MARC LESTER/ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS/MCT/GETTY IMAGES
ALASKA IS
FLAGGING
gress. When Begich was 10, his father was killed when the twin engine Cessna 310 carrying him and
House Majority Leader Hale Boggs
crashed in the Gulf of Alaska.
“Why would I do something that
took my dad away at 10 years old?”
Begich said, recalling how his father’s death affected him. “Politics
was not of interest to me.”
That all changed when The
Motherlode’s landlord canceled its
lease to make way for a strip club.
Begich tried desperately to keep his
HUFFINGTON
01.26.14
establishment open. In his view,
the decision would not only shutter
a safe haven for Anchorage’s entertainment-starved youth, but would
bring yet another adults-only establishment to a boomtown already
teeming with vice.
“He had every right to cancel
the lease,” Begich said of the landlord, “but he was destroying not
just a business, but a pretty important thing for the community.”
Begich and his business partner petitioned the neighborhood
about blocking the strip club,
later taking their grievances to
the city council — a move that
Joe Miller,
who beat
out Sen. Lisa
Murkowski to
become the
GOP nominee
in 2010, only
to lose to
her write-in
campaign,
is running
again on the
Republican
side.