By SUZANNE DOWNING
Oct. 7, 2026 – After two days covering Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Fairbanks and Anchorage, I keep coming back to the people behind the scenes who made it happen.
The staff. The advance team. The Secret Service. The super kind driver of the bus on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (Airman Joshua, you know who you are). The people whose names Alaskans will never know, but whose professionalism made an enormously complicated visit come together.
In those kinds of settings, I am usually very quiet; I observe … and then observe some more. If everyone is looking one way, I look the other way.
And so I watched the staff work. They were dedicated, protective of the vice president, and constantly collaborating with one another, problem solving every minute. Everyone seemed to understand the assignment and how their part fit into everyone else’s. The Secret Service agents were serious-minded and vigilant. They did not break character, even for a moment. The staff were attentive and courteous.
Having worked on Gov. Sean Parnell’s staff back in the day, I notice these things.
I know how hard folks behind the scenes work. I know that sometimes things go wrong. A misunderstanding turns into a scheduling problem. An event doesn’t unfold as planned. Someone arrives late. Another person misses a detail.
And the internal office politics can be more difficult than the politics outside the building.
While the person whose name is on the door gets the public credit, there are people behind that door working hard to make sure the credit is deserved.
In the governor’s office, we had demanding work and high expectations. We also had basic standards for how people treated one another.
The kind of harshness described by Mary Peltola’s former employees would have been out of place in the office where I served.
Maybe that is why the accounts of Peltola’s treatment of staff rub me the wrong way.
The New York Times reported allegations from former aides of angry outbursts, derogatory language, and a shove involving a congressional staff member.
Peltola’s campaign staff disputes the accounts, denies a pattern of abuse, and says the alleged shove was an accidental bump. But the people making those denials are the current staffers, not the ones who were there when it happened. These staffers are repeating the lie the Mary told them to say.
How someone exercises power over people who depend on her for their jobs tells us so much.
During the Alaska visit, Vance repeatedly raised Peltola’s treatment of her staff. You could tall it was important to him, too. His point stayed with me because I was watching his own team work under considerable pressure.
There were aircraft movements, security requirements, crowds, media, and a schedule that required people to stay focused. I saw a team collaborating to make sure there were no bobbles. Their professionalism deserved recognition, so I wrote about that in a column on Tuesday.
When Vance shared my column about the trip on social media, I got a kick out of it, for sure, but I also took that as recognition of those behind-the-scenes people, too.
Suzanne Downing: Aboard Air Force Two with JD Vance, a day to remember in the Golden Heart City
“There are days in this line of work that I will remember for the rest of my life. Monday was one of them.”
https://t.co/jtJrGjoFEJ
— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) October 6, 2026
I had written about the courtesy, teamwork, and attention to detail surrounding him. By sharing it, Vance helped give that recognition a larger audience. That tells me a lot about him.
My impression of Vance over those two days was of a man with a servant’s heart. He spoke from that heart and seemed comfortable doing so, not phony. He came across as direct, honest, and respectful of all the people around him.
I can’t say there’s no drama in any political office. There is. I’ve lived it. But what I saw impressed me.
It also sharpened my concern about the gap between Peltola’s oh-so-friendly public image and the accounts of people who have worked behind the scenes with her.
Among the text messages from Peltola was one in which she wished that an Alaska woman associated with Planned Parenthood would die from a botched abortion. I have already covered that disturbing account at The Alaska Story:
Suzanne Downing: The Mary Peltola meltdown as her abusive text messages surface
The other side of Mary Peltola: Former aides describe outbursts, slurs and firings
I find it hard to reconcile that death-wish Mary with the Nice Mary voters are being asked to see in her.
People in high office can be demanding. They are under pressure and insist on preparation, accuracy, punctuality, and excellence work. I remember working so hard to ensure that Gov. Parnell never got a typo in speeches and commentary. I failed sometimes at that, and failing is not fun.
But holding authority over someone does not give you permission to humiliate or intimidate them.
Sen. Dan Sullivan is a Marine through and through. He’s tough. He expects a lot from his staff. High expectations are appropriate when you are serving a state as large and complicated as Alaska.
But he gets that respect should be part of those expectations, beginning with the boss. Staff members are people with families, ambitions, and a commitment to the work. Many put in long hours because they believe in public service and in the person they serve.
One of the messages Vance brought to Alaska was that the treatment of staff is not a small deal. After watching the people around him carry out this visit, I could not agree more.
Before entrusting someone with six years in the United States Senate, Alaskans should consider how Mary Peltola treats those who have the least power to push back.
The campaign smile tells us nothing about her character. How she treats her staff tells us so much more. In Mary World, it’s all about her. With Sen. Dan Sullivan, it’s really all about Alaska.
Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan (circa 1969).
One thought on “Suzanne Downing: Mary Peltola could learn a few things from Vice President JD Vance and Sen. Dan S. Sullivan”
Mary Peltola is a piece of disposable toilet paper in any other context. The Democrats dredged her out of obscurity because they had no one else to counter Dan S. Sullivan. With money and lots of media attention, the Democrats are counting on their indoctrinating and brainwashing methods to get her elected. That’s the only thing Democrats have in this election, because otherwise, Mary Peltola has nothing more to offer than a smeared piece of used toilet paper.