Tech Central: Senator Stevens explains the internet

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in US history, appeared to have lost re-election to his Alaska seat last night after a recount, a result clearly linked to his conviction on corruption charges days before the November 4 election.

Mr Stevens, 85 yesterday, trailed his Democratic opponent, the Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, by 3,724 votes after the closing stages of the recount, with just 2,500 ballots left to be tallied.

The result had national implications, because the Alaska race was one of three yet-to-be-decided Senate races that could still hand Democrats a 60-seat filibuster-proof “supermajority” in the US Senate.

Mr Stevens’s apparent defeat gave Democrats a 58-seat majority in the upper chamber, leaving all eyes on two undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia. In Minnesota, a hand recount starts today after Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent, led his challenger, Al Franken, the comedian and liberal talk show host, by just 206 votes - out of 2.9 million cast - after the first count.

In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, faces a run-off election on December 2 against his Democratic challenger Jim Martin, after neither candidate passed the 50 per cent threshold required under state law for victory.

A 60-seat majority would allow Democrats in the Senate to break Republican filibusters, a blocking tactic, meaning that Barack Obama’s legislative agenda could largely be passed unfettered by the opposition party’s objections.

The downfall of Mr Stevens is one of the more extraordinary stories of the Senate’s long history. A legend on Capitol Hill, he was famous - his critics say infamous - for bringing huge amounts of federal “pork barrel” projects back to Alaska.

On decisive Senate votes he would wear an Incredible Hulk tie.

A week before the November 4 election, he was convicted on seven federal criminal charges, after he hid gifts and services - including a lavish renovation of his home - from an Alaska company he was accused of steering lucrative government contracts to. He said today that he would not ask President Bush for a pardon on his corruption convictions.

Remarkably, he actually appeared to have beaten Mr Begich after the first count, and having tied his conviction up in the appeals courts, looked set to return to the Senate as a convicted felon. Yesterday, Republicans in the upper chamber met and declined to expel him from their ranks, but what appeared to be his defeat today after the recount appears to have ended his hopes of a seventh-term. He entered the upper chamber in 1968.

Mr Stevens began his government service under President Eisenhower in the 1950s, in the Interior Department. He played a key role in Alaska’s economic development, and was a towering figure in his home state. He claims he was wrongfully convicted and his appeal will be heard next year.

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