Ted Stevens Needs To Go

On Monday, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted on seven felony counts for failing to report approximately $250,000 in gifts from VECO, an oil services company. When the verdict came down, we couldn’t put our feelings any more succinctly than with the sentiments of Michelle Malkin: good riddance.

Up for reelection next week, Stevens has decided he will stick it to the GOP some more, by not making the honorable choice, and give up his Senate seat. The hubris and self-importance is not surprising. So much for country first, let alone your own party.

Stevens encapsulates everything that is wrong with the Republican Party in 2008. He represents the corruption, the runaway, pork-laden spending that makes this Republican Party indiscernible from the liberal Democrats and led to the party’s downfall that began in 2006 and most likely will continue next week.

If fiscal conservatism is not dead in the GOP, then it certainly is on life support; Ted Stevens helped it get to this point. It’s becoming clearer, as we inch closer toward next week’s election and the Democrat tsunami that’s about to hit the GOP in both houses of Congress, that the party needs to tear down whatever is left of what Stevens represents and begin a long process of rebuilding, of creating a platform rooted and based in traditional conservative values, which should include a hard lesson in values in governance and fiscally sound policies. Ted Stevens represents none of this. That process for the GOP should begin here; the Senator needs to be jettisoned and fast