(7s) Longest Serving U.S. Representatives #7 - Representative Donald Edwin Young (Lone Republican Ruler of Alaska)

Alaskan politicians seem especially corrupt, probably due to the outlaw nature of the state in the first place (it is about the closest thing to the Wild West we have left in America, where people go to escape their past), and it's not really surprising that it could be a breeding ground for a Sarah Palin in this new-fangled post-Obama culture dish cult of personality driven political arena, where good-looking soundbitey people are propped up in front of the continuing oligarchy. Don Young's been sitting in the House as the solo representative from Alaska since March 6, 1973, and he was in on building the bridge to nowhere with his former counterpart in the Senate Ted Stevens, and Young uses his seniority to git 'er done in the name of the Drunkard Eskimo State (or whatever it's called... the Land of the Solstice maybe).
Young's biography is very salt of the earthy, with degrees from less than celebrated colleges, then moving into a shithole little town inside the Arctic Circle, where he worked construction, fishing, and captained a tugboat, eventually getting elected mayor to launch his political career. He married an injun lady from up there, had kids, and moved up from major to state senate to Congress, where he replaced a dude who had just been elected but disappeared in a mysterious plane crash, never to be found. From that point on, it's been nothing but a two home lifestyle for the Alaskan/District of Columbian, full of first class cross-country flights and nice tailor-made suits. His alleged indiscretions over the years have included ties to Jack Abramoff and his Indian lobbying bullshit (naturally, being Young was married to a native chick), getting a $10 million earmark for a stretch of road in Florida to get widened that put money in the bank of a local landowner in Florida who had just raised money for Young's campaign (with the "earmark" actually being written into the bill after it was voted on and before Bush signed it, making it more of a con job than addendum), and being investigated by the Feds (very indiscriminately, I'm sure) for taking bribes and illegal gifts on the regular. Yet he still keeps getting re-elected every other year. God Bless America. We get what we deserve. And we deserve nothing more than the dog-and-pony beauty contest show that an Obama vs. Palin Presidential race would give us.