Slashdot Mirror
Ted Stevens Loses Senate Re-Election Bid
JakartaDean writes "Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, famed Internet regulator, has lost his Senate seat. The AP is reporting that 'Stevens was declared the loser in Alaska on Tuesday night after a two-week-long process of counting nearly 90,000 absentee and early votes from across Alaska. With this victory, Democrat Mark Begich (the mayor of Anchorage) has defeated one of the giants in the US Senate by a 3,724-vote margin, a stunning end to a 40-year Senate career marred by Stevens' conviction on corruption charges a week before the election.' It's probably too early to tell what this means for Internet regulation, but at least there's a > 0 chance that the next committee chair will understand something about the Net."
that it got this close. I figured this would be an absolute stomping after Senator Tubes became a convicted felon.
Alchemist: Be Thou For the People
You mean it's actually possible to be more of a socialist for Alaska than Ted Stevens?!
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
She'll be elected in two years.
As a vicious, corrupt scam artist (and convicted felon) whose major contribution to American politics was to funnel millions of taxpayers dollars into one "Bridge to Nowhere" after another, Ted Stevens is the perfect representative of one of the most influential segments of the internet community: spammers.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
""After all the billions you've brought to your state, who could possibly begrudge you $10,000 here or there? Heck, you DESERVE it!""
Corruption is like pregnancy ... nobody is just a little pregnant. Whats his name Duke Cunningham (who used to be a Top Gun pilot) also found guilty corruption etc.
A lot of "good" can be washed (down the tubes) by a little bad.
Its not the years, its the mileage
Rights wise, you trust Republicans more than Democrats?
You mean the republicans who fought against civil rights for blacks, gays, and immigrants, and are always looking for ways to suppress the vote? Or the the republicans behind the Terry Schiavo debacle? Or the republicans who decided pornography and medical marijuana were among the top priorities at the DOJ? Those republicans? Or the republicans who were basically 100% for the PATRIOT act, gutting FISA, and legalized torture?
Those are the people you think are looking out for your civil rights? I'm not saying the Democrats are perfect on civil rights, but dedication to civil rights seems to be much more of a liberal issue (witness right-wing attacks on the ACLU).
Check out DRM-free movies at http://www.bside.com
Alaskans get $1.85 back for every $1.00 they pay to the Federal Gov't.
So Ted Stevens played a huge role in developing Alaska on my dime. I don't need to laud him for that.
What was wrong with the Alaskan statehood compact? From what I can tell, the Federal government purchased Alaska from Russian. Then turns some of the land over to the state of Alaska? And Alaska gets to charge severance tax on oil taken up there?
Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Thanks to his convictions, he will not have a pension, and may spend time in prison.
Unless still-president Bush pardons him.
It's rare to have such nuanced views on Slashdot. As much as I wanted Stevens out of the Senate, your perspective on him is quite believable. The world isn't black and white or good vs. evil. People are often shades in between. It doesn't help our understanding of the world to type cast someone or see only one perspective/side of a person, a nation, or an issue.
It is indeed sad to see someone with such a long service to fall to such lows.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
You mean it's actually possible to be more of a socialist for Alaska than Ted Stevens?!
You do know that to be an actual socialist (as opposed to a cable-news caricature of one), you have to do more than just spend bucketloads of money on any random thing, right?
While this is certainly true, his failure of reelection has nothing whatsoever to do with any committee chairmanship, since the Democrats control the committee chairmanships in both House and Senate, and they weren't going to pick a Republican no matter what the result of the Alaska Senatorial race.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
What does this rant have to do with Ted Stevens? He lost because during his trial a large number of Alaskans thought he looked like a lying politician. The people who voted early (during the trial) overwhelmingly voted for Begich.
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
Uh Hillary lost because she was a bitch,and I don't mean female. Most saw her as a headline grabbing,what do the polls say I should be for/against this week bitch. So sorry Mr. Troll,but Hillary didn't lose because she was white. She lost because her negative rating was through the roof. Hillary Clinton has always seemed to be one of those whom you either think is the greatest thing since sliced bread,or a super giant megabitch. Whereas Obama just didn't have all the negative baggage being drug behind him that Hillary did. So if you want to make this about race you might want to pick something to make your point OTHER than Hillary Clinton,because frankly I know more than enough whites that can't stand her to know if it would have been her against McSame we would be having Bush part III.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Vote_totals
See also 1968
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Republicans arn't the same party platform as people who remember what republicanism really means. It has changed gears. Libertarian is a better description for "classic" republican idealogy.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
there was more to Stevens' career than this, including distinguished service in the Army Air Corps in WWII.
And that matters WHY?
We (and by that I mean both Slashdot as well as at least somewhat intelligent people in general) rightfully chastise those who vote for politicians based on things like who they'd rather have a beer with, and, quite correctly, declare that this shouldn't play a role and that candidates should be voted for based on whether you think they'll be able to do a good job - whether they've got the necessary qualifications, insights, knowledge, and so on.
How is saying "I'll vote for him because he served in a war 65 years ago and got a medal for it" different from "I'll vote for him because he's got a big ranch and drinks lots of beer and listens to country music"?
I know you didn't quite say you'd vote (or have voted) for him just because of that, but you do seem to think that it should play a role, even if it's just a small one.
Why?
Reminds me of my dear departed bolshie Uncle Ivan. Ivan wasn't really a communist, although he was a socialist by inclination. The reason could never be a communist was that more than anything else, he was a cynic.
"Kid," Ivan used to say, "nobody believes in socialism. Nobody believes in capitalism either. It's socialism for me, capitalism for you."
Wherever he is, he's been reading the newspapers the last couple of months and laughing his ass off.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, there's getting facts wrong and there's being horrifyingly ignorant about basic concepts. The woman could not articulate an opinion on the Bush Doctrine. It's been the cornerstone of US foreign policy for last 6 years (right or wrong) and she couldn't talk about it. Worse, it's a really conceptually simple idea (get them before they get us, essentially), articulated by the current president, who happens to be a member of her own party. That's like not being able to tie her own political shoes. To claim that being able to see Russia gives her foreign policy experience when she can't speak intelligently about the most basic concept of the currently foreign policy is not a mistake, it's like claiming a PhD (or at least a bachelors degree) in physics but being unclear on what gravity is. Biden may have gotten a few equations wrong, Palin didn't comprehend the foundational theory.
To be fair she got better as the campaign went on; but it still felt like she was mastering the presented material, not actually understanding the theoretical underpinnings that made it all work. I'm not saying she's stupid, I don't have enough information to base such a statement on; but she was clearly very unprepared for the role. The types of mistakes she made were just much more fundamental than the mistakes Biden made.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Carter was also the worst of all of them. People bitch and moan right now about the economy, but I don't hear anything called the "misery index" on the nightly news like during Carter.
I have to agree entirely. Hilary lost because she insisted on being in the spotlight for years leading up the the campaign; this is the main reason her supporters and haters were so divided. The problem with this was, all the usual campaign hand-waiving and distractions can't change the mind of voters who made up their minds years before.
She lost my vote early on when she revealed her true colors as a censorship machine. First she tried to to censor video games for violence at the federal level (thankfully, it failed to garner support). Then she promised if elected that she would protect us from computer-generated porn and violence.
Sure, this got her the over-protective mom vote, but the rest of the rational people in this country realized how stupid this all was. A person with this kind of "censor everything" agenda would only grab for more if you gave an inch. It was more than enough for me to vote against her.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
This IS Alaska. The population density in most of the state is even lower than most rural parts of the rest of the country, I expect. So it's more a "series of rubes".
;)
C'mon, guys, how many more times after this are we really gonna be able to beat this dead meme? You could at least try...
I have to agree entirely. Hilary lost because she insisted on being in the spotlight for years leading up the the campaign; this is the main reason her supporters and haters were so divided.
No. The #1 reason she lost was her support of the Iraq war and refusal to apologize for it. If she had opposed the war from the beginning like Obama, she would have had the blowout victory on Super Tuesday that she was expecting.
But she still could have had this in the bag if she and her team weren't so damned arrogant. They completely ignored the caucus states, which was how Obama sealed the deal with his 11 state shutout in February. They went all in on a one-two punch with Iowa and New Hampshire and thought Super Tuesday would seal the deal.
She lost my vote early on when she revealed her true colors as a censorship machine.
Flag burning. Don't forget the flag burning. But she's not so much a censorship machine as a pandering machine.