Things aren’t looking so good for Mark Begich — but the race isn’t over yet. Ted "I wasn’t convicted" Stevens is currently leading Begich by about 4,000 votes with more than 40,000 absentee ballots and 9,000 early votes yet to be counted.
If the lead holds, Stevens will shock the nation and be the first person ever re-elected to the U.S. Senate after being found guilty on criminal charges. Polls had shown the Republican down by at least 8 percentage points on the day before the election.
Keep your fingers crossed. I’ll update this diary if I hear any new information.
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that pic: hee hee!
Doesn’t pass the sniff test. Alaska – the new Ohio?
If Stevens “wins,” it’ll be a quick test of Harry Reid.
Here’s what probably will happen if Stevens wins:
The Alaska newspapers say that the count may take “weeks” to finish. Why is a good question. Georgia has a lot more votes to count and they are finishing in the wee hours of Thursday morning–probably a runoff there.
Fulton County officials said late Wednesday that they expect to finish counting some 30,000 paper absentee ballots by early morning. Georgia registered more new voters than the entire Alaska population but maybe they have people like Palin counting or trying to count.
If Stevens wins, he’s not quiting. His appeal will have no impact on the Senate and IMHO he has weak appellate issues although I am inclined to agree with Bmaz that Sullivan should have sent a message and declared a mistrial or he could have tossed the case given the nasty and superficial move where the prosecution sent a witness to Alaska. They could have fetched the witness easily as well.
So if Stevens wins, and I hope he doesn’t Reid will move quickly to expell him from the Senate and he’ll get the 2/3 vote. He has already said so, and he’ll have plenty of Rethug help. They don’t want to be comedy targets by keeping Toobs in the Senate and don’t want to be asked to defend doing so.
That allows a Special Election. Palin can’t legally appoint herself although she is dumb enough to try, but you betcha she will run for Senate and her opponent will be Mark Begich. I hope that because he has a) the Alaska papers b) a good organization c) will get help from Dean and possibly Obama because of Palin and because of the Senate seat Begich will prevail.
But if Stevens loses, I predict Palin runs against Begich in a special election because she is delusional enough to think that the Repubs are dumb enough to run her in 2012.
If they were, fantastic but I believe Gillespie and whoever else counts get that 3/5 voters recognized Palin’s incredible lack of qualifications for most jobs on the face of the earth including President.
I meant if Stevens wins, Palin will run against Begich in the Special election not if he loses.
If he loses, game over and I wish life were that easy. Maybe he will.