Stevens’s splash

The election defeat of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich has wide ramifications.
It means one of the longest-serving lawmakers on Capitol Hill has finally come to the end of the road. Stevens is well-liked and, until his indictment, trial and conviction for corruption, was even more widely respected. His departure means the Senate, and the Republican Conference, loses a force to be reckoned with.

His departure also underscores the unwritten law that voters will turn against candidates who are found guilty of crimes. The electorate generally does not even let a lawmaker get away with an indictment — which, after all, is merely an official accusation — and looks balefully on a politician who blandly offers implausible exculpation while insisting on his innocence.

For Democrats, Stevens’s scalp is a huge deal. Begich’s victory in red-state Alaska is further evidence of how the left-of-center party has made inroads through enemy territory. It is another feather in the cap of Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), who piloted the Democrats’ senatorial campaign efforts and has delivered thumping victories for his party in two successive election cycles.

There are still two more Senate races to be decided. Comedian Al Franken is in a nail-biting recount to unseat Sen. Norm Coleman (R) in Minnesota, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss will face the massed forces of President-elect Obama in his runoff in Georgia. Victory in both states would hand Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) a filibuster-proof majority of 60. Chambliss remains likely to be reelected, so the Dems may fall one seat short, but without Stevens’s defeat the possibility of unchecked power in the Senate would have been pushed beyond Democratic reach.

There is a silver lining to the dark cloud that is now hovering over the Republican Conference. If voters had not removed Stevens, he would have been a problem for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), and would have continued to taint the party with the stain of financial impropriety.

Finally, it is worth considering what Stevens’s defeat means for the future leadership of the GOP and its presidential prospects. If Stevens had won and then been ejected by the Senate, there would have been an opening for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to resign and be appointed to the upper chamber by her handpicked gubernatorial replacement.

Those who decided Palin was unready for national office after Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) picked her to join him on the Republican presidential ticket have suggested that four years in the Senate would have given her a substantial measure of the big-time politics that her home state could not provide but which, to some, was a prerequisite for a plausible White House run. Palin herself publicly acknowledged interest in this option. Now, Begich’s victory has closed that avenue for her.

When a big figure falls, he makes a proportionately big splash. The ripples of Stevens’s collapse are still spreading across the political waters.