Half-Baked Alaska

In that alternate reality Up North, Gov. Sarah Palin is back home with her new fame and wardrobe, while Ted Stevens seems to have won reelection to his Senate seat.

The careers of Alaska's two media stars have been intertwined since before Palin emerged and ran for the state house in 2006, and the conjunction will clearly continue.

Senate Republicans, anxious to escape the past and look to the future, would undoubtedly pressure the 84-year-old convicted felon to step aside to let Palin run for the seat in a special election early next year.

That would pose a slight problem for John McCain's running mate, who attained national stature without showing any knowledge whatsoever about substantive issues. As a senator, she would be a politician, to quote her convention speech, "with actual responsibilities" to know what's involved in proposed legislation and cast votes.

But her admirers at the National Review and Weekly Standard would be happy to supply tutelage, and it would be hard for Palin to resist the spotlight and remain frozen in Juneau.

As she told Rush Limbaugh, she is not bothered by the pesky attentions of the mainstream media: "Well, yeah, I guess that message is they do want me to sit down and shut up. But that's not going to happen. I care too much about this great country."

In his concession speech last night, McCain called Palin "an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength" and in Washington she would have much more occasion to wear the designer clothes that Republican contributors bought for her.

Palin's Shaky Bridge to Ted Stevens

If the economy calms down, this should be a big news week for Alaska. As Sen. Ted Stevens goes on trial in Washington for helping himself to some of the bacon he brought back home for constituents over 40 years, Gov. Sarah Palin will be hoping voters believe she refused to cook it.

Neither will be candid about their relationship, which started in 2003 with Palin serving as a director of the ethically iffy "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group to raise unlimited funds from corporate donors to help Republican women running for office in Alaska.

As an anti-corruption candidate in 2006, Palin took a step away by calling on Stevens to come clean about his alleged wrongdoing but also held a joint news conference with him, before he was indicted, to have it both ways. Stevens reciprocated with a last-minute endorsement and filmed a campaign commercial with her.

So now, in Palinworld, the Stevens who is on trial has gone from mentor to arm's length "Ted Who?" unless, by some chance, he beats the rap, in which case he may morph back into the kindly old uncle who helped get her into the statehouse, where John McCain could discover her and take over the role of older man in her life 20 months later.

The soap operas keep their convoluted plots more believable than that, but with Palin showing up only for scripted cameos, voters will have trouble figuring it out.

Senate's Grumpiest Old Man Faces Charges

The proponent of the "Bridge to Nowhere" may be going somewhere after all. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was indicted on seven counts of corruption today involving doubling the size of his home at the expense of lobbyist friends.

They literally raised the roof of what is called Stevens' chalet by lifting the building onto stilts and putting an entirely new first floor under it.

For someone of my generation, the decline and fall of the irascible 84-year-old is a sad reminder that aging is no protection against self-destructive behavior.

Stevens started out as a World War II pilot who received the Distinguished Flying Cross for two years in the China-India-Burma Theater, supporting the "Flying Tigers" and Chinese combat units behind enemy lines.

Now, after 38 years in the Senate, during which he has grown increasingly ornery in pursuit of pork for his constituents, the Alaska Senator will be going on trial for making false statements on his Senate financial forms.

Long before he faces a jury, those constituents will be rendering a verdict on Stevens' continuing in the Senate in November.

While West Virginia's Robert Byrd, who turns 91 that month, is still going strong, the Stevens indictment raises questions about term limits in the Senate. Maybe 40 years is enough.

Obama's Coattails

The surest sign that primaries are really over is the surfacing of talk about how long and strong Barack Obama's coattails may be in carrying state and local candidates into office in November.

In the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza reports that even Alaska, that frozen tundra of Democratic hopes, is looking good, with polls showing Sen. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens behind his challenger, and prospects looking up in deep red hot-weather states such as Louisiana and Mississippi.

"Rarely in politics is a narrow loss as good as a win," says Cillizza, "but if Obama can keep McCain from running up the score in these Republican-friendly states he may well do a world of good for the down-ballot candidates seeking Senate and House posts."

To start undoing the damage of the Bush years will take solid Democratic majorities in Congress to help the new man in the White House with something akin to the "Reagan Revolution" in 1980, which swept a dozen Democrats, including George McGovern, out of the Senate.

This could be a "Change" election in more ways than one.

Republicans Wrestle With Pork

A generation gap is dividing GOP members of Congress over the classic conflict between doing good for the country and doing well for the voters who sent them there.

According to Washington insiders' bible, The Hill, "earmarking funds back home is becoming the most divisive issue facing congressional Republicans.

"The fight largely pits junior conservatives--arguing that the failure of Republicans to aggressively fight earmarking is preventing the GOP from reclaiming the mantle of fiscal responsibility--against party veterans, who say that it is their prerogative to choose funding priorities..."

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Alaska's Ted (Bridge-to-Nowhere) Stevens, who is trying to remove him as chairman of the conservative Steering Committee, are the leading antagonists. The subject is likely to set off sparks at today's annual retreat of Senate Republicans.

In the House, a proposal being pushed by Young Turks Mike Pence of Indiana, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Jeb Hensarling of Texas, calls for a moratorium on earmarking for the rest of the year. They plan to push the House GOP conference to rally around their plan at their retreat tomorrow.

“This would be pure electoral gold for Republicans,” Flake says, pointing out that Democrats were not likely to stop earmarking in response.

Pence asserts the pledge would show Americans that House GOP members were willing to “set aside the priorities of our districts for a year” to get spending under control and would pressure Democrats to follow suit.

Proof that voters care about the issue can be seen on a web site that tracks earmarks.

Post-Bush, Republicans may be in disarray, but at their retreats this week, there will be a good deal of talk about charging back toward power.