Alaska's new political frontier

ANCHORAGE — For the first time in four decades, politics in Alaska is a brand-new game for both Republicans and Democrats because of the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens, the state's longtime Republican patriarch.

Gov. Sarah Palin was a political upstart and Stevens was still the powerful, irascible senior senator from Alaska, delivering billions of federal dollars to his home state, when federal agents raided the offices of six state legislators two years ago.

One of them was Ben Stevens, the senator's son and at the time the president of the state Senate. The expansive corruption investigation, and the Stevens family connection, raised two staggering possibilities: that the elder Stevens could be implicated, and that the economic and political stability he had provided since he literally helped put the state on the map 49 years ago could crumble.

Change came quickly. Several months after the raids, in the fall of 2006, Palin, a suburban mayor, was elected governor as she challenged her own party leaders and campaigned on a promise of government reform. In that same election, Stevens lost much of his influence as Democrats in Washington took control of the Senate.

Now, after three Republican state lawmakers have been convicted of corruption, more face trial and Stevens has been indicted as he seeks re-election, it is suddenly Palin and a new generation of fellow Republicans to whom the party could be clinging to salvage control of a state they have long dominated.

"These guys have done so much, but at some point you have to have a new group of people come in," said McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the party who is on leave from an appointed position in Palin's administration. "That's why Democrats are spending so much money here. But it's not that the conservative values or the views of Alaskans are changing, it's that there's this shift in the elected body."

Democrats, often only bit players in Alaska, see an opportunity to take a Senate seat — and maybe the state's only House seat — for the first time in decades.

"This has just been a Republican world up here," said Keith W. Bell, an immigration lawyer who attended a fundraiser for one of Stevens' Democratic rivals, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, on Wednesday. "They've had it their way with no counterbalances, so there was nothing to stop the corruption. Now they've been caught, and I'm so glad."

For all the attention on newfound Democratic promise, though, the Republican Party has not surrendered as Palin and her allies move closer to center stage — potentially completing the generational party realignment that would allow the Republicans to maintain their dominance even in these turbulent times.

Stevens, 84, is still considered the favorite to win the Republican primary on Aug. 26, but there is no shortage of speculation over what might happen among Republicans after that, particularly since Begich, who is expected to win his party's primary, was ahead of Stevens in the polls even before the senator was indicted on Tuesday.

One option for the Republicans being discussed here Wednesday had Stevens withdrawing from the race and the state Republican Party's executive committee appointing a replacement candidate. Palin would probably be at the top of that list.

Another possibility: Stevens could resign, which would allow the governor to appoint a replacement to fill his seat. Palin could conceivably also resign and have her successor, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, also a Republican, name her to the seat.

But there are inevitable wrinkles. Palin has said she wants to remain governor. And Parnell is among the Republicans the party is counting on to succeed the old guard, which includes Stevens and the state's longtime Republican congressman, Rep. Don Young. Parnell is in a tight primary battle against Young, 75, who has spent 35 years in the House (just five years shy of Stevens' tenure in the Senate) and who is also under investigation for corruption.

"There's certainly a demographic shift we're taking part in right now," Pierre said.

He emphasized that the Republican Party did not take positions in primaries but said that it supported Stevens' efforts to defend himself against the charges.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury charged Stevens with concealing more than $250,000 in home renovations, furnishings and other gifts from a former oil-industry executive, William J. Allen, and his company, VECO.

While Democrats around the country have seized on the indictment to paint Republicans as vulnerable in Alaska, virtually no one in Alaska, Republican or Democrat, wants to alienate Stevens' supporters, who frequently call talk-radio shows to praise him.

A spokesman for Stevens' campaign, Aaron Saunders, said the senator's office had handed out more lawn signs in the past two days than it had in all the previous weeks and that the senator would be campaigning throughout the state during the August recess. Saunders said there had been no talk of dropping out of the race.

"He's in, full steam ahead," he said. "Unequivocally."

Still, reflecting the new frontier that Alaska politics has become, Saunders spoke just after listening to Vic Vickers, a businessman, hold a news conference in front of Stevens' campaign headquarters saying the senator should resign. Vickers, who moved to the state in January, said he was prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to challenge Stevens in the Republican primary.