Blue Alaska

Nate Silver has called the Alaska Senate race: Democrat Mark Begich will beat felonious Republican Senator Ted Stevens.

UPDATE: AP calls it, too.

UPDATE II: No recount. Stevens concedes.

Even Stevens

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens holds a one-point lead over Democrat Mark Begich with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Stevens, as you might remember, was convicted of lying about gifts he received from a friendly oilman.

Excuse comes up lame

The juror dismissed from the trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens - who was found guilty but who continues to claim he wasn't convicted - did not head to California to attend her father's funeral as she originally told the judge. She headed to California to attend the Breeder's Cup horse race at Santa Anita, Roll Call reports.

Appearing disheveled and confused and brandishing a thick stack of dog-eared papers, [Marian] Hinnant told the judge that in the spring she had purchased tickets to the Breeders’ Cup event in Santa Anita on Oct. 24 and 25.

Hinnant then began to tell a convoluted story about criminal activity in the horse racing industry, alleging that her phone had been tapped and that someone she once worked with in the industry was involved in crime and drugs.

-snip-

After Hinnant left the courtroom, [Judge Emmet] Sullivan told the attorneys in Stevens’ case that he had dismissed her because she was unable to continue to serve on the jury, and “what you heard today just reinforces the correctness of the court’s decision.”

Guilty on all counts

A jury has convicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on seven felony counts for lying about the gifts he received from a friendly businessman. Stevens was indicted back in July and is running for re-election to the Senate.

Question: Does this throw a banana peel in front of John McCain? (I don't mean to suggest McCain has anything to do with Stevensgate, just that this is another black eye on the Republican Party in a critical week.)

The politics of e-mail

Apparently, government e-mails in Alaska get buried pretty deep inside the magical tubes, making for a costly exploration and excavation process. For example, the quoted price for copies of Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mails is $15.4 million, plus copying charges. And you thought oil drilling was a lucrative business.

Now, $15 million might at first sound unreasonable given that it cost less than $250,000 to renovate Alaska Sen. Ted Steven's home. But this is only an estimate. The real cost will be whatever the media end up paying their lawyers to win release of the e-mails in a court case that drag past Nov. 4.

Sen. Ted Stevens indicted*

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted on what appear to be corruption charges. The story is developing.

*Corruption it is. From the NYT: Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting income. The charges are related to renovations on his home and to gifts he has received. They arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

(New York Times, AP, Washington Post)