For those of you who don't know, I have resigned as correspondent at the News-Miner and am leaving the Energy Intelligence Group to work on energy policy in the U.S. Senate. I'll post more details in a couple of weeks when I actually start my new job.
It wasn't easy [...]
Sen. Ted Stevens delivered a short farewell speech on the Senate floor this morning. Stevens told his colleagues that he expects to be exonerated of his legal problems and that he still hopes to serve the state in some capacity.
"My motto has been to hell with politics and just [...]
I was sent to the Czech embassy this evening to buy glass Christmas ornaments from Czech and Slovakia. This was a mistake for two reasons. First, I've been called a "bulldozer" for good reason. And second, I'm something of a shopaholic. I was supposed to [...]
Alright, it's taken me a little while to post these photos from election night. Better late than never. Eva and Ted on election night watching the results at the DCCC/DSCC reception.
APRN's Libby Casey, myself and Ted. Photos [...]
From Darren Goode at Congress Daily:
Amid the scandal and political unrest that cost Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, his job, fellow Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is emerging as a more formidable presence in the next Congress.
Stevens' loss to Democratic Sen.-elect Mark Begich means Murkowski will become her state's senior [...]
Sen. Ted Stevens's unsettled Senate race has put Republicans in a tough spot as they prepare to debate his future next week. Many Republicans say they shouldn't allow a convicted felon to return to their conference, but they are unsure whether to kick him out before the Alaska Senate race is called, the [...]
From the New York Times:
As she seeks to recover politically from her failed election bid on Senator John McCain’s ticket, the big question for Gov. Sarah Palin has been whether her backers would remain enthusiastic over the long run.
As it turns out, over the past few days, about 1,000 [...]
Will the fat lady just sing already!
Anchorage Democrat Mark Begich now has an 814-vote lead on incumbent Ted Stevens. According to the Division of Elections, Begich has 132,196 votes to Stevens' 131,842. The division will resume counting ballots tomorrow and will finish up next week.
Here's the statement Begich [...]
The Stevens-Begich contest is now a three-vote race. The Division of Elections says the latest tally is 125,019 votes for Begich to 125,016 for Stevens. There are still roughly 40,000 votes left to count. The division will resume counting on Friday and finish up next week.
From Congress Daily:
The Senate Republican Conference will vote Tuesday on whether to expel convicted Sen. Ted Stevens from the GOP and strip him of committee assignments.
[...]From the Daily Beast blog:
John McCain's former campaign manager Terry Nelson says that if Sarah Palin plans to run for president, she should follow Barack Obama's example and seize on her momentum. Nelson suggests she take a shot at the presidency in 2012.
"Republicans are very interested in her, and some very [...]
From The Hill:
Senate leaders return to Washington next week amid growing pressure
across the political spectrum to reprimand two senior members of the
usually collegial upper chamber.
From the right, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) plans to offer a motion to kick Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska out of the Republican Conference, even though [...]
Editorial from Roll Call:
With 74,000 absentee (actually it's closer to 90,000), provisional and early-vote ballots yet to be counted, it may take weeks to determine whether Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has won re- election despite his conviction on seven felony counts of corruption related to his Senate financial disclosure forms.
Nonetheless, preparations need to be [...]
The state Democratic party put out an email last night saying that roughly half of the 90,000 outstanding ballots will be counted Wednesday. We still may have to wait until Nov. 25 for a final tally, though.
[...]From the state Democratic party:
There are now more than 90,000 ballots to be counted in the coming days. This means nearly 29 percent of the total vote in the Alaska Senate Race has not been counted yet.
The Division of Elections (DOE) plans to count the majority of early vote and absentee ballots that were [...]
From Congress Daily:
In Alaska, tens of thousands of uncounted ballots have left the outcome of the Senate race between Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in doubt, and both are requesting more donations to keep their campaigns going. With 81,224 ballots left to be counted, Begich's campaign sent [...]
From the Washington Post:
Gov. Sarah Palin announced today that she will be front and center at the Republican Governors Association annual meeting in Miami this week, delivering remarks about "Looking Toward the Future" and holding a news conference.
The former Republican vice presidential nominee has been the subject of a torrent of leaks from [...]
Steny Hoyer stole my thunder. Or at least my five minutes on Fox News. The House majority leader rambled on past his mark and used up most of my time. C'est la vie.
[...]I thought we were done talking about Gov. Sarah Palin for awhile. But Fox News just called and wants to talk about what's next for Palin. I'll be on about 12:50 p.m. Eastern today.
A lot of what they want to talk about was covered by ADN reporter Tom Kizzia [...]
From a recent Congressional Research Service report on the status of a senator convicted of a felony:
A person under indictment or a convicted felon, even one who has also been disciplined by Congress, may run for and, in theory, be reelected to Congress and may not be “excluded” from Congress, but [...]
From Roll Call:
Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), the head of the Senate GOP's campaign committee, urged financial backers to come to the aid of Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska) and two other imperiled Republican Senators, even though Ensign said on Election Day he expected Stevens to be expelled from the Senate if voters sent him back [...]
From the state Democratic party:
According to the Division of Elections, there are now 81,000 ballots outstanding that need to be counted. This accounts for more that a quarter of the total votes.
Also today, the Division of Elections said they’d count about two-thirds of the ballots – absentee and early [...]
Everyone is asking about the congressional races in Alaska. All of the pollsters had Democrats Ethan Berkowitz and Mark Begich winning. But Berkowitz is down what is likely an unsurmountable 16,939 votes and Begich is trailing by some 3,300 votes.
Anchorage pollster David Dittman said Alaska had the second lowest [...]
I worked from home today, so the dogs got a later afternoon walk in Rock Creek Park before sundown.
It's full-on fall here. The leaves have turned and half have already made the short journey from limb to [...]
Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens is the new Senate president. Anchorage Democrat Sen. Johnny Ellis will be majority leader. The Senate is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
[...]Incoming House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, today announced Leadership positions and chairmanships for the House Majority Caucus, as they organize in preparation for the 26th Alaska Legislature. The Legislature convenes Jan. 20, 2009 in Juneau.
Leadership positions:
Speaker: Rep. Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski
Majority Leader: Rep. Kyle Johansen, R-Ketchikan
Rules chairman: Rep. John Coghill, R-North [...]
I was publicly ridiculed yesterday for buying a life-size cardboard cutout of Gov. Sarah Palin at Political Americana. (Hey, it is a piece of Alaska history that may never be available again.)
An elderly woman with a U.S.-Canada flag pin on her lapel pointed me out as I stood [...]
Democrats emerged from Tuesday's election with larger majorities in both chambers of Congress, but with no ironclad guarantee their plans won't be derailed by a determined GOP minority in the Senate, Congress Daily reports.
Oil prices will rebound to more than $100 a barrel as soon as the world economy recovers, [...]
Gov. Sarah Palin needs to disappear from the national stage for awhile, a Palin aide told ABC News.
Newsweek magazine has an article about life behind the scenes on the presidential campaigns. Newsweek reports that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported.
While publicly [...]
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek suggested in a congratulatory letter to Barack Obama that the Czech Republic could organize an informal meeting between EU leaders and the new US president in Prague during Czech Republic's EU presidency next year, Pravo reports.
Czech pundits are divided over an Obama presidency, [...]
Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev described specific measures Wednesday that Moscow would take if Washington went ahead with a plan to station a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. He said Russia would post mobile Iskander missiles around Kaliningrad, an enclave at Russia’s western border, and use radio equipment to jam [...]
U.S. Senate candidate Mark Begich delivered the following comments yesterday in Anchorage:
"Let me say right up front that I have every reason to be optimistic about last night’s election results. I’ve been in this position before – Alaskans know every vote counts.
As you know, we ended the evening last [...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will call for an ethics investigation and move to expel Sen. Ted Stevens if he is re-elected to a seventh term.
Stevens was convicted last week on seven charges of lying on his Senate financial disclosure forms about more than $250,000 in home [...]
There's a line around the block in front of the Washington Post waiting for a second run of today's paper to be put on the stands. The first one sold out earlier today.
[...]Democrats picked up at least five seats in the U.S. Senate, with the results of three more races too close to call. Sen. Ted Stevens re-election bid is one of the races that's still up in the air.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats were projected to pick up [...]
"You can't predict Alaska. If you spend any time in Alaska, Alaskans are different. And, as a matter of fact, if you try to tell them something, they go the other way."
-- National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign of Nevada, commenting Tuesday night on the Alaska Senate race -- where veteran [...]
Incumbent Ted Stevens, a Republican, holds a 3,353-vote lead over Democratic challenger Mark Begich with nearly all of the precincts reporting. However, since the Division of Elections has said it will not tally the absentee ballots for several days, it could be 10 days before we know the outcome of [...]
The streets are filled with revelers, but we're headed home. Here's a quick shot from the DNC party tonight. From the left: Ted (fellow Irish teammate) APRN's Libby Casey and Eva.
Some are wondering whether Sen. Ted Stevens – should he lose the election – would step down before January to allow Mark Begich to get a leg up on the seniority ladder over his fellow freshman senators?
There's been no signal from the Stevens camp that such a scenario is [...]
Here's a quick look at the potential winners and losers in the Legislature.
In the state House, Republicans hold 23 seats, Democrats 17, including Rep. Richard Foster, a Nome Democrat who caucuses with the GOP. Those numbers are expected to stay the same after election day – but some seat [...]
How bad could it get tonight for national Republicans? Most Hill watchers are anticipating Republicans will lose between seven and nine seats in the Senate, and as many as 30 in the House.
If the wheels are going to come off the GOP bus, we should know rather early. Polls [...]
I'll be blogging tonight for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner from the DCCC's election night party at the Hyatt here in Washington. I'm not expecting any great scoops, but I should be able to get reaction from some of the congressional leaders early in the night. I doubt many of [...]
The latest survey by Dave Dittman shows the presidential race in Alaska tightening. Dittman said he conducted one last survey over the weekend that showed 52 percent of respondents said they were voting for McCain-Palin, compared to 41 percent who said the Obama-Biden ticket. Six percent of respondents were still [...]
Kuba got to meet his number 1 fan on Sunday. Bruce came in from rural Virginia to visit DC and met us at Union Station to say hello. Bruce is a regular reader of AA.
[...]Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain today called on Sen. Ted Stevens to resign in the wake of his conviction Monday on seven charges of lying on personal financial disclosure reports by failing to include more than $250,000 in [...]
Comment released by Sen. Ted Stevens:
“I am obviously disappointed in the verdict but not surprised given the repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case. The prosecutors had to report themselves to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility during the trial for ethical violations. Exculpatory evidence was hidden from [...]
