Watching so many of the Republican candidates now pledging to rename Mt. Denali after William McKinley should they be elected has got me wondering - could this potentially put Alaska in play in the general election.
I gather that the vast majority of Alaskans approved of President Obama returning Denali as the name of the mountain. Maybe Republicans figure Alaska is so red it doesn’t matter what happens there. Maybe they don’t care about those 3 electoral votes. I certainly get that Ohio is a bigger ‘prize’.
However, I also think that threatening to ignore the wishes of Alaskans is foolhardy, and for a Republican President to impose such a name change would seem to be in contrast to the popular conservative idea that the federal government should butt out of state matters.
What do you think? Could this event put Alaska in play, or is it too red a state to have a chance of turning blue?
I opine that few Alaskan Republicans care about the issue enough for it to flip their vote.
Also, will right wing talk radio hacks cut Obama any slack in Alaska? I doubt it. Any commentary along those lines will be reluctant, qualified and rare.
I’ve been to Alaska and can testify that everyone there called the mountain “Denali” since long before Obama changed the name. No one much cares what the federal government officially names it.
Maybe if it stays an issue, but if it’s just the outrage of the week I don’t think anybody will remember next week.
Every Ohioan I know expressed bafflement that we were supposed to care about the name of the mountain. I really thought I’d landed on one of those wannabe Onion sites the first time I saw that it was a terrible slight against Ohio and how dare Obama.
They could rename Campbell Hill (the highest point in Ohio; I have summited) “Mount McKinley.” It would have the advantage that no one has ever died in the attempt to reach the top.
No Democrat will win Alaska’s electoral votes in my lifetime. It is just about as safe as Wyoming or Montana. It will never be in play and if either camp spends a dollar on the race there, it’s a waste of money.
And the kicker is McKinley wasn’t even president yet, just a nominee when an Alaska gold prospector from Seattle first unofficially named it after him since he backed the gold standard as opposed to Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan’s silver standard.
McKinley was assassinated 5 years later and 16 years after that a sentimental Congress and President Wilson made it official.
You sir, have insulted the memory of that great Ohioan Charles D. Campbell. How dare you suggest such a thing! There is no one named Denali so clearly keeping the McKinley name wouldn’t bother anyone.
What’s needed is clearly a 3-way swap. Denali officially gets named Denali, Campbell Hill in Ohio gets renamed Mt. McKinley, and Alaska finds some podunk (by Alaskan standards, but huge by Ohio standards) hill that nobody’d even bothered to give a name to because it was surrounded by big-ass mountains, and renames it Campbell Hill.