy its food from Africa or South America. It doesn't need to buy food from the USA.

|9.25.05 @ 8:48AM|#

Several parts of SE Alaska had farms on them, back before cheap oil and before Region 10 USFS. That was back when the climate was cooler here, as well. No, dump the National Forests and SE Alaska would grow enough food to be self sufficient, especially once we are out from under the thumbs of the big city Condo-Conservationists.

Why do Young and Stevens keep getting re-elected? Because the only people running against them are left wing twinkies.

|9.25.05 @ 10:25AM|#

I'd be fine with spinning off Alaska. It's a net budgetary liability and in the post-Cold War era I think we can manage without those bases.

I'm actually in no hurry to spin off Texas: Despite how awful LBJ and GWB have been, it's not fair to judge such a unique place solely by the Presidents that come from there. After all, those two disgraces would have gotten nowhere without votes from elsewhere in the US.

California should secede for its own good, but now that I no longer live there I'm terrified of the loss to our economy and the permanent GOP monopoly that would ensue.

I've lived in South Carolina, and the place is such an embarassment that we should take it to a pawn shop and sell it to the first interested party that comes along. Anything to get rid of it.

50 states is a few too many.

|9.25.05 @ 11:12AM|#

cdunlea - Think about your comment. We already have to pay to bring up food, medicine, cars, and all the things that stock our Costcos. The federal government doesn't provide that for us.

If we were independent, all that would be cheaper and we could afford more, because: (a) no tariffs or import quotas on imported goods from non-US countries (b) ability to use cheaper non-US built shipping to get the stuff here.

We don't have to raise our own food. Many wealthy countries around the world rely on imported food. Food is cheap - oil is not.

Larry Horse|9.25.05 @ 7:09PM|#

AK Mike, all the more reason to spin off the state. Assuming that Alaska would set up a tariff-free regime because of lack of self-sufficiency, they would potentially serve as an example to the rest of America of the silliness of quotas and tariffs so that the rest of the country might one day follow suit.

Not that it would ever happen, but I'm just saying.

|9.25.05 @ 9:06PM|#

AK may have oil but besides the fisheries very little agriculture comes from there.

Evidently my impression that Alaska creates rather large quantities of interstate commerce was mistaken.

|9.26.05 @ 2:11AM|#

Yet another great reason why there oughta be a law limiting individual bills to one single issue.


Evan, you sorely underestimate the intellectual capacity of an elected politician. Whatever law you pass, they will find a way around.

There is no law that can stop a determined asshole from being exactly what he/she is.


I said on another thread that our democracy badly needs rebooting, because you aren't going to "fix" it with any legislation. And I know the reboot button is not in the voting booths.

I was just thinking "now where could that reboot button be?", when I came across this:

You know, I'm starting to think that the sad state of politics today can be traced directly to tarring and feathering falling out of style.

This might be a great big clue. Because the politicians do believe they are immune to any personal consequences.

What we need are not laws (which can only make it possible to feed more lawyers). What we need are good old fashioned consequences. Tar, feathers, whatever, as long as it gets the message across.

I may be able to vote, yet I swear I am taxed without representation.