Fair Election

Remember how it was such a big deal last year when a republican justice department indicted republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska? Steven, convinced of his innocence requested, and got, a speedy trial hoping that his name would be cleared by election day. Wrong. He was convicted four days before the election and lost to a democrat by less than 2% of the votes. During the trial the justice department got their wrists slapped a few time for withholding evidence and the like.

Now, Obama's justice department has determined through an internal investigation that there was other prosecutorial misconduct and has asked that the charges be dropped (Stevens appealed the original verdict).

As a practical matter, all of the bigwig republicans in Alaska are calling for a special election hypothesizing that without the conviction Stevens would have won. On that point, they are probably right. Never mind that they all asked for Stevens to resign while on trial.

Whether Stevens is innocent is another matter. Eric Holder, the Attorney General, probably figured that he had a no-risk way to send a message to the department. The 85 year-old Stevens' political career is toast (thanks to Bush) and he can say that he's cleaning things up by pulling out of the case. While the prosecutors clearly over-played a good hand, they probably would have gotten a conviction without the shenanigans. But, we'll never know.

The special election argument is an interesting one. We vote within a specific time period (remember absentee ballots and voting by mail) and nothing that happens after election day matters. If the Alaska republicans get their way, what's the criteria for saying, "Hey, our candidate got screwed"? Over-turned convictions? Being shown to be right for a political decision? New dirt being dug up about the winner?

Good timing is important when running for office (I'll be McCain wishes the economy was better off last summer and fall). But, I think Stevens was a victim of his own associations, bad timing and a new tide in the country.