Brian Porter, Republican speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, once said this of government-slashing conservative Vic Kohring: "We need Vic. He makes the rest of us look moderate."

Ah, Mr. Speaker, they'll put that quote in Bartlett's as an example of understatement.

The Daily News once editorialized that Rep. Kohring had gone so far to the right he's no longer visible to the naked eye.

Judging by the evidence presented in Rep. Kohring's most recent opinion essay, that was an understatement, too.

Try a few of his ideas on for size: Juneau as Big Brother? Government that would make Josef Stalin proud? A 10-point plan that claims kinship to Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution but would devastate public education, ignore the poor, fire up a land rush free-for-all and gut the rule of law?

Does he really want to turn Alaska into Zaire with a cold climate?

Don't bother scanning the political spectrum to find Vic. Try the Hubble Space Telescope.

Rep. Kohring is the friendliest, most courteous zealot ever to escape geosynchronous orbit. He'd wreck the economy, all right, but he'd also be out there on the Glenn Highway at midnight in the middle of winter helping you change your tire, even if you were a liberal. At least he would if we could ever bring him back to Earth.

That's why Alaskans should ask NASA to beam a signal from Hubble to the far heavens: "Vic, call home . . . Vic, call home. The Portland area code is 503."