Ted Stevens Can Suck Eggs
By Erick Posted in 2008 — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As I said yesterday, my ideal Republican Presidential candidate is someone who goes after corrupt Republicans in a "clean up our own house" way.
That includes beating the heck out of Ted Stevens and Don Young in a primary next year.
Put it to you this way: Two-Thirds of Alaska's federal representatives are under an FBI investigation. One has now had his home raided. As the New York Times will no doubt phrase it tomorrow, "In a stunning development, the FBI raided the home of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). Two-thirds of the Republicans who represent Alaska in Congress are under FBI investigations stemming from wide-spread corruption scandals plaguing the Republican party."
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a bipartisan issue. It is what secret earmarks and pork barrel spending do to our elected officials of both parties.
Ted Stevens, Jerry Lewis, Don Young, John Doolittle, William Jefferson, Jack Murtha -- they all need to go.
We need a primary challenger against Ted Stevens today. We also need to make sure the House and Senate pass real earmarks reform that includes prohibiting members of congress's relatives from lobbying on issues before their parents or spouses or children.
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Ted Stevens Can Suck Eggs 31 Comments (0 topical, 31 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Where Dingy Harry's kids would have jobs with titles saying one thing and would actually be talking to dad.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
The most important thing to remember is that all restrictions should be on the Congressmen rather than the lobbyists. Any congressman who tries to focus on lobbyists is missing the biggest problem: Congressmen.
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Bobby Jindal Saves Louisiana
We're supposed to have elections to settle this sort of thing.
If the people of Alaska care more about their pork than they care about clean government, that's their problem.
Do you approve or disapprove of spending $223 million in federal tax money to build a bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, which is sometimes referred to as the “Bridge to Nowhere”?
Approve -- 24.7%
Disapprove -- 66%DK/Refused -- 9.3%
All things being equal, for whom would you be more likely to vote for Congress? A candidate who wants to cut overall federal spending, even if that includes cutting some money that would come to Alaska or a candidate who is willing to increase overall spending on federal programs, as long as more federal spending and projects come to Alaska?
Cut spending -- 71%
Bring projects -- 17.3%DK/Refused -- 11.7%
Would you say each of the following statements is true or untrue? “Ted Stevens has done some good things for Alaska, but after forty years in Washington, it’s time for a change.”
True -- 47%
Untrue -- 44.7%DK/Refused -- 8.3%
Pork is popular with the porkers and those who get the money directly. Most people don't like corruption, even when they know the corrupt.
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Bobby Jindal Saves Louisiana
Is there a conservative Alaskan out there who can raise the money to compete against Ted Stevens? Or will we just be turning the senate seat over to Knowles?
Where's our Alaskan Redstater? :-)
But Sean Parnell seems like a good candidate, as does Loren Lehman
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"As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this."
- George Mason
can win a Statewide office. Parnell is very close to Oil, so we'll have to see who's left standing when the FBI finally packs its bags for Seattle.
In Vino Veritas
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
to get or hold elected office. I like nice staff or appointee jobs where I can be the steel fist inside that velvet glove it takes to get elected. Anybody know of one, this being retired stuff has gotten real boring!
In Vino Veritas
immediately a contract with the base and the American people that they will not provide one single cent to any congressional candidate under investigation for unethical or criminal charges. Meanwhile lets leave these bastards to dry. Erick couldn't have put it better.
corruption was the #1 issue in the 2006 elections according to exit polling. Even slightly ahead of Iraq.
If Jefferson can stash $90,000 in cash in his freezer, just think how much cash an Alaskan congressman can stash in his backyard.
Politics aside, crooks are crooks, and Congress is no place for them. And take their pensions too.
Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe. - Reid Bryson, speaking on Global Warming
How bad would the Republican party have to be before real conservatives were motivated to splinter and form an actual conservative party?
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Even when theres an "ally" already in office, regardless of which side your on. With gerrymandering producing "safe" seats and careerism, which lead to corruption. The idea of a opponent on the other side winning may be dim, but at least a better, more righteous politician on the same side can take that seat.
However I just don't think theres enough people running, just plain involved or even interested in politics to do so.
if they got rid of his bridge? Republicans missed another chance.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
is why I'm sitting in front of the computer at quarter of two in the morning Alaska time. I just got back from a couple of weeks in DC and Georgia with a side trip to Richmond and Petersburg, VA. Yeah, you guys never had any pork down there, did you? Erick, since you're a Georgian, how much federal spending got routed to GA during the Russell/Talmadge era? How'd you get all those military bases? How about Carter's nuke sub base near Brunswick? How about the goldplating of Atlanta during the Carter administration? It is telling that the per capita GDP of DC is almost three times that of the highest state, New York. BTW, Alaska is third or fourth according to a USA Today article I read last week. OK, enough of that.
Something is, and has been, badly awry in Alaska Republican politics. The State is not naturally conservative as many of you would define conservatism. It was so firmly Democrat at Statehood that it was only admitted concurrently with then firmly Republican Hawaii - things change. It has a hugely powerful central government and the government is the pricipal actor in the economy. Frankly, the state has a level of socialism that the Soviet Bloc would have envied, yet its people are largely conservative/libertarian, emphasis on the libertarian part. Most don't care what you do so long as you don't ask them to pay for it, and most don't want to pay for anything. Note I didn't say they didn't want anything, they just want things without having to pay for them.
Most of the criticisms of socialism are centered on how it makes everyone in a society equally poor. In Alaska, socialism has made everyone pretty equally well-off; different game. I just went to my HS Graduation reunion and my lifestyle, nothing special by Alaska standards, is simply unimaginable to most of my old classmates, and to all of them that didn't have hereditary wealth and postion.
When you see a poll like the one above disapproving of the KTN bridge project, you would do well to remember that Anchorage has over half the population. A goodly portion of that disapproval is over the fact that the money is being spent in Ketchikan. Were it being spent in ANC, the outcome would be very different. Let's see some polling on the Knik Arm Crossing, an Anchorage project. The ugly side of affluent socialism is that it produces a politics of envy and greed where who has what political connection decides who does well and who does not so well.
Alaska is also a very highly federally regulated environment. Much of Stevens' troubles, as well as his son's, come from fisheries issues where everything is about federal regulation and international treaties. A stroke of a bureaucrat's pen makes you fabulously wealthy or lands you in bankruptcy. You'd best have a good lobbyist if you want to fish or crab commercially.
To the fundamental issue, Republicans have had almost untrammelled power here since the early '80s. Only those Democrats who could out-Republican the Republicans, e.g., Knowles and Begich, could get elected to anything outside a few small Blue enclaves, e.g., downtown Juneau, downtown Anchorage, the university districts, and a few small Bush districts.
All politics here came to be about who could bring what home to the district. The Oil Industry, acting through their local proxy, VECO, an oilfield services company, had the money and power to decide who got elected and who got what from among those elected. There were other players, the private prison hustlers foremost among them, but VECO and Oil were the money play.
There was clearly a sense in both the Legislature and the Executive that so long as you were pretty much on the same page as the big players, you could do no wrong. Dealing with Oil is no place for virgins or sissies and on the good days you are making choices based on minute gradations of shades of gray. Sometimes you decide on the wrong side of the line and sometimes somebody makes you an offer you just can't refuse for a vote or a decision on something that not one person in ten million would even understand.
So, now it is time to pay the Piper; somebody, I still don't know who or how, has changed the game. Part of me says that Oil has decided that it is done with Alaska and further development here is impossible. Consequently, it is time to simply divorce itself from Alaska politics and politicians. Some of you will think that is a good thing, but just remember you'll be fueling your SUV with oil from Huge Chavez or the Middle East; that has a price too.
At the State level, I think the Legislature stays under Republican control since the Democrats can't divorce themselves from the national party. At the statewide level, there is potentially a very different story. Begich is certainly a credible Democrat in Republican clothing, Knowles and Ulmer are not beyond resurrection, and even Ethan Berkowitz could have a personality transplant and get elected to statewide office. You can all gloat over the demise of Stevens and Young and even eventually Murkowski, but just remember, you'll be enjoying it from the minority.
In Vino Veritas
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Alaska does seem to get singled out for criticism of its pork. In part, perhaps, because it has representatives who particularly good at playing that game. (I think only Robert Byrd, KKK Senator for West Virginia, or the The Robert Byrd State of West Virginia, as it was recently renamed, has done as well). But despite the particular criticism of Alaska, I think most here are willing to condemn pork in general, including that in their own states. If not, maybe that's why I'm here, to provide some less partial commentary.
Your insights into the need for lobbying in Alaska are appreciated. I have commented before that the regulations prohbiting the families of congressmen from lobbying are unjust and unenforceable. As Neil points out, what is required is better legislators with more integrity.
Would the GOP really lose these seats if Young and Stevens were pushed aside? In a presidential year? I do note that, your comments about the Democratic nature of the state in its early years accepted, Alaska has voted Republican at every Presidential election bar 1964.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
changed all that! We'll have to see who's left standing when the dust settles. This will fall very heavily on Republicans because only Republicans had ANY power at the State level; there's no reason to try to bribe or influence someone with no power or influence. The Ds who have been successful here have had the game that the national party played in '06 down for a long time. If Tony Knowles could not have been tarred with Bill Clinton's acts towards Alaska, he'd be Senator Knowles. As it was, it took a last ditch, hand pressing campaign by Stevens and Young to hold Lisa Murkowski's seat.
In Vino Veritas
but as a conservative I am saying enough is enough and that we need to end that massive spending by the Federal government. I personally do not want more of my tax dollars taken for either VA or any other state for that matter. Stevens is but a symptom of a larger addiction and we need to "rahab" all Senators and Congressmen because every American citizen is paying for the welfare of every other American citizen and I personally call this socialism. Lets stop the insanity and get back to the Feds just taking care of military and border security and let the individual states make decisions on schools, roads, and social services and then if you are not happy in your state move to another...stop the money train...
...we need a primary challenger for sure. What does the political bench look like in Alaska?
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Redstate readers can render no higher service to the cause of limited government than knocking off GOP porkers. Lets push the primary challenges, then put our $$ where our mouths are.
Where's the leaders of the Senate denouncing this FBI foray into the home of a "holy" Senator?
I haven't seen anyone crying about this like they did when Jefferson was hiding cold cash....
IF they did the crime I hope they both end up in trouble.
P.0.
Here's a thought, and I'm just spit-balling here, but what if it turns out Stevens didn't actually do anything. What if the FBI is wrong, as it often is? How do we benefit by preemptively calling for Stevens' head right now?
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
" ... includes prohibiting members of congress's relatives from lobbying on issues before their parents or spouses or children."
How on earth would you do this? Any political conversation around the Thanksgiving table could be forbidden by this measure.
There is no substitute for officials with integrity and the time to educate themselves on political matters. It's very hard to do this. (Larger congressional staffs? A ban on active fundraising for much of the year?) But I don't see the point in ethics restrictions that are unenforceable.