By Ward Clark Alaska is a place like no other. It's a state like no other. Here in the Great Land, we live in a state into which you could drop Texas, California, and Montana, and still have room left over. We have more seaside shoreline than all of the lower 48 combined. Minnesota has 10,000 lakes? Alaska has over three million. I'm fond of describing my state with four words: Clean, wild, vast, and free. Most people, even Alaskans, have a hard time wrapping their heads around how big Alaska really is. We are also a state with a small population for such a vast land. As of this writing, there are about 739,000 residents in the Great Land. We are number 48 in the list of states by population, with only Wyoming and Vermont having fewer residents. We have, by a wide margin, the lowest population density, in part because the land is so vast, but also because more or less half of the state's population lives in the Anchorage metropolitan area. So, a small political tilt cou...