Anchorage Daily News profiles of Frank Murkowski and Fran Ulmer Page 1 2002 Alaska Governor’s Race Murkowski has fought long, hard a governor who will take them on." Murkowski said he feels an obligation to return to battle for Alaska Alaska to, as he puts it, get the state's economy moving By Liz Ruskin Anchorage Daily News (Published: again. October 27, 2002) Some of his critics say he can best help the state by staying put. But when he announced his candidacy last Washington -- Frank Murkowski is no stranger to year, Murkowski revealed he doesn't see a bright future success and good fortune. for himself in the Senate. The son of a Ketchikan banker, he grew up to He was forced out of his chairmanship of the become a banker himself and rose steadily through the powerful Senate Energy Committee when the executive ranks. Democrats took the Senate last year. Even if At 32, he became the youngest member of Gov. Republicans win back the Senate, Murkowski said, he Wally Hickel's cabinet. would have to wait at least eight years before he could He has been married for 48 years, has six grown take command of another committee. children and is, according to his annual financial "My point is, in my particular sequence of disclosures, a very wealthy man. seniority, I have no other committee that I can look He breezed through three re-elections. forward to the chairmanship (of) for some time," he But in the Senate, his road hasn't always been so said at the time. smooth. He is seen in Washington as an unyielding LIKES A GOOD JOKE champion of Alaska resource extraction -- "ferociously Murkowski's record in recent years has earned him pro-development," as Time magazine put it -- whose perfect scores from the National Right to Life greatest political assets are persistence and force of Committee, the Christian Coalition, the American will. Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association. "Little comes easily for him, in part because he He has earned perfect zeroes from Planned often is unwilling to change positions," reads part of the Parenthood, the League of Conservation Voters and the entry on him in the Politics in America almanac. Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. When asked about his Senate accomplishments, Though he is best known for pushing for oil Murkowski turns to an aide who hands out a 12-page development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge list. and other state issues, he has also been one of the "Won repeal of the North Slope oil export ban," Senate's most prominent advocates of storing the reads one item. nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev., "Won additional Medicaid health care aid for making him a hero to the nuclear power industry. Alaska ($200 million over five years) by winning key "I think nuclear energy has a place in assisting the formula change." environment in air quality," he said in an interview. "Helped encourage Federal Express to locate and He inherited the responsibility once he became expand at Ted Stevens Anchorage International chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. Airport." "It just goes with the committee," he said. "I had no Of course, it's Alaska's other senator for whom that constituency in it." airport is named. By virtue of his seniority and He has amassed large campaign treasuries for his committee assignment, Stevens has been able to send re-elections, thanks largely to contributions from the oil billions of dollars back home. That has tended to industry and other energy sectors. overshadow Murkowski's Senate career. On Capitol Hill, Murkowski is congenial, friendly Alaska Congressman Don Young says the federal with his colleagues and likely to include a little joke or money flowing to the state is testimony to Murkowski's self-effacing anecdote to lighten his oratories. greatness as a team member. When he finds a line he likes, he sticks with it. "Sen. Stevens gets great credit for it. And he "You and I do not move in an out of Washington, should. But you can't do that without the cooperation D.C., on hot air, although occasionally there is quite a and working with Sen. Murkowski." Young said. bit of it here," he often said in arguing for more oil "That's something people don't quite understand." development. Both Stevens, who has had his differences with A search of the Congressional Record shows he Murkowski over the years, and Young want Murkowski has repeated the "hot air" quip 15 times from the floor elected governor so they can continue the struggle that of the Senate in the past year and many more times in has marked all of their tenures: beating back the press conferences and hearings. environmentalists to further develop Alaska's economy. Despite his generally affable presentation, he can "Frank is willing to take them on, as we have become imperious when aggravated. He occasionally here," Stevens said. "We have taken them on. We need criticizes his staff in front of other people, though in a ADN.02-10-27.wpd Anchorage Daily News profiles of Frank Murkowski and Fran Ulmer Page 2 2002 Alaska Governor’s Race tone just light enough to suggest he might be joking. certain he wanted to go back into banking, and with the "On a one-to-one basis he's highly personable," holidays approaching, it wasn't a great time to be says former Alaska attorney general Charlie Cole, who looking for a job. has known Murkowski for 25 years. He and Nancy piled all six kids into a Volkswagen bus and drove to Mexico. JUMPING INTO POLITICS "I remember we had a football and a hibachi and Frank Hughes Murkowski was born in Seattle in we just kept driving," he told a reporter years later. 1933. Nine years later, he and his parents moved to If he was rudderless in that moment, it wasn't for Ketchikan, where his father became executive vice long. president of First National Bank of Ketchikan. Within months he was named president of the A tall boy, he played basketball in high school and Alaska National Bank of the North in Fairbanks. then went off to college in California. There he became better acquainted with Nancy Gore, who was a year BACK INTO POLITICS ahead of him in Ketchikan High School. Murkowski stayed with the bank for nine years They married in 1954, while he was earning an before he tried politics again. In 1980, he took on U.S. economics degree from Seattle University, and soon Sen. Mike Gravel. started a family. They had six children: Carol, Lisa, At least he thought that's whom he was taking on. Michael, Mary, Eileen and Brian. Gravel, as it happened, was knocked out in the His first big break in politics came with a phone Democratic primary. call in 1966. He had just climbed up a rung at the So instead of confronting a 12-year incumbent, National Bank of Alaska, leaving a job as Wrangell Murkowski faced Clark Gruening, grandson of former branch manager to become a vice president in Alaska Sen. Ernest Gruening. Anchorage. Wally Hickel, the new governor, asked him "Clark had tremendous name identification, but to be commissioner of economic development for the what I did have was an association having lived in young state. many areas of Alaska, and that made a big difference," Hickel said he didn't know Murkowski well at the Murkowski said recently. time but was predisposed to liking him. The race was described in the press as a contest As Hickel tells it, Hickel had gone to Ketchikan a between two nice guys who were slow to start slugging. dozen years earlier when he was campaigning for a spot One day in late September, Murkowski was primed on the Republican National Committee. The morning to take the gloves off. According to the press release he after a speech to the townsfolk, a grandfatherly issued in advance, he intended to call Gruening a liberal gentleman came to his door. and a die-hard environmentalist in a speech to the Eagle "Young man, I liked what you had to say," the River Rotary Club. older fellow said. It was Lester Gore, a territorial judge He didn't quite get around to it. and Murkowski's future father-in-law, come to lend a "Did I purposely skip the part where I was going to hand. call him an extreme environmentalist? " Murkowski "We went up one side of town and down the other, pondered when a reporter approached him after the and he introduced me to everybody," Hickel said, speech. "No, I don't think so. I just hate to read noting that he won Ketchikan in every election speeches, and I guess I just got away from the text in thereafter. that part and forgot to get back to it." Hickel hadn't forgotten that kindness when he met Neither candidate seemed to be setting the Frank Murkowski during Hickel's first run for governor. electorate ablaze. "He was a young, bright guy. I figured he was Gravel had been a showman, capturing the Senate going places," Hickel said. "And the fact that he spotlight with what his critics said were publicity married a Gore girl, that really impressed me." stunts. Hickel describes Murkowski as a straightforward But Murkowski, wrote then-Daily News columnist fellow who shares Hickel's belief that the governor of John Greely, "seemed to be going after votes with all Alaska is the "foreman of the ranch," the manager of the vigor of a teller asking for I.D.