Ted Stevens' conviction the crowning blow in bad year for GOP senators
More than a year ago, The Ticket noted how everything seemed to be coming up roses for the Democrats as the landscape took shape for 2008 Senate races. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska
Now, with the election a week away, the party caught still another break with the conviction this afternoon of the longest-serving Republican in the Senate -- Ted Stevens of Alaska -- on all seven counts of failing to report an array of gifts.
Most obviously, the jury's verdict is a huge blow to Stevens' bid for a seventh full Senate term.
Is it a fatal one?
We'd pause before writing off Stevens -- even with a felony conviction weighing him down -- because of the status he long enjoyed among his constituents. And in a statement he issued, Stevens, right, made clear he'll depict himself as the target of unscrupulous and unethical federal prosecutors. "This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial."
But Anne Hays of the Anchorage-based Hays Research Group showed no hesitation to make a political prediction as word spread in her state of Stevens' conviction.
"I think it sinks him," she told us as word spread of Stevens' conviction. His race against Democrat Mark Begich "had tightened up," she noted. "But I think this will break it out again" in Begich's favor.
More broadly, the verdict is yet another stain on a GOP brand ...
... that hardly needed it . Although it shouldn't directly hurt a specific Republican candidate, it adds to a general malaise that has enveloped the party -- and which many GOP officials fear will only get thicker with next week's election results.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/ted-stevens-con.html
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