Vic Vickers

Raymond B. "Vic" Vickers is an American historian, author, and lawyer. He was a Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate seat held by incumbent Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Vickers is the former assistant State Comptroller, a lawyer, author, and owner of Florida-based maritime company Eller & Co.[1] Vickers grew up and worked in Florida, moving to Alaska with his wife and two children in January 2008. They now reside in a home located in the Turnagain neighborhood of Anchorage.[1] Vickers has encountered criticism for his extremely short residency in Alaska, but has countered with the assertion that over the course of his life he has spent a considerable amount of time in the state. Vickers says that he hitchhiked to Alaska as a college student in 1970, working for two years as an aide to Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice George Boney.[2] Vickers also states that he has spent time in Alaska almost every summer since then, and is writing a book about the state's corruption problems.[1]

The Alaska Republican primary took place on August 26, 2008. Vickers said he was prepared to spend $750,000[3] of his own money to beat Ted Stevens, and bought up all the statewide television airtime he could for his ads; in the end the amount he spent was closer to one million.[4] Vickers was a registered Democrat in Florida, though has filed to run as a Republican in Alaska.

Vickers has a Ph.D in economic history from Florida State University, and authored the 2007 book Panic in Paradise: Florida's Banking Crash of 1926 and in 2011 Panic in the Loop: Chicago's Banking Crisis of 1932.