Story last updated at
7:28 PM on
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Legislator stumps for Congress in Homer
BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
STAFF WRITER
While Ray Metcalfe has to win the Democratic Party nomination to take on Sen. Ted Stevens, a Kodiak Legislator is cutting to the chase in her campaign to defeat a sitting member of the U.S. Congress. Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Kodiak, is challenging Congressman Don Young directly for the Republican Party nomination.
Photo by Michael Armstrong
Gabrielle LeDoux, Kodiak, Republican Party candidate for U.S. Congress.
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LeDoux visited Homer this week as part of a campaign to get out and meet as many voters as possible and with nowhere near the millions Young has in his campaign account.
"I intend to criss-cross the state using lots of shoe leather," she said.
Elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 2004, LeDoux was Kodiak Island Borough Mayor before that. Raised in California with bachelor's and law degrees from the University of California Berkley, she's a lawyer in private practice with a specialty in maritime law. She came to Alaska on New Year's Eve 1978, and has two grown children.
LeDoux said she's running for Congress to restore faith in the political system.
"I don't think democracies fare very well when people aren't engaged in the process," she said. "They (citizens) have to have at least a rudimentary faith that the people they elect are looking out for their interests you want to know that the people you put there are at least trying to represent you."
Young has served Alaska well, she said, and done a good job for the state. But he's served too long.
"We need somebody in there who's not entrenched," LeDoux said. "After being there for 35 years that's almost two generations never having to make a plane reservation for yourself. Never having to worry about picking up the tab. Never having to worry about taxis, or any of those things normal people worry about. You lose touch. What I think we need right now is somebody with a touch with the people."
LeDoux waited to see if other Republicans would challenge Young before she announced her candidacy six weeks ago.
"I determined that was kind of like 'Waiting for Godot.' If I thought it needed to be done, and I do, then do it myself," she said.
Diane Benson, Young's challenger in the last general election, has filed again for the Democratic Party nomination. She faces Jake Metcalfe no relation to Ray Metcalfe and Ethan Berkowitz in the primary.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
