David Ignell: The most essential leadership quality for our next governor? Bernadette has it hands down

By DAVID IGNELL

Aug. 13, 2026 – Who do you want for Alaska’s next governor?  If you don’t already know, you have until Aug. 18 to make up your mind and help decide which four candidates will advance through the primary.

The decision can be daunting.  Seventeen gubernatorial candidates appear on the ballot. Twelve are designated as “Registered Republican” and two are designated as “Registered Democrat.”  The others are “Undeclared” or “Nonpartisan.” To make matters worse, some of the gubernatorial candidates have a running mate who is not from their party.

In other words, it’s a free-for-all.  Trying to vote out of loyalty to a particular party may leave you confused and frustrated.

Important issues abound – the LNG project, our shrinking PFDs and growing budget, education, fishing, grand jury independence, judicial reform, etc.

But if you’re thinking of sitting this primary out, don’t!  Because of RCV and the crowded field, your vote matters perhaps more than it has in any prior election.

So, who should we vote for to lead us for the next four years?

Guidance can be found in the Torah of the Old Testament.  Quality leadership of a people is defined by the persona of Moses.

Just look at what he did.  Moses led the Israelites out of tyranny and slavery in Egypt.  He then led the people through the wilderness for 40 years as they survived drought, hunger, and wars.  He gave a rebellious people laws from God and saw they were carried out.  Multiple times he saved them from God’s wrath and through it all he brought them to the shores of the Promised Land.

The problems our next governor will face pale in comparison to what Moses faced.

Moses’ recognition as a great leader unites religions in an era of great divisiveness. Christians, Muslims, Jews all view him as a great leader.

The same could probably have been said for Alaska Native tribes before their contact with Christianity.  In 1975, Tlingit elder Andrew Johnson stated, “When I started reading the first Jewish books there isn’t anything I couldn’t understand, because everything is in my culture.”

In a nutshell, Moses was a leader who sets the gold standard by which all Alaskan voters can evaluate our 17 gubernatorial candidates.

What made Moses such a great leader? Numbers 12:3 gives us a clue. “Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.”

The Hebrew word used in this verse to describe Moses is “anav”.  As the word was translated from Hebrew to Greek to English, it lost a lot of its original meaning, winding up in the King James Version as “very meek”.

To the contrary, to be “anav” is to be fearless like Moses was when he stood before the mighty Pharoah.  Chief Rabbi Jonathon Sacks wrote “An anav is one who never thinks about himself because he has more important things to think about.”

Moses was so fearless, he even stood before God and negotiated for the people to be spared when they sacrificed to the golden calf.  In the process, Moses turned down God’s offer to make a great nation of him.

Sachs called humility the “orphaned virtue of our age”.  He wrote, “it doesn’t mean undervaluing  yourself. It means valuing other people.”  That is exactly what Moses did.

Google AI summarizes the concept of “anav” as, “A humble person stands tall, knows exactly who they are, recognizes their value, and then shifts their entire focus outward toward God and helping others.”

It’s a balancing act between avoiding the sin of arrogance and the sin of shrinking back from duty.  Rebbe Reb Bunim is said to have kept two notes in his pockets.  One read “the whole world was created for me” and the other “I am but a speck of dust.”  Our next Governor would be wise to do the same.

I haven’t had the opportunity to sit in on any debates between candidates, so while writing this article, I called a couple friends to see which candidate they favored.

The first was Betty Jo Moore from Anchorage, a former Alaska Native tribal judge who is a tireless advocate for justice for all people.  She has been very active in going around to campaign events and talking with several candidates.

Betty Jo told me she is voting for the Bernadette Wilson/Mike Shower ticket.  I asked why and she said, “Bernadette is Alaska Native and strongly supports transparency and the release of the Kenai grand jury report.”   She felt Bernadette would be great on issues between state and tribal governments, and spoke highly of Bernadette’s approachability and genuineness.

Betty Jo is also impressed by her running mate Mike Shower and his knowledge of issues related to election reform and judicial reform.

Betty Jo talked about Gov. Mike Dunleavy and how he campaigned on the promise of election and judicial reform, but once elected, she feels he did not keep those promises.  However, she feels Bernadette will.

The second person I spoke with is longtime family friend Tom Williams from Juneau.  Tom has spent the last 20+ years in financial management with private aviation companies. Before that he served nearly 20 years in various roles with the Dept. of Revenue, Legislative Audit, and two Senate Finance Committee co-chairs.

Tom told me that he supports Bernadette.  In addition to agreeing with most of her positions on the issues, Tom believes she “is the candidate most likely to actually follow through on campaign promises and accomplish her agenda, putting Alaska on a much better track.”

Tom and Betty Jo don’t know each other, so I found it interesting they offered the same perception of Bernadette carrying out her campaign promises.

I won’t endorse Bernadette before having the chance to talk with her at length, but for the sake of my two friends I hope Alaska voters will support her in the primary so we can have that chat.

David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau where he currently resides.  He formerly practiced law in California state and federal courts and was a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project. He is currently a forensic journalist and recently wrote a book on the Alaska Grand Jury.