Remember 2000, when Ashcroft lost his bid for Senator to a deceased candidate?
I can’t help but wonder which is worse – losing to a corpse, or losing to a felon?
From the Anchorage Daily News:
Orthodox wisdom should dictate that voters would flee in droves from an incumbent who had just been convicted of felony crimes. But that would grossly underestimate the affection loyalists have for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
In his home state, the corruption trial of the Senate’s longest serving Republican was not an important element for more than half of voters surveyed in an Associated Press exit poll. One out every three of those voters said it was not factor at all.
I’ve read, but don’t have a handy link to support (a limitation of blogging from an airport) that there is some speculation that the Senate may refuse to seat Stevens, in which case a new Senator would need to be found…and perhaps Palin might seek to start rebuilding her national political aspirations by running for that Senate seat. After all (from a different ADN article):
Even more imponderable are questions about Palin’s future priorities. Will she try to repair her old relationships, or continue as the warrior cheered by a national conservative base? Will her social-conservative allies in Alaska sit quietly on the sidelines, as they did during the first two years of her term? Will Palin be looking ahead at a national race in 2012, or at another term as governor? Or perhaps a run for U.S. Senate? And how will those ambitions affect the choices she makes in the near term?
