This Could Be Good... or Pathetic... or Depressing

Recently convicted of 7 felony counts Senator Ted Stevens is now back in Alaska. This man who has been asked to resign by dozens of important politicians on the current national scene (including McCain, Obama, and Palin) is somehow still loved by many Alaskans. He maintains that he's going forward with his re-election campaign, and I believe that he just might be stubborn enough to do so. As a convicted felon he won't be able to vote next Tuesday but he is asking Alaskans to go to the polls and vote to send him back to Washington for another 6 years (at which time he would be 90 years old). I can only assume that to a large portion of the people following this story outside of Alaska this seems ridiculous (as it should), but somehow in politics up here the ridiculous has a way of coming to seem normal.

Thursday night "Uncle Ted" is scheduled to appear on Alaska Public Television in a one hour debate with his opponent Mark Begich. My guess is that they will mostly avoid discussing his crimes and the fact that he is a convicted felon, but it will be interesting to see what they talk about instead since obviously that is what everyone will want to hear about. In case anyone is interested in seeing how this issue is discussed (or not) the debate will be broadcast online at 9:00 pm Alaska Time (4 hours behind EST) at the following website: http://www.360north.org/

This likely will just be a boring old debate, but it seems at least a little intriguing to see how someone who was convicted of 7 felonies just a few days ago is going to go in front of the people of his state and try to make a case that even one of them should vote for him, let alone enough of them for him to win re-election... Only in Alaska.

And if your Internet connection is too slow to support the live video feed you can listen to the audio here: http://www.ktoo.org/