Considering that most important Alaskan politicians have felony indictments or convictions, it's not surprising that there's something fishy about this election. They should put "Felons Welcome Here" on their license plates.
Are felons allowed to vote in Alaska, or only to be voted for?
davenoon is a bit less suspicious than some others.
2: only the latter, from what I hear; Stevens couldn't vote for himself.
3: Noon, of course, both lives in Alaska and correctly predicted that both Stevens and Young would win despite being way behind in the final polls, so I'm inclined to trust his judgment.
It's not over yet. **sigh**
Even I am tired of this shit.
There are three Senate seats still in play: Alaska, Minnesota, and Georgia. All of them should be pretty intense, and I plan to donate my pittance to the Minnesota race at least.
Norm Coleman hit the ground running and has put out a press release or two every day trying to stink up the process. Fortunately, so far, his tactics have backfired, because most Minnesotans (including conservatives and Republicans) are proud of the state's well-earned reputation for honest elections.
According to Sara, Minnesota election law, which was rewritten after a messy recount in the 60s, prescribes recount procedures pretty rigorously, so the Coleman slime artists may find their legal efforts wasted. Nonetheless, we can expect to see a lot of hot air and paranoid accusations. Powerline is on the job.
Donations can be made here. Even though the legal environment is pretty advantageous, Franken will need to have a lot of people out there counteracting the slime.
Your legal limit is $2300. :-) Sorry, guys.
$2300? That's one quarter the price of a house in some parts of teh country!
Yes, if someonewere to sell one of your ND houses they could give $2300 to each of the three Democrats and still have something left for the hookers.
I thought Alaska only had one county?
2: I think Sen. Stevens retains the right to vote until his sentencing (or some other as-yet-unreached legal milestone)
10: Which milestone also gives rise to his strange claim that he was "found guilty" but not yet "convicted."
Counties in Alaska are weird and not really comparable to counties in other states.
9: Alaska has boroughs instead of counties. So it's just like NYC, only not at all. Amusingly, one of the boroughs is the Unorganized Borough.
Louisiana, of course, is the only other state without counties.
Though I gather that LA's parishes are pretty much the same as counties except for their name.
5 has the link to look at.
When I wake up tomorrow I'll throw some money at Georgia, since that's the one where they actually need to run ads and campaign and stuff and do a runoff election.
Wow, the Unorganized Borough sounds like the Alaska of Alaska. Just as Alaska is poorly run and demands federal support just to keep its basic shit together, so the Unorganized Borough, by refusing to incorporate, demands taxes from other boroughs to be able to run schools and stuff.
Alaskan politics sounds like the husband who breaks plates every time he's asked to wash dishes so that the wife will just give up and do them her own goddamn self.
16.2: I am seriously loving this analogy. Passive aggressiveness with a vengeance (though, as a side note, I understand from professionals in the psychology biz that our lay understanding of passive aggressiveness aggression is inaccurate).
Hawaii should have been the 49th state. There still shouldn't be 50 states. IYKWIM.
18: you're letting Wyoming in? Awfully generous.
Counties in Alaska is are weird and not really comparable to counties in other states.
Canada had the right idea about the north (well, not the right idea about passing on Alaska when it had the option to buy, but otherwise). Territories are odd, but don't pretend to be provinces.
When people say "It's a myth there was a record turnout this year!" I say "Yeah, we knew the Republicans were going to rig the election, good thing Obama had wide enough margins to win ANYWAY?"
Look, I'm fairly sure that the election that got Sarah Palin in as governor of Alaska was rigged - polls kept saying it was even-steven right up until the Diebold machines announced she'd won by a margin of 6%.
Why would anyone be surprised if they also rigged it to keep Stevens in?
you're letting Wyoming in? Awfully generous.
Wyoming at least brought in women's suffrage.
Good lord, it's just occurred to me: we've just had an election in which a major player from each of the parties was from Hawaii or Alaska. One could wander all over the place with speculation about that; too much or too little to say.
23: Obama wasn't really from Hawaii, parsimon. He was born abroad. We faked his birth certificate to get him elected, remember?
Hush. Palin wasn't really from Alaska, either. We don't talk about that.
What's really strange is that we almost elected a Panamanian strongman.
Hawaii should have been the 49th state.
We do quite nicely on the corruption and incompetence front, too, and we're salivating even more now that The Senator is taking over the Appropriations Committee.
I'll repeat my occasional assertion that, judged from a US baseline, Hawai'i is downright fucking weird. It makes Louisiana look ordinary.
I laughed when I heard the NPR story about how 90-year-old Senator Byrd is bowing to the inevitable and giving up control of the Appropriations committee to Daniel Inouye. How old is Inouye? 91?
And yes, Hawaii is very weird. Possibly not as weird as Alaska, and better to be a one-party Democratic state than a one-party Republican state, but definitely different.
33: I, for one, am suspicious of that "New" Mexico we've got over there.
Top, Charm and Strange Dakota are crying out for statehood.
Fewer of all states that there can be fewer of, that's my policy. One Carolina is bad enough.
Stop trying to keep West New Jersey down, foolishmortal.
That kind of secession would result in an unsustainable Water Gap.
I'm pretty sure at one point what we call Minnesota extended west to the Missouri river. Maybe we can reclaim that land for Minnesota and leave west of there to Montana and Wyoming.
That would eliminate two states.
judged from a US baseline, Hawai'i is downright fucking weird.
But how weird is the baseline?
Top, Charm and Strange Dakota are crying out for statehood.
Maybe just get rid of the whole North/South naming convention entirely. Notice to Lindsey Graham: you are now the senior Senator from Bottom Carolina.
Apparently we really did have an October Surprise. It just didn't work.
Obama's response, and that of his advisers, was sketchy. But McCain had a foreign agent running his campaign. We sort of knew that, but there's more argument at the link.
What Scheunemann did should be prosecutable, but if not that, should at least end a few DC careers besides his own.
Notice to Lindsey Graham: you are now the senior Senator from Bottom Carolina.
Is there anyone left who believes he's straight?