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Big GOP Race In Alaska To Be Decided Tonight

By Eric Kleefeld - August 26, 2008, 6:30PM

Along with all the convention hoopla going on tonight, there's also a big primary race you should keep an eye out for: The Republican House primary in Alaska, where the result could have a huge effect on whether the Dems are able to pick up a seat in a deep-red state.

Congressman Don Young, who has represented this state for 35 years, has become involved in scandal after scandal over the last few years, giving many the feeling that his time may be up. And he's facing a tough primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who has received massive financial help from the Club For Growth.

Young's scandals could have made this easy enough for Parnell, but the Club For Growth support has given Young his own opening: The Club opposes earmarks, which Young argues are the lifeblood of Alaska, thus making the Club a special interest group whose aims are simply against Alaska's own interests.

The polls have shown a close race for the nomination, with close leads being registered in either direction.

If Young wins the primary, then national Republicans feel he would have a microscopically small chance of actually winning re-election in the general against likely Dem nominee Ethan Berkowitz. If Parnell wins, on the other hand, then the GOP would actually be somewhat favored to hold on for them -- a dynamic that has spurred the national Dems to intervene in the race in an intriguing way.

The first polls will close tonight at 12 a.m. ET.

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Hi everyone
My name is Cindy McCain. I am the wife of a POW.
I am here at the convention to introduce my husband,
the next Pow .. I mean president of the United states.
I met John not long after he was a POW, he was cheating on his wife at the time
because he had been a POW, and I just could not be prouder that he picked me.
It was a difficult time in the POW's ... I mean Johns life. You see he had to go home
to a wife who'd been badly injured in a car accident, now he had seen enough of these injuries when
he was a POW and felt it was his moral duty to divorce her. Oh sure he tried to work it out by having
sex with other women to save the marriage - but in the end it did not work because he was a POW.

I'd like to talk a little about myself and my accomplishments ....
I married a man who was a POW.

I was raised in a family with two sisters and I am an only child.
My father - who like John - the POW - cheated on and divorced his first wife,
he left me only one hundred million dollars when he died. Subsequently we have only been able to buy twelve houses,
Sadly it is not enough to keep John from feeling cooped up like a POW.
I lobby against mothers against drunk driving because I own a beer distributorship - those mothers should not threaten the
livelihood of a POW. Now you don't want to get John mad or he might call you a cunt - which he called me once in public.
Sadly it is because he was a POW, that may have been the low point of my life. But I bounced back and told people that
mother Teresa told me to adopt a child even though I just made that part up because John was a POW.
I could go on and on and on and on,
but just let me leave off tonight by saying thank you all, and thank God, that John was a POW.