Guilty as Sen.
The good news: our illustrious and now notorious Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty today on all seven counts of ethics violations in his corruption trial. Stevens may have started out as a good man– though his early career included a much self-aggrandized stint as a U.S. Attorney (prosecutor), so it’s hard to be sure– and he did a lot for Alaska as a territory and then as a state in its early days, but he’s become an embarrassment renowned equally for service long since expired and an incredible capacity to bring the pork home to Alaska. It’s time we Alaskans started looking for something more from our most important elected officials than the number of dollars they can bring in, things like: integrity, maturity, level-headedness, reasonability– things Stevens has rarely demonstrated recently if he ever has at all. In the long run we are better off weaning ourselves from the arrogant, ill-tempered Stevens, who appears to have lost sight of everything but his self-interest.
The bad news: Stevens is likely to retain his seat again in next week’s election, and as its unlikely he’ll do any time (which I wouldn’t support… what I would support would be a substantial fine and a significant amount of time of mandatory, serious public service) and almost as unlikely that he’ll be expelled by the Senate. The most likely scenario is that he’ll: serve out his next term, be pardoned by Bush and then not-so-tacitly anoint a new Republican heir (any Republican Stevens supports, no matter how diminished Stevens himself is, will win over any Democrat in this state). I can only hope that Sarah Palin has burned that bridge completely enough that she can’t come back in that capacity… an outcome arguably worse for Alaskans than would be her winning the VP race!
October 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I’m not so sure about your prediction that Stevens will be around quite a while longer. If it’s true that Begich was running almost even before the verdict, it seems plausible that the conviction might just be enough to tip the balance. And even if he does win, I’m not so sure the Senate Republicans, who are about to hit rock-bottom after this election, are going to be so passive about letting Stevens hang around—they’re going to be looking to turn things around. It doesn’t help Stevens that so many Republicans have been hit by scandals recently, nor that Stevens is part of a larger scandal in Alaska. And my impression is that national Republicans are not huge fans of big-spending Ted, a senator of a small-time state, who uses seniority to divert an enormous slice of the pie to our state (and a little bit of pie for himself!).
October 28th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I hope I’m wrong. I think the best bet is for Begich to win. I’m doubtful, but it is close enough to consider. If he doesn’t, I highly doubt they’d boot Stevens– they would likely censure him, but they’ve only expelled something like 15 sitting senators *ever* and a dozen of those for actions w/r/t the Civil War! I would guess that the Senate Rs would rather take the position that this wasn’t at that level of disgrace, prob with a tacit understanding that Ted wouldn’t be running again. After all, the reasoning goes already by some on the right, the defense team just messed this up and the charges are pretty minor in the overall picture…
But I hope you’re right, either way!
October 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Something to cheer you up from Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com:
I think there is an issue that the damage was already done *before* the trial — who really thought Stevens was innocent? Still, toss-up election, wave year — I think the odds are at least a bit over even. But then, I know little about Alaskan political sensibilities.