Talk:Sean Parnell

Which party

The article should more clearly state the lt. gov's political party. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.147.161 (talk) 05:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Multiple Sean Parnells

FYI I'm pretty sure this is a different Sean Parnell from the Sean Parnell who is the president of Center for Competitive Politics and former VP of external affairs at the Heartland Institute.Funkalunatic (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

House race

Do we know (and have citations for) if Parnell is gonna drop out of the House race? as it's possible he may become Governor (Palin may be elected Vice President). GoodDay (talk) 19:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

7:00 PM EST

For all you 'eager-beavers' out there. Palin's resignation & Purnell's assumption of office, occures at 7:00 PM EST, July 26, 2009. GoodDay (talk) 17:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Can we PLEASE wait until Palin leaves office (within the next 90 minutes). GoodDay (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Photo

It would be nice if someone could find a better photo of the new governor -- one where his facial expression does not suggest that he is undergoing surgery without an anesthetic. Neutron (talk) 23:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Subhead

Parnell is unusual in that he has gone back and forth between corporate and public jobs. This is thre reason Career as lobbyist and politician is factual and a good fit for the Parnell story.Skywriter (talk) 22:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

governor number

His website states that he is the tenth governor of Alaska, but the Wikipedia page says that he is the twelth. Does anyone have information about this discrepancy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.69.112.208 (talk) 22:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Egan & Hickel, are only counted once each (even though they served non-consectuive terms), going by the gov website. GoodDay (talk) 19:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank goodness you noticed the mistake. Alaska is one of those states that number their governors via individual. GoodDay (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I hate to keep harping on this, but so far, all anyone has done to prove that Parnell is the tenth and not the twelfth governor is to point to the website of the Office of the Governor, specifically this page. Taking something you find off of the web as gospel without further discernment is certainly problematic. My experience as an Internet user predates the existence of the World Wide Web. It used to be that "I read it on the Internet, it must be true!" was correctly recognized as an in-joke, not a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let's dissect two other statements found on the same page:

Governor Parnell first served in the Alaska House of Representatives in 1992 at the age of 29.

Actually, he was first elected to the House in 1992 at age 29. His 30th birthday occurred in between the election and his being sworn into office.

In 1973, Governor Parnell came to Alaska at the age of 10, when his father, Pat, was stationed at Fort Richardson.

Every other source I've read states that Pat Parnell was stationed at Fort Richardson several years prior to the birth of either of his two sons. Without explicitly stating so, Pat Parnell's 1990 campaign bio indicates that he was at Fort Richardson in 1958 and 1959.

The point I'm trying to make is this: it appears as if weight is being given to these statements solely on account of their source, without regard to factual or historical accuracy or completeness.

Like with another issue I addressed recently, has it occurred to anyone that reviewing more than one source may be necessary in this instance? Let me introduce another one, namely: Metcalfe, Peter M., ed. (1991). Alaska Blue Book (Tenth ed.). Juneau: Alaska Department of Education, Division of State Libraries, Archives and Museums..

On page 8, it says:

Walter J. Hickel was elected Alaska's first Independence Party Governor on November 6, 1990. He was sworn into office on December 3, 1990, becoming Alaska's seventh Governor since statehood in 1959. He also served as the state's second Governor from 1966 to January 1969.

On page 19, it says much the same thing:

Walter Hickel became Alaska's second governor in 1966, and its seventh governor upon his election in 1990.

This book is the exact equivalent to today's State of Alaska website, and carries the same weight. The only difference should be obvious, that a web page is easier for the average person to access. With two different governors claiming different things in historically equivalent media, this tells me you need to dig deeper. I don't recall this issue being addressed in Alaska's constitution, but I haven't had the time to pour through it to make sure. In the absence of that, is there a statute, executive order or Supreme Court ruling? That's what you need to go by, not some random thing you find on the web.RadioKAOS (talk) 02:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Two issues

• When person or persons went about changing the order of Alaska governors on all these pages, I began to ask myself a very important question: is Parnell as the 10th governor something that Parnell is proclaiming himself to be on the State of Alaska website, or is there any legal standard which anyone is basing this by? I'm only thinking of something as trivial as Grover Cleveland being declared the 22nd and 24th President by a ruling of the State Department. I suppose that doesn't carry nearly as much weight as some random unsourced remark found on a web page.

• Without getting all the way through the article, the "readability edits" need to be cleaned up. In particular, the edits to his early life section would lead one to believe that Sean Parnell challenged Don Young in 1980, not his father. In fact, Sean Parnell was graduating from East Anchorage High School that year. I'll let you know if I have time to figure it out for you, especially since I appear to have access to biographical information about his family which the Google wizards don't.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

House of Representatives

Are you sure that you have the correct Parnell who challenged Don Young in 1980? Sean would have been a mere 18 years old and ineligible to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives at that date. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.154.236 (talk) 09:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

As I've mentioned several times already, that was actually Kevin P. "Pat" Parnell, Sean Parnell's father. Sean Parnell graduated from East Anchorage High School that year. The May 31, 1980 edition of the Anchorage Times would be a first-hand source for that information. Strangely, unlike most high school graduating classes, East didn't release full names of graduates. I figured discovering his full name would be the logical first place to start with attempting to rewrite the article. If it's that critical, get back to me and I'll do what I can in the meantime.RadioKAOS (talk) 10:55, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Name

As part of the aforementioned attempt to find references to his early life, I pulled out State of Alaska Official Election Pamphlet (Senate Districts E-J and House Districts 7-12 ed.). Juneau: Office of the Alaska Lieutenant Governor. 1980. p. 24. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help), which contained Pat Parnell's campaign profile from his run against Don Young. It very clearly lists Sean Parnell's name as Séan. His younger brother is also listed with accenting in his name (Schöen). Methinks this is a lot clearer than Parnell proclaiming on his gubernatorial website that he's the 10th rather than the 12th governor, with no references to anything explaining or justifying that declaration. Of course, to the rest of you, I suppose your opinion might depend upon access to the publication I referenced.RadioKAOS (talk) 22:49, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Update needed

Someone with greater knowledge of Alaska politics than I should add a section on Mr. Parnell's accomplishments in office, as well as his politics. It has been 2 1/2 years since he became governor and still nothing. Any Alaskans out there willing to rise to the challenge? --Nstrauss (talk) 16:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

There's one big problem. It's all too obvious that most of the coverage of 21st century Alaskan politics which does exist on Wikipedia, exists because of Sarah Palin, including a lot of the work done to this article. Since Palin is no longer in the spotlight in Alaska, most of that interest has faded. When that interest did exist, most efforts centered around placing coatracking references to Palin in as many articles as possible, rather than creating encyclopedic content which led to a greater understanding of our political system. I actually do have a lot of work sitting around in the pipeline somewhere related to Alaskan politics. However, not very much of it has to do with the present. It is too easy to point to news sources to make a big deal out of something without employing proper historical perspective, and wind up getting it wrong in the process. Road to Nome, anyone?RadioKAOS (talk) 02:53, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't pay special attention to the guy, other than incidentally through whatever media coverage I may notice. All I can think about is his sexual assault/domestic violence initiative, which he has pushed from the beginning. I believe Ethan Berkowitz actually took him to task for it during the campaign. There's also the road to Umiat, which is no different from Murkowski's road to Nuiqsut. I do hear a lot of criticism over oil tax policy, the present of which was pushed through during the Palin years. Some of it is centered upon Parnell's seemingly cosy relationship with the oil companies.RadioKAOS (talk) 02:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)