Sarah Palin faces formidable opponent in Congress run: Santa Claus

Sarah Palin introduced her candidacy for Alaska’s solely congressional seat this month, getting into a race with dozens of candidates. She actually brings title recognition to the competition – however one other contender could have her beat in that division.

His title is Santa Claus.

He lives, in fact, in North Pole – a city of about 2,000 in Alaska. He has a giant white beard and a kindly method, and Santa Claus is certainly his authorized title, although, as a Bernie Sanders supporter, he doesn’t exploit elf labor. He gained a metropolis council seat in 2015, to the delight of observers world wide. Now he’s able to take his political profession to the following stage.

He’s operating to finish the time period of the long-serving Republican congressman Don Younger, who died final month at age 88. A particular major might be held on 11 June.

As for Claus’s politics: he’s been known as “a bastion of blue on a metropolis council as crimson as Rudolph’s nostril”. He says voters who have a look at Sanders’ coverage platform can get a reasonably good concept of his personal, together with assist for Medicare for All, racial justice, company accountability, and free and truthful elections. That features ranked-choice voting, which can characteristic within the second spherical of the approaching election. “That’s what’s given me the chance right here,” he stated. Ranked-choice voting “provides folks with title recognition similar to yours really, and even Sarah, for that matter, a slight benefit”.

However Claus hasn’t at all times had that title. “Seventy-four years in the past, I didn’t come out with a beard,” he says. In truth, Claus modified his title from Tom O’Connor in 2005. He was residing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, on the time, and pondering what he ought to do together with his life, as Julia O’Malley wrote in a 2015 Guardian profile. He had beforehand labored in regulation enforcement, the place he’d witnessed youngsters falling “via the cracks” of the foster care system, and he wished to do what he might to assist them, he instructed the Anchorage Day by day Information in 2020. He’d already grown the beard, and as he prayed for steering, somebody in a automotive close by shouted, “Santa, I really like you!”

“That’s about as quick a solution to your prayer as I’d most likely ever get,” Claus tells the Guardian. “So subsequent day, I known as up the county clerk to vary my title legally.” It precipitated a number of complications, together with some temporary suspicion at airport safety, the place he acquired “the once-over”. “Any person a couple of month later despatched out an e-mail, I assume, letting folks know, yeah, there’s this man Santa who’s gonna be flying round. Not essentially in my sleigh, however utilizing common transportation.”

Regardless of his title, greeting kids at Christmastime isn’t his factor. “I’m not likely all in favour of that,” he says. “There are many my beloved helpers all through the world who type of stand in for me with their in-person visits.” As a substitute, he says, “I are likely to work together extra with adults with respect to laws.”

To that finish, shortly after altering his title, he launched into a tour of each state, assembly with governors, their staffers and legislators to advocate for youngster welfare, as he instructed the Day by day Information. It was on this tour that he met his future rival for the congressional seat – and regardless of the political gulf between them, she made a superb impression.

“Sarah Palin was one of many governors I visited,” he says. “We met very briefly, however she had arrange a gathering with six of her totally different division heads, which was fairly uncommon for a governor to do. So I used to be appreciative,” he says, saying Palin was “very good, very useful to me”.

As for his or her disagreements, Claus, who has not declared a celebration affiliation, is diplomatic. “Now that she’s been endorsed by Trump,” he says, chuckling, “let me put it this manner: being a Bernie supporter, we’ve disparate views on a wide range of topics.”

He continues: “I don’t plan to get pushed round by her or by Trump. So it could have some attention-grabbing moments through the race,” for which he says he isn’t soliciting or accepting donations. “As a candidate, as a legislator, I are likely to search for widespread floor. There are folks I disagree with and individuals who disagree with me. However there’s at all times widespread floor and one’s prepared to take the time to seek out it after which legislate for better good.”

The congressional election will decide who completes Don Younger’s time period, ending in January. If Santa Claus wins, he doesn’t plan to run for re-election.

“I believe there must be folks a decade two or three youthful than I’m stepping up and doing their finest to assist their communities and their states. For some constructive change, I’d love to do my little half.

“Plus I believe it’d be form of enjoyable. Alaska is thought for form of having characters up right here. I will surely be effectively inside that custom.”