For eight weeks Alaska's Governor Girl has been having the time of her middle-aged life crisscrossing America in a private jet with an entourage that includes Amy "So You Think You Can Dance" Strozzi, her $11,000 a week make-up artist, and Angela Lew, who the McCain campaign paid $10,000 to counsel Sarah that she'd look hotter if she abandoned her trademark schoolmarm's upswept bun and let her hair hang down to her shoulders the way Julia Roberts's does.
From Nevada east to Florida, then north into Virginia and Pennsylvania, at every stop Sarah has roused overflowing crowds of flag-waving hard right patriots. But on Tuesday the fun's over. Wednesday morning it's back to Juneau (or, more accurately, since Sarah and Todd never really moved into the Governor's mansion in Alaska's state capital, back to Wasilla), for two more years of hum-drum life as chief executive of the nation's most backwater state.
But between now and then, Sarah has a huge decision to make.
And the decision is should Sarah sometime in the next 72 hours try to extricate Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the nation's most recently famous felon, out from under the bus under which Sarah joined in throwing him on Tuesday? Or should Sarah stand aside and risk Ted's legendary ire if on Election Day he succeeds in extricating himself without her help?
As everyone who's been paying attention knows, on Monday a federal jury in Washington, D.C., convicted Ted Stevens, 84 years old and the longest-serving Republican in the United States Senate, on seven felony counts of lying to the Senate by failing to report $250,000 worth of gifts in the guise of goods and services he had been given by Bill Allen, a pot-bellied, brain-damaged former oil-platform rough-neck who for 20 has been the oil industry's bag man to the Alaska Legislature.
When he was arraigned in July, Stevens, who this Tuesday is seeking election to his seventh full term in the Senate, demanded that his trial be held prior to the election because, as he noted (quite correctly) at the time "the verdict is the election." But when the guilty verdict came in, Ted shifted his ground and began arguing to Alaskan voters that "I have not been convicted of anything"; which technically is true, since his conviction is not final until Ted exhausts his right to appeal, a convoluted process that will take years to run its course.
And, in the end, who knows, Ted may prevail on appeal because Brendan "Mr. Chairman, I am not a potted plant" Sullivan, his celebrity attorney best known for making a fool of Ted's close friend Dan Inouye when Sullivan represented Oliver North 20 years ago during the Iran-Contra scandal, is no slouch. And Ted is correct that during his trial the U.S. attorneys who prosecuted him withheld evidence and then lied about it to the court when they got caught.
But would that evidence have been exculpatory? Who knows? And even if it might have been, what does any of that have to do with Sarah Palin?
What it has to do with Sarah Palin is that Ted Stevens is back in Alaska, still the Alaska Republican Party's candidate for reelection to his Senate seat.
*****
When Ted flew into Anchorage Wednesday night the Alaska Republican Party hosted a "Welcome Home Ted" rally in a hangar at the Ted Stevens International Airport. So even though it was freezing cold, I motored over to check it out.
When I arrived I found 400 of the most usual suspects, ranging from 70-year-old blue-haired women wearing "I Love Uncle Ted" T-shirts, to a brigade of Senate staffers on leave from their jobs in the Hart Building on Capitol Hill, to three or four of the most prominent of the lobbyist-gatekeepers, all friends of mine, who for 30 years have made handsome livings and then some selling their access to Ted.
When the object of the evening's attention arrived, after the obligatory sign-waving and cheering for the television cameras died down, Ted made a speech that for a Ted-watcher like me was fabulous. Unrepentant and pugnacious, Ted announced that he is an innocent man, wrongly accused and convicted, whose only mistake was to have "naively [Ted Stevens naive?] trusted someone [Bill Allen] I thought was an honest friend, when he was neither honest nor a friend."
Ted then announced that he had returned to Alaska to campaign. And that if this coming Tuesday Election Day he goes down, he's going to go down swinging.
But still. What does any of that have to do with Sarah Palin?
*****
What it has to do with Sarah Palin is that, even though whether he wants to admit to Alaska voters or to himself that he's a convicted felon, Ted Stevens has a decent shot at being reelected. And if Sarah Palin would help him, he likely has a sure shot.
Here's the situation:
Ted Stevens' principal competitor is the Democratic candidate, Mark Begich, the Boy Mayor of Anchorage. At 46, Mark is young enough to be Ted's son, and almost young enough to be his grandson. The son of a popular long dead congressman, Mark is smart, personable, competent, ambitious, and politically ruthless. (All admirable qualities insofar as I'm concerned.) And now that he's aged he looks less nerdy than he did when he was a kid.
On Thursday Ivan Moore, one of Anchorage's journeyman pollsters, announced that as a consequence of the guilty verdict, in his statistically informed opinion, Ted Stevens is done. According to Ivan:
The race for the U.S. Senate is over. Ted's solid, loyal base will show up [at the polls] next week, some of them rationalizing that his crime was insignificant, others maintaining that it was somehow justified, but there won't be enough of them. It is entirely apparent to me that a certain percentage of swing voters will not longer look at Stevens as a viable option for reelection.
But this morning I received an email from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) that touted Mark Begich leading Ted Stevens, but onlyby a statistically too- close-to-call two percentage points: 48-46.
If that's true, and my feel for it is that it is, Ted Stevens still has a shot. Here's why:
The Structural Problem
Alaska is a blood-red state. Of 495,731 registered voters, Republicans and members of far right splinter parties outnumber Democrats and members of the Green Party by almost 2 to 1 (153,239 to 79,678). While 53 percent of the electorate (262,814) are registered Non-partisan or Independent, a solid majority of those folks range from center-right to full-crank crazy. Running against nut-balls (because the Alaska Democratic Party could not recruit real candidates) in 1996 and 2002 Ted won with 77 and 78 percent of the vote. The 23 and 22 percent the nut-ball candidates attracted represented 7 and 8 percent more votes than the Democratic vote represents as a percentage of the electorate.
So - in normal circumstances - for Mark Begich the structural problem would be close to insurmountable.
The Begich Campaign
Mark Begich has the potential to be the best Democratic candidate in Alaska since his father Nick Begich, who died during his 1972 reelection campaign for Congress in a plane crash. But Mark has communicated to Alaska voters next to no reason whatsoever why they should abandon Ted Stevens and vote for him other than that he's a Democrat and a nice guy who has done a good job (which he has) of running the city of Anchorage.
Instead, Mark has relied on SDCC-financed radio and TV commercials that have spent the summer accusing Ted Stevens of being a criminal with such a heavy hand that they even offended me. While Chuck Schumer and the DSCC may think their intrusion into an election being conducted in a distant, and extremely parochial, political culture about which they have not the slightest understanding helped to soften Ted up for his guilty verdict, my gut feel for it is that the SDCC commercials had the opposite effect.
In summary, for the past nine months Mark Begich has communicated toAlaska votersonly that he's a Democrat, he's on the ballot, and he's not Ted Stevens. (The message being that if, because of external events, i.e., the guilty verdict, Alaska votersdecide that they want to turn Ted out, Mark's available.) Two weeks or so ago Mark finally went negative on his own (rather than by hiding behind the SDCC). But he still has not explained to members of the Non-partisan/Independent voter majority in Alaska why - if there had been no guilty verdict - they should want to vote for him, rather than for Ted Stevens. Against Ted who - whatever his sins and, too frequently, thoroughly rotten temperament - is pathologically tenacious, that may not be good enough.
The Native Vote
Because of the structural problem and the huge concentration of population in Southcentral Alaska, a Republican candidate can win statewide by campaigning in a car from Fairbanks south to Homer (at the end of the road system on the tip of the Kenai Peninsula) and back again.
But a Democratic candidate cannot win statewide without a BOOMING vote out of the rural villages in which the majority of Alaska's indigenous Indian, Eskimo and Aleut peoples live.
For reasons too convoluted to detail here, as a consequence of his advocacy in the 1960s for a fair settlement of Alaska Native land claims, for 40 years Ted Stevens has had, if not a lock on the Native vote, the ability to deny his Democratic opponent the votes he needs in the villages.
And despite the guilty verdict, this election may be no exception.
Every October the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), Alaska's statewide Native organization, holds a convention, usually in Anchorage. Courtesy of the State of Alaska's telecommunication satellite, the convention is broadcast live into every television set in every village from Barrow on the coast of the Arctic Ocean south to Hydaburg in the southeast Alaska rainforest.
Last week was AFN convention week. On Saturday morning (two days before the Washington, D.C., jury announced its verdict) Ted was on the agenda. So I stopped in at the new Anchorage convention center, which Mark Begich can take proper credit for having built, to assess the mood.
When I arrived, Ted's daughter, Lilly, a personable twentysomething who recently graduated from law school at Boalt Hall, was filling in for Dad. When Lilly finished her speech a pre-recorded interview with Ted was projected onto two 30-foot high television screens, during which Ted scrolled through the things he has done, and the things he is doing, for Alaska Natives (all of which come down to getting them more than their fair share of federal tax dollars). Then when the screens went dark, Ted called in from his living room in Washington, D.C., to say hi.
When the call ended, 2,000 Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts from every (or almost every) village in Alaska leaped to their feet to give the voice on the phone a standing ovation. And, for Mark Begich, to make it worse, while they allowed Mayor Begich to welcome the convention, the members of the AFN board of directors denied candidate Begich an opportunity to address the convention.
What does that mean for Ted Stevens?
Friday morning I had a phone call from an old friend who for more than 30 years has lived in Bethel, a small town on the Kuskokwim River 400 air miles west of Anchorage and the county seat (of sorts) for the most populous Native region in Alaska (56 Yup'ik Eskimo villages). Since 1990 my old friend has been one of the go-to guys for getting out the Native vote throughout the region for Democratic candidates. This morning he reported that his present best assessment is that the Native vote there will not abandon Ted.
All of which, finally, brings me to Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin
During her two years in office Ted Stevens has had little use for Alaska's Governor Girl. But prior to her selection by John McCain as his running mate, Sarah was unbelievably popular in Alaska, with an approval rating last spring that approached an astounding 90 percent.
Because of that, during the July 4th congressional recess Ted began doing joint public appearances with Sarah. A change of circumstance that I attributed to his recognition, anticipating indictment, that attaching himself to her popularity was an unavoidable political necessity. Not only that but who in the middle of the July 4th congressional recess (July 7 to be exact) did Ted hire to be his campaign manager but Mike Tibbles, a Wasilla homeboy pal of Sarah's who not only headed her transition team, but until May was her chief of staff.
Because John McCain put Sarah at the top of the ballot in Alaska, on election day polling places from Fairbanks south through Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula will be overrun with Palinistas, many of whom might not otherwise have come out if their girl was not on the ballot. My initial assumption was that, after voting for Sarah (and John McCain), the Palinistas will vote for Ted Stevens.
If I am correct about that, when the Native village vote and the Palinista vote are combined, Mark Begich's candidacy may be doomed (no matter the guilty verdict and no matter what the DSCC's poll numbers say).
On Monday afternoon, Sarah carefully calibrated her public response to the Stevens guilty verdict to not confuse the Palinista vote. Sarah said:
As Governor of the State of Alaska, I will carefully monitor the situation and I'll take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system and I'm confident that Senator Stevens from this point on will do the right thing for the people of Alaska.
Then Tuesday morning, John McCain (who viscerally dislikes Ted Stevens and vice-versa) threw Ted under the bus by calling on him to resign his seat (and presumably to end his candidacy).
In the wake of that, Tuesday afternoon Sarah (on John McCain's order? - someone should ask her) put out a new statement in which she fell in behind McCain but fudged, saying: "Even if elected on Tuesday, Senator Stevens should step aside to allow a special election to give Alaskans a real choice of who will serve them in Congress."
"Even if elected on Tuesday"?
Does Sarah Palin want her Palinistas to vote for Ted Stevens on Tuesday? Or doesn't she? Thursday morning Sarah muddled her position further by refusing to say who she is voting for, telling a reporter in Ohio:
I have asked for him [Ted Stevens] to resign also and even if he's elected on Tuesday and even after that because that allows for a special election in Alaska. It will allow Alaska a real clear choice. I've never people who I voted for before because I see that as a very precious freedom in our country; free and fair elections that allow us to cast a secret ballot behind the voting booth curtain. So that's the way I want to keep it.
Two Sundays ago Colin Powell told the nation that he's voting for Barack Obama. But Sarah Palin won't tell Alaskans whether she's voting for Ted Stevens?
In any case, my expectation is that this weekend someone at the Republican National Committee will realize (undoubtedly with Ted Stevens's help) that even if Sarah Palin thinks Ted Stevens should resign after the election (which, if he wins, he won't), unless Sarah tells her Palinistas to vote for Ted, Mark Begich may be elected. And if he is, Mark may be Harry Reid's 60th vote.
If I were in it only for the fun, my preferred scenario would be that between now and Election Day Sarah (on John McCain's order?) continues to leave Ted to languish under the bus, Ted somehow extricates himself without her help, McCain-Palin lose, and on Wednesday Sarah returns to her governorship looking forward to dealing for the remainder of her first (and only?) term as Governor of Alaska with Ted Stevens still Alaska's senior United States Senator. (As I understand it, if in the end the Senate kicks him out, that won't happen until Ted loses his appeal, and, if he does lose, that won't happen for at least one Congress, and maybe two.)
So Sarah Palin, hard right America's girl for the presidency in 2012, has a Hobson's choice. Help a convicted felon retain his seat in the United States Senate. Or help Harry Reid win the 60th vote he needs to prevent hard right America from filibustering President Obama's legislative agenda.
Codicil
This morning when I fired up the computer, waiting for me was an email from the DSCC touting new numbers for key Senate races, one of which is Stevens-Begich. The new numbers move Begich up from yesterday's 48-46 (statistically too close to call) to 58-36.
DSCC numbers are, by definition, propaganda. So who knows what the situation really is in a state whose expansive geography makes obtaining statistically reliable poll numbers outside the major cities - Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan - difficult. But 58-36?
For 58-36 to be the real deal, since Ted's return to Alaska on Wednesday night almost the entire Non-Partisan/Independent vote would have had to move to Mark Begich, leaving Ted hardcore Republicans and a majority of the Native vote. If that's what happened, then Ted Stevens was right in July when he predicted that "the verdict is the election."
But the DSCC's numbers well may be inflated or totally bogus.
If they are, and if Ted Stevens remains hellbent to hold his seat, with three days to go he has only one card left to play: Governor Girl.
If between now and sundown tomorrow Sarah Palin abandons further self-aggrandizing pretense and orders her cadres of Palinistas to vote for a candidate who Sarah four days ago told the nation that she agreed with John McCain is a disgrace and should resign from his seat in the Senate that the National Republican Party desperately needs to hold, that might be enough. But just maybe.
Who can say until Tuesday night when the votes are counted. But for Ted Stevens, if that's how he wants the end game to play out, he (and Mike Tibbles) better get Sarah cracking.
 Donald Craig Mitchell is an attorney in Anchorage, Alaska. Mitchell is the author of Sold American: The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land and Take My Land Take My Life: The Story ofCongress's Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, which in 2006 the Alaska Historical Society recognized as two of the most important books ever written about the history of Alaska.