Confidential to Lesil McGuire:

Editor's note: Don't know who Lesil McGuire is? That's okay, apparently neither does she. Marginally, she's "my" state senator in Alaska Senate District N.

Dear Lesil: Not to butt in and make myself your political advisor, but I'm a little concerned about the first line in the main body of your official candidate statement this year. It begins "As a lifelong resident of South Anchorage..."

Pssst, Lesil: here are a few of the problems with that claim: approximately 2.25 inches away in the print version, it notes your place of birth as Portland, Oregon. Approximately 4 inches away, it notes that you attended college and law school at Willamette (here's a hint, Lesil: Willamette isn't located in Alaska. It's in Oregon.) On your website, you write:

Senator McGuire graduated from Willamette University with an undergraduate degree in Speech Communication and Political Science. Following her undergraduate studies, Senator McGuire went on to work in Washington D.C. for two years as a legislative and press aide for United States Senator Ted Stevens. She subsequently obtained her Juris Doctorate from Willamette University College of Law while clerking in the United States Attorney's Office in Oregon. Her law degree was put to use when she came back to Alaska and worked for the firm of Birch, Horton, Bittner & Cherot.

PSSST, LESIL! Washington, D.C. isn't located in Alaska! And despite the old saw about "Anchorage, it's as close as you can get to Alaska without actually visiting", when you're a "lifelong" resident of South Anchorage, you don't normally have to "return" to Alaska.

Now, Lesil, I'm obviously not a lifelong Alaskan, or a lifelong Anchoraguan, but I don't claim to be, especially when running for re-election to the state senate. Please, Lesil, tell me this was a typo, or an early draft, or a joke, and that you didn't actually intend to submit it in your official candidate statement.

p.s. Lesil, congratulations on avoiding indictment or conviction that many of your fellow members of the "Corrupt Bastards Club" got in the political corruption investigation surrounding VECO. Congratulations also on not being criminally charged for being drunk and disruptive on an Alaska Airlines flight from Juneau to Anchorage that caused you, the chair of the Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee, to detained for questioning by law enforcement upon landing. It seems that many of the original articles reporting this, including the Anchorage Daily News, and the AP article I linked in my original blog post about it, have disappeared. Unfortunately for you, google has a long memory, as do USA Today and MSNBC.