Al Rowe would have been a 'new kind of lieutenant governor'

Most of the people who run for lieutenant governor in Alaska like to think they will be allowed to do more by the governor than run elections and maintain custody of the state seal. They will reinvent the job and be a “new kind of lieutenant governor.”

It almost never works out.

But in the case of Al Rowe, we really would have had a “new kind of lieutenant governor.” Exactly what kind is hard to say. Explosive? Combative? Impossible?

While campaigning to become Alaska’s second banana in 1986, Al decided to attack and insult the voters in his campaign ads, claiming they were stupid and gullible.

This was not the tactic that Steve Cowper used in his successful race for governor that year.

Even the incendiary Joe Vogler, who ran for governor on the 1986 Vogler—Rowe ticket, conceded that Al was “brusque” and “too frank.” That was an important observation from the man who coined the term “posey-sniffing swine” to apply to Jay Hammond.

The opening line of Al’s attack ad against the electorate began with these words that tell you all you need to know about Al Rowe’s political philosophy: “You naive gutless so called Alaskans make me sick with your gullibility and your admiration of liars and your lackadaisical indifference to what is happening in our beloved Alaska.”

Another landmark feature of his campaign was the studio photos of the candidate that featured not a smile or a grin, but a scowl or a menacing stare. In every photo he also had his fists clenched and he was ready to rumble. He had no interest in speaking softly. He carried a big stick.

Rowe, who had been an Alaska State Trooper and worked in security during pipeline construction, fashioned himself as the Alaska version of Buford Pusser, the pro wrestler who became a lawman in Tennessee.

He gave himself the nickname “Alaska’s Walking Tall.” He was 53 at the time. Twelve years earlier he had received an award as the outstanding State Trooper, presented by future legislator Ed Dankworth.

When he started his 1986 campaign, Rowe published an ad for himself that said his “fists, guns and controversy with Big Oil and various state officials has caught the attention of a well known author who is supposed to write a book of his life soon.”

“He has been involved in so many violent and dangerous incidents that it will take a very big book to tell them all,” the ad copy said about the supposed book.

His most famous ad was one that continues to be quoted in select circles in Alaska to this day with its Rowean advice to miners, fishermen, loggers and hunters to go mine, go fish, go cut trees and go hunt.