Ted Stevens' indictment may be a huge victory for Democrats, especially if it helps tip the race for Alaska's Senate seat to Stevens' challenger Mark Begich. But some -- particularly some progressives and enviros -- have a mixed reaction about Stevens' impending doom. An initial glimpse of this came when Diane Benson, the Native Alaskan Democrat challenger for Alaska's U.S. House seat (who lost in the August primary), said in a campaign press release in July that she was "greatly saddened" about Stevens' indictments. The latest came when Colin Powell, who Adam pointed out as a closet liberal, surfaced at Stevens' trial to testify as a character witness for him, and then three days later endorsed Barack Obama for U.S. president.
Some conservationists welcomed Stevens' guilty verdicts, pointing to a painful environmental record for most of his years in the Senate. Being a Republican with close ties to big oil execs hasn't won Stevens many green friends -- the League of Conservation Voters gave Stevens a low in their recent National Environmental Scorecard, as they did to most Republican Senators. Meanwhile, when I spoke with Deborah Williams of Alaska Conservation Solutions earlier this month about Stevens' indictments, she admitted that Stevens' voting record wasn't the most consistent, but that he was coming around on environmental issues. She called him a "leader" in Congress in supporting renewable energy.
