Well, the Senate Democrats are now one vote closer to achieving a filibuster-proof majority in the Upper House of Congress, thanks to the pigheaded stubbornness of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who, facing a trial for corruption charges refused to resign his seat even after his conviction on all counts weeks before the election.
Incredibly, on election day it appeared that Stevens might have won re-election by a narrow margin over his Democrat opponent Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. There is no doubt that Stevens was a popular figure in the Land of the Midnight Sun, as he was a much better Senator for Alaska than he was for the country as a whole, spending nearly all of his efforts in his newly 40 years of service in that chamber diverting Federal taxpayer funds to his home state. However, it now appears that even in a Republican bastion like Alaska, the Democratic early voting efforts paid dividends as absentee votes seem to have given the edge to Begich.
Stevens was a walking argument for term limits as the theme of his entire congressional career was one of selfishness, even if that self-serving vice was exercised in behalf of his Alaskan constituents. We can remember his recent selfish rant on the Senate floor in which he attacked his fellow Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma for trying to take away “my money” when Coburn made the first attempt to eliminate the incredibly wasteful “Bridge to Nowhere” project. The GOP can be happy that now the face that Alaska Republicans present to the world is that of the reformist optimistic Governor and Vice President candidate Sarah Palin and not the dour money-grubbing Stevens.
The only way that conservatives will miss Stevens is as an ass in a seat on the Senate floor and an occasional vote tossed our way. Even after his conviction when it was too late to replace him on the ballot, he could have done the right thing by announcing that if re-elected, he would resign and allow Governor Palin to name his replacement. It might have produced just the few thousand additional votes that would have preserved this seat for the GOP. But, of course, in the end an ego the size of his home state prevailed and Ted would not perform even this service for his state and his party.
