From Newsweek:
Over the course of a political career spanning 55 years, Stevens shut down gambling halls on the Last Frontier and helped the territory win its statehood. He shepherded a settlement that protected the ancestral lands of Alaska's native people and ushered in the state's 1970s oil boom. Stevens drafted complex laws governing the Bering Sea's prolific fisheries-and as a master of the Senate earmarking game, helped Alaska secure tens of billions of federal money, which brought many Eskimo villages into the modern era. At 84, he has spent nearly 40 years in the U.S. Senate-making him the longest-serving Republican in Congress's upper chamber. Now the journey that began on that bumpy stretch of road may be coming to an end.
From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (editorial):
Over the years we have loved Stevens when he is the bulldog at our side, and at times we barely tolerated him when he bared his teeth in disagreement. He has shouldered a high level of public scrutiny and responsibility for a very long time. He doesn't just hold an office in Washington that calls for a modicum of respect, he has earned his title and is deserving of that respect.
From NPR's Political Junkie column:
The rumors swirling around Stevens led many to feel that he had become vulnerable, for the first time in his career, to a challenge back home. Democrats obliged, coming up with a potentially strong candidate in Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who chairs his party's Senate campaign committee, flat-out said that Democrats would win the Alaska seat. The seeming bravado of last week suddenly looked more realistic.
From the Juneau Empire (editorial):
The real issue, however, is whether Stevens will, as conventional wisdom suggests, resign his post for the good of the Republican Party and for the good of Alaska. And, will Stevens soon be under pressure from his Senate colleagues to step down? Or, will he go down swinging because of his professed innocence, never saying "die" in the face of adversity? Whatever Stevens' decision, the damage has mostly been done with Tuesday's indictments. Yes, plenty of supporters will urge him to fight to the death and, yes, Stevens is of a mind to do just that sort of thing, but the likelihood he'll manage one last re-election run is minimal at best.
From Taxpayers for Common Sense:
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) earned his status as longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate by keeping not only his home renovator well-fed from the pork barrel, but his constituents as well. As former head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he perfected his legendary ability to bring home federal dollars.
From The Christian Science Monitor:
The modest chalet-style house on a dirt road south of Anchorage has peeling brown paint, a front lawn in need of mowing, and a pair of handmade campaign signs. The house, the official Alaska residence of Senator Stevens, was expanded and remodeled through unreported gifts from VECO Corp., a company that was once a giant in both the Alaska oil fields and the halls of political power, according to a federal indictment issued in Washington Tuesday.
From MSNBC:
The political fallout over Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) indictment started (Wednesday) on Capitol Hill. His Republican colleagues weren't exactly throwing him under the bus, but they didn't push him out of its way either as Stevens faces a tough reelection in November.
From Talking Points Memo:
Uh oh. Here's another sign that top Republicans are backing away from Sen. Ted Stevens: Roll Call reports that NRSC chairman John Ensign refused to give a definite answer when asked if he was endorsing Stevens for re-election. "I'm not going to make any comment," Ensign said. "There's a process in place and we're going to wait to see how that process plays out."
From the Peninsula Clarion:
State lawmakers from the Kenai Peninsula speculated the news could influence voters in the upcoming primary election and possibly the fall general election. It might even affect the re-election of incumbent members of the Legislature, they said.
From To The Center:
You do not need to be Robert Novak to know that Ted Stevens is probably not going to be returning to the U.S. Senate in January, or that his troubles are likely to carry over to his party. ... Although Stevens has indicated his determination to fight charges that he lied about receiving gifts from an oil contractor and move "full steam ahead" with his reelection campaign, his own party in the state of Alaska is deserting him.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Senators in both parties so far have largely tried to sidestep the controversy, adhering to the chamber's chummy conventions by talking about Stevens in highly respectful terms.
But there's little question that behind closed doors, both sides were calculating the damage. ... Democrats were surely salivating anew over the prospects of ousting Stevens.
From Nature:
(Stevens) was much hated by environmentalists, although he had recently begun supporting one version of climate change legislation that has been circulating congress over the past year or so. But "Uncle Ted" is really famous for funneling US tax dollars up north. Most memorably, Stevens pushed hard for a $400 million "bridge to nowhere" that would have connected the city of Ketchican to nearby Garvina Island. But he was also a capricious funder of science... so long as it was in the great State of Alaska.
From Politico:
When freshly indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) saw his long-time colleague, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), it was a memorable moment. "Say it ain't so," Byrd bellowed to Stevens, loud enough for reporters in the Senate Gallery to hear. Stevens' response was not audible, but the assembled journos laughed pretty hard. It was one of the unintentionally funny moments that will always be treasured.
From History News Network:
One of the most compelling figures in the Batman comic books is Two-Face, a character who was introduced in the 1940s who has two sides to his face. One side appears a handsome, well groomed crime fighting attorney who stands for good and justice, and on the other side is a horribly disfigured and frightening monster. Two-Face decides whether he will do good or evil based on the flip of a coin. Senator John McCain faces a two-face problem in this campaign for the presidency. The indictment of Senator Ted Stevens just added to this problem.
From U.S. News & World Report:
How will this earthquake in Alaska politics play out? Stevens is probably still the favorite in the Republican primary, but in both public and private polls he has been running well behind Democrat Mark Begich, the son of Nick Begich, who has had high job ratings as mayor of Anchorage (a highly visible job, because nearly half of Alaskans live in or near Anchorage). But even his little-known challenger might now win the August 26 primary.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Looking at Stevens' house, one has to wonder how prosecutors got to $250,000 in improvements, when the whole thing looks like it could be leveled and rebuilt for less than that. The new furnishings and improvements surely were not worth the destruction of Stevens' own career and the damage to his party.
From United Press International:
The venerable, 84-year-old Stevens is the last of a generation of tough, crusty old Republican titans in the U.S. Senate that once included the likes of Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Phil Gramm of Texas who embodied the GOP's apparently eternal power in the Senate. But he has been toppled at last.
From CQ Politics:
In the wake of Ted Stevens' indictment, CQ Politics has changed its ranking in the Alaskan Senate race from leans Republican to leans Democratic. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich wasn't at the top of too many political radars before today, but with a weak remaining GOP field and polls showing Barack Obama posing a serious challenge in the state, that could all change.
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