As CNN announced Obama the winner of the presidential race a full twenty minutes before polls closed in Alaska, residents of the 49th state once again pondered why they still show up at the polls on election day.
“We start late, we end late, everyone knows we’re Republican anyway, and all we get for our trouble is three lousy electoral votes,” says disillusioned forty-three-year-old Michael Steiklen. “I walked four miles in the snow to get to the closest polling place, and as soon as I come within a mile of civilization, the first thing I see is a televised image of Obama giving his victory speech. Clearly my vote does not influence the future of this country to which we are not even attached.”
Sarah Palin’s remarkable debut onto the national stage in the 2008 election briefly put Alaska on the map, but four years later, most Americans have finally managed to blot out the traumatic memories. “Alaska? What’s that?” asked Terrie Brewer of Ohio. “Isn’t it, like, part of Russia?”
With mounting evidence against any indication that Alaska has any bearing at all on the election, Alaskans are finally starting to bow to the inevitable, expressing inclinations of seceding from the U.S. and joining Canada. “It’s not like anyone would notice,” says Steiklen, “I hear there’s a huge colony of Republicans coming over already. Now we can finally get decent health care without having to cooperate with the Democrats for it.”
