Andrew Halcro
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| Andrew Halcro | |
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| Born | September 20, 1964 San Francisco, California |
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| Residence | Anchorage, Alaska |
| Occupation | Car rental business owner, former politician |
Andrew Halcro (born September 20, 1964) is an American politician from Anchorage, Alaska. Formerly a Republican member of the Alaska Legislature, he ran for Governor of Alaska as an Independent candidate in the 2006 election, running third with 10% of the vote.
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[edit] Early life
Halcro was born in San Francisco, California to the owners of a car rental agency in Anchorage, Alaska. He attended East Anchorage High School and received degrees from Willamette University and the University of Alaska Anchorage before taking over the family business, which is now an affiliate of Avis.
[edit] Political career
In 1998, he ran for the Alaska House of Representatives as a Republican, winning both the primary and the general election. In 2000, he won the Republican primary by a 2-to-1 margin and was unopposed in the general. During his term in office, he earned a reputation as a maverick who sometimes put his foot in his mouth, as when his comments on what he saw as Bush Alaska's dependency on government funding earned him criticism from across the political spectrum. On another occasion, he publicly criticized legislators who were members of his own party for taking too many junkets at taxpayer expense, which resulted in the loss of his position as chair of the House Transportation Committee. In 2002, he chose not to seek re-election, and returned to Anchorage to run his company and serve on Mayor Mark Begich's transition team.
[edit] Gubernatorial race
Halcro announced his candidacy for the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial election on January 24, 2006. Although he was a registered, lifelong Republican, he ran as an Independent because he did not believe that he could win a party nomination in the Alaska Republican Party's closed primary system.
His platform included fiscal responsibility, cutting legislators' salaries, increasing the number of trade agreements between Alaska and foreign nations, constructing a pipeline for natural gas, enacting strict campaign finance reform laws, and enacting "equitable taxation."
Although he had originally selected former Republican state legislator and Soldotna mayor Ken Lancaster as his running mate, Lancaster left the race in mid-September, citing health issues. He was replaced with former Anchorage Assemblywoman Fay Von Gemmingen. Halcro's slogan was "ThinkHalcroGovernor", and he aired television advertisements that used humor to emphasize what he said was the nonpartisan nature of his candidacy, his availability to ordinary Alaskans, and his stances on the issues. He was widely regarded as the winner of the several debates in which he participated with Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Tony Knowles.[citation needed]
On Election Day, Halcro received 22,443 votes, or about 10% of the total. Palin won the election with 114,697 votes, or about 48%.
