Looks like his reelection chances are pretty slim now:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/
Senator Ted Stevens Guilty
On all seven counts of lying on his financial disclosure forms.
Stevens may have lost this race anyway, but it's now probably safe to say Mark Begich will be going to Washington as Alaska's new Senator.
UPDATE: From McClatchy:
Stevens, who was indicted in late July, sought an early trial date, gambling that he'd face voters as an innocent man. Even without the conviction, though, in order to re-elect Stevens, voters would have to overlook four weeks of testimony that exposed some of the senator's innermost financial and personal secrets.The guilty verdict will complicate not only his re-election bid but also the remainder of his term in the Senate. His colleagues have the option _ never exercised _ of voting to expel him before his term ends in January. Four U.S. senators have been convicted of crimes, historians note, but not one has received a presidential pardon.
UPDATE II: Chris Cillizza reports:
The Alaska Democratic Party immediately called for Stevens' resignation. "Senator Stevens' felony convictions are very serious and he should immediately resign from the United States Senate," said Patti Higgins, the chairwoman of the Alaska Democratic Party. "He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he did it anyway and lied to Alaskans about it. Alaskans deserve better from their public officials."
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
