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Don Young's Prescription For Ted Stevens: Run For Governor!

The state of Alaska is providing with one of those great entertaining moments from a mostly one-party state: When members of the same party, in this case the Republicans, start openly ripping each other apart.

Congressman Don Young has broken from the calls by Sarah Palin and the Alaska Republican Party, who say that Democratic Sen. Mark Begich should resign because he was only elected through the botched prosecution against Sen. Ted Stevens. After Stevens was convicted of several felony counts, Begich went on to narrowly win the election -- but now the Justice Department has dropped all the charges in light of prosecutorial misconduct. Young doesn't like the result, but it is what it is.

Young is going a bit further, however, and making a suggestion for another way that Ted Stevens could make a political comeback: Running for governor in 2010. This would presumably involve Stevens running against Sarah Palin, a giant of her state's politics. Now why would Young suggest such a thing?

"Personally I'd like to see him run for governor, and that's my personal feeling," Young said yesterday. "So, we'll see what happens down the line. He probably won't, but I think that would be a great way to cap off a great career as being the governor of the state of Alaska."

It's important to remember something about Palin and Young. In 2008, when it appeared that he would likely lose re-election because of ethics scandals, Palin went out of the way and endorsed her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, in a very heated primary challenge to bring Young down. And it turned out to be really tight, too, with Young only winning by 304 votes out of about 105,000 -- indeed, it wasn't until a few weeks after the primary that a winner was officially determined.

Much to everyone's surprise, Don Young won his re-election campaign despite all the polls that showed him losing. But now that the state GOP establishment that tried to dump him over accusations of scandal are seeking redress for Ted Stevens, he's not on board. It's a pretty simple progression: Palin tries to knife Young; Young survives; Palin calls for Stevens to come back in a new special election; Young opposes the special election, and suggests Stevens come back by knifing Palin.

And who knows, if Ted Stevens were to mount a comeback against Palin -- which seems unlikely, considering Stevens is 87 years old -- he'll have an ally right in his corner.


23 Comments

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Vicious little ferret!

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Which one? Young, Stevens, or Palin?

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Ferret? No, I think the correct term here would be mink.

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Gotta love the circular firing squad. This could go on for years in the republican party. Very entertaining.

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It's the Northern Lights version of Dysfunctional Family Feud.

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In Alaska, it's a circular firing squad of hunters hanging from helicopters--even more entertaining than usual.

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Amen for all the slain.

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I have to admit: when I read that Don Young adamantly opposed Begich stepping aside, I almost, gulp, respected him.

But this context helps make sense of that. Are the Republicans still going to think of Palin as the best candidate for 1012 after all of this?

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Freudian slip? 1012? Her policies and the republican policies were probably out of date then as well. They want to go back to the early hundreds, just after the birth of christ.

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If Rove thinks Obama is "keeping score" with his "Chicago Style" politics what must he think of Young, Sarah and Stevens...lol

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Which begs the philosophical question, if Peter, Paul, and Mary were members of a moose lodge, instead of a folk band, would they still hammer in the morning?

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Palin: "I said thanks, but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere, and to some of that nasty Obama Stimulus money for Alaska."

Stevens: "I said thanks, and thanks again for the renovations, and hell yes to every dollar I could possibly wring out of the Federal Government for Alaska."


I honestly prefer Stevens, the unabashed crook, to the lying fraud Palin.

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Don Young may be a convicted crook, but hes more than a match for the Tundra Harpy in a political knife fight.

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And the entertainment keeps on coming! God, how I love reading about Alaskan Politics! Especially when it has to do with that jackass Palin. It doesn't get much better than this. But hopefully, it will!

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Unable to compute.

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That would be a heavyweight fight.

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this would not be a heavy weight fight, it would be a turkey shoot, Palins ass being the fluffed out ass of a target, I mean how can you miss this turkey at a pig farm.
All Stevens has to do is go boo and the anoited one goes who's calling for dollars now? Young can answer for all three we, we, we.

Glad there ain't no ring master for the farcas that is developing in the far north, should get intresting before to much longer.

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They all need to get in a small plane, shoot some animals from the air, takes some photos with dead animal heads and go back to a nice resturant and have some decent dead cow meat from texas.Take more pitures with each person and in groups of different assortments all for later use depending on who shoots who in the next few months.
That way they will have nice photos of whoever they need to pretend to like.
Sorry to simplify so extremely but they have only so many people they can shoot at in that state and still make headlines.
Maybe the media should take a look at the value in covering this type visit to the scary wing of the very scary, you know.......institution (mental).

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Alaska isn't a one-party state. It might seem that way "Outside," but it does have some political diversity. Wyoming and Utah are much more Republican than Alaska.

Ted Stevens would have a great chance to beat Sarah Palin, especially if the crude oil prices stay low. Alaska will soon be having a return to the budget problems that helped make Frank Murkowski unpopular.

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Stevens hasn't been living in Alaska full time since 1968. Why would he run for Governor? Palin would demolish him in the primaries, given the only thing she has to do is run ads about how Frank Murkowski did the same thing as Stevens, and Murkowski is still an unpopular governor. Stevens has so many conflict of interest with VECO. His son was indicted, pretty much the entire Republican Establishment, with Palin on the periphery, was in cahoots with VECO, any Stevens ally was tied to VECO.

Senators don't have the staff and field hands that a governor has, even for a small state like Alaska. Palin can easily make her whole primary campaign focus on Stevens' ties to VECO.

Yes he is "Uncle Ted" to many Alaskans, but he is a distant "Uncle Ted", and sending money back to Alaska is different than actually governing it. Before Palin took the VP spot on the Republican ticket, her main allies were the Democrats in the Alaska Legislature, now her only allies are fundamentalist and very hard right in Alaska, like her new State Attorney General.

A better candidate, but not much, and he would still lose, is Don Young. Once again, the only thing Palin has to do, is make the theme about Congressman Young's huge conflict of interest.

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Minor correction: Stevens is 85, not 87. A veritable spring chicken.

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Today's GOP is nothing more than a pathetically sad collection of morally and ethically defective mutants, miscreants and kamikaze loyalists who are crashing and burning all things Republican.

The survival of today's shrinking Republican Party has become so dependent on extremism that they have no significant power left WITH or WITHOUT the support of America's increasingly pernicious lunatic fringe.

I didn’t think it was possible for an entire political party to commit suicide...... UNINTENTIONALLY.

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I for one would love to see Ted run for governor. I am a great admirer of his and I think he got a raw deal. Also I think Sarah Palin is a wanton trollop who ought to get back into the kitchen where she belongs.

Sincerely,
John McCain

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