Sen. Ted Stevens Corruption case
Republican Senator from Alaska Ted Stevens has been found guilty of corruption charges that could possibly come at a bad time for GOP Presidential candidate John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The Arizona Senator has had a strained relationship with Stevens due to McCain’s opposition to earmarks, which Steven’s was the chief advocate of the”Bridge to Nowhere”. The corruption charges that he has been found guilty are proof that both Democrat and Republican politicians have been involved in sex scandals, bribery, and abuse of power throught this 2008 camapign. Politicians from Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to Gov. Eliot Spitzer have all been headlined in news across America as irresponsible public servants. Both candidates have had to play a certain distance from criminals in their parties.
Sen. Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was a media consultant during Spitzer’s election for Governor of New York. In March 2008 Spitzter announced his resignation and of course the Obama campaign denied any connections with the Governor. What voters and critics of politics have to remember is that candidates are not any different from other humans who have broken or bended the law. It just frustrating that people actually chose them to do it under a shield of protection. Not so, corruption has been going on since the beginning of democracy and it will continue to be sold for the highest bidder. That is unless the people who elect them are more involved and asking the right questions of who they elect.
The Stevens case proves that while some strategist in the McCain campaign were questioning whether Obam started his political career in a “terrorist” living room there should be more questiong of a recent criminal being connected to one of the current candidates. Stevens’ political action committee, Northern Lights PAC, contributed $5000 to the McCain campaign in April 2008. Palin served as the director of Ted Stevens’ Excellence in Public Service Inc, a 527 group that raised unlimited funds from corporate donors, from 2003 until June 2005. The unknown fact is that Stevens is the longest seating Senator in history.
Lets see how the traditional media plays this out.
J. Riley said,
October 28, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I am both a Republican and an Alaskan. I have experienced firsthand Senator Stevens’ vast contributions to the great state I call home. Like many Alaskans, I owe my job, the quality of my education, and many other aspects of my life to his years of service. Therefore, I cannot help but notice the high level of impartiality that occurred during his trial. The way in which the prosecution delivered their evidence was deplorable. Additionally, the judge and jury acted in a hardly just way, clinging to their own political sympathies rather than adhering to the code of justice that they were sworn to follow.
As an Alaskan who has strongly supported Stevens since casting my vote at 18 years old, I will continue to support the Senator. Had Stevens received a fair trial and the evidence presented been more convincing, my opinion would be vastly different. To these ends, I find it perplexing that McCain was so quick to call the condemnation of Stevens “justice,” while our own Governor Palin stood behind him in that remark. As for as Sarah Palin (who I voted for as Governor), she will not have my vote again after this election. It is most unfortunate that the McCain/Palin ticket is the only barrier standing between our country as we know it and a dynasty of radical socialism.