U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens impact on his old friend, Washington state

THE denouement of Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens could be in the can by this morning, as voters of the Last Frontier were leaning more and more to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in final tallying.

Begich, a Democrat, holds an achingly small lead over the Alaskan glacier known as Ted Stevens. The Republican has served his state for 40 years in the U.S. Senate and finds himself pronounced guilty of some nasty charges he took payoffs.

Alaskans, being among the most independent Americans, still rallied to Stevens despite the news he was on the take. The Anchorage Daily News reported that as recently as Wednesday, Stevens was ahead by 3,000 votes with nearly a third of the ballots yet to be counted.

Alaska is so vast and communications sometimes so spotty, returns from the far North sometimes take a little longer to get down to the state capital.

Yet by the next day, the tide had flipped and Begich had a lead of less than 900 votes. The Democrat was pulling ahead in the northern villages and on military installations, where just about every major edifice is named after Stevens.

What does this mean for us? The Puget Sound region is Alaska's best friend. Tacoma's port does enormous, heavy lifting to get goods in and out of Anchorage. The North Pacific fishing fleet, what remains of it, is home-ported in Seattle.

Those familiar economic ties were under political strain two years ago, when Stevens didn't get his way in the Senate over more oil drilling and found himself confronted by a unyielding senator from Washington — Democrat Maria Cantwell.

Begich would certainly show things have changed. The mayor of Anchorage, a young and pleasant man to spend an hour with, compares with the flinty Stevens, who wears the cloaks of the Senate with seams stitched by prerogatives.

Begich and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels are pals. They cooperated on an environmental gathering in Alaska with other U.S. mayors. The two Democrats are part of the same framework of city leaders coping with unions, layoffs, the economy and neighborhoods.

Begich would also enter that charmed circle of Democrats able to give even more power to the majority party.

So, there is a lot at stake. Not for the first time, Alaska's actions directly touch on Seattle and the maritime communities of Puget Sound. Once again, Alaskan's choice of leadership touches the whole country through the small prism of its tiny population and gigantic resources.

Taking office as the first felon in U.S. history to enter the Senate cannot be something Alaskans would welcome of Stevens. In the very conservative valleys close to Anchorage, the Stevens name still means a lot, but age and petty crimes are not good combinations in a state that just saw a national unveiling of its governor. Alaskans like eccentrics and vivid personalities, but not necessarily jailbirds.

In visits to Seattle over the past two years, Stevens has been unfailingly insistent he has been good to this region. "When have I ever said, 'no'?" he asked. But he misunderstood that sometimes people would say no to him, and it seemed an unthinkable stain on his beloved senate to deny him his appetites.

This final tally would be the end of the Stevens era in Congress, not something to celebrate but to consider what happens when the man and the institution depend too much on each other.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera