of Hickel and Coghill under the Alaskan Independence Party banner. AIP chairman Joe Vogler was brought from Fairbanks to Anchorage immediately prior to the deadline for political parties to substitute their nominees. John Lindauer and Jerry Ward, who had been chosen in the primary as the AIP ticket (and would, eight years later, win another blanket primary as the Republican Party's nominees for governor and lieutenant governor), stepped aside, largely alluding to the illness of Lindauer's wife as the reason. Hickel and Coghill prevailed in the general election. Although he had common ground with the Alaskan Independence Party in fighting restrictions on land use imposed by federal environmentalism, Hickel had been one of the most influential historical proponents of Alaska statehood and never endorsed the AIP's secessionism, prompting some party faithful to petition for his recall. He rejoined the Republican Party in April 1994, near the end of his term. Hickel wanted to build a water pipeline from Alaska to California in 1991. Business career Hickel was also a real estate developer and chairman of Hickel Investment Company. Most of his ventures from the 1950s onward were in building and operating hotels and shopping centers. Hickel's company built the structures in which Safeway placed most of its initial Alaska stores. Following the 1964 Alaska earthquake, Hickel, as a show of confidence in Anchorage's future, built a highrise luxury hotel on the western side of downtown Anchorage, very near one of the largest of the landslides, which befell portions of Anchorage. Hickel chose the site to prove wrong detractors, who believed that the area could not be redeveloped to a great extent. The nine-story Hotel Captain Cook opened in 1965 on Fourth Avenue, next door to the historic Wendler Building. A fifteen-story tower followed in 1972, with an eighteen-story tower in 1978. The hotel currently covers almost an entire city block, with a connected parking garage covering another half-block. Later life In 2006 he supported Sarah Palin in her bid to become governor of Alaska; however, in 2009, he stated that he didn't "give a damn what she does". In 2008, he called for the resignation of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, whom he had appointed to the Senate in 1968. His statement was made in light of the August 2008 federal indictment of Stevens related to the alleged receipt of improper gifts from Bill Allen, CEO of the VECO Corporation, an