Alaska Republicans Still Backing Ted Stevens For Re-Election
This is what happens when party is more important than principle.
ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Republican Party on Tuesday found itself in the awkward position of urging voters to return a convicted felon to the United States Senate.
The party is pushing for the re-election of Senator Ted Stevens, who was convicted on Monday of seven felony counts but continues his campaign for a seventh full term, in the hope that his re-election will allow Republicans to hold onto his seat even if Mr. Stevens eventually resigns.
Under that chain of events, a special election would be held later to replace Mr. Stevens, giving the party the chance to find a new candidate and keep the seat out of Democratic hands.
That Stevens won’t resign his position, and abandon his campaign, in disgrace is one thing. If the law allows him to run nobody can force him not to.
But the state GOP doesn’t have to endorse him. They don’t even have to keep him as a member of the party. That they are endorsing him, and that they are allowing him to call himself a Republican, is a symptom of everything that’s wrong with both the Alaska GOP and the national GOP.
Stevens, with is big-government spending ways, isn’t a conservative. And he’s a crook to boot. If the GOP doesn’t have the cojones to kick people like Stevens out of the party how in the world can they expect the public to embrace Republicans as paragons of limited government and ethical leadership?
They can’t. Which is why the GOP is declining in America right now.
On a related note, given that Sarah Palin stood up to Stevens and that her own party in Alaska is standing behind Stevens, we can put in context some of the back-stabbing Sarah has suffered from her fellow Republicans in Alaska since joining McCain’s ticket.
