Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanWhile Alaska has had brief spurts of liberty and conservatism over the years, it has steadily moved forward to being a red state. This year we’re threatened with a leap backwards to the democrat’s dream of the dark ages of government control.

In the past, Alaska has had great moments that highlighted the desire for liberty. The libertarians who got rid of the income tax, conservative independent Wally Hickel winning the governorship and even the campaign and victory of Sarah Palin, who ran on a conservative populist platform even though she didn’t carry that through once elected.

In 2008, the conservative Ron Paul supporters had a large presence at the Republican State convention, but were unable to form the two-thirds majority needed to oust the corrupt chair of the party. In 2010, Joe Miller won the primary with his conservative liberty-minded principles, and narrowly lost the general election against the liberal write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, but garnering 90,000 votes in the process.

In the spring of 2012, the conservatives were able to win all the offices in the Republican state party before the liberals illegally kicked them out. That fall, the conservative voters came together and ousted the democrat-led spending coalition that had tripled the state budget. Finally achieving a conservative majority in both houses, and having conservative Sean Parnell as governor, we were able to get oil tax reform, a history-making LNG project and they cut the budget by billions.

Alaska is finally coming out of decades of liberal dominance, but a new threat has arisen. The democrats realizing that they are on the losing end of history have made a last minute Hail Mary attempt to thwart the conservative steamroller. They have allied with moderate Bill Walker to combine the democrat and liberal independent votes to try and retake the governor’s office. This will put an immediate halt to development around the state and further their dreams of making Alaska into one big park. Currently, the tickets are polling so close they’re within the margin of error. This election will ultimately rest on who gets out and votes. The liberals have three propositions that they want to pass that will get them to the polls. I would just like to encourage conservatives to not ignore the election Tuesday; the fate and direction of Alaska and your future hangs in the balance. Please don’t let the liberal machine win be default. Vote Tuesday.

Lance Roberts is an engineer, born and raised in Fairbanks. He is a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the assembly or borough administration.