Local pollster, Ivan Moore, who is from England but has lived in Alaska for 20 years, goes so far as to say that Stevens doesn't have a "chance in hell" of winning this election. He said this while sitting in a bar in the hardscrabble interior town of Fairbanks. A sign above the bar read: "We love Senator Stevens." Around Alaska, bumper stickers read: "I'll vote for Ted 'till he's dead." One local talkshow caller summed up a fairly common sentiment in Alaska when he said: "I'll vote for a guilty Republican over a liberal any day".
These are the people Moore calls Ted's rock-solid base. He thinks that accounts for about 35-40% of Alaska's populace, which is why Moore doesn't foresee a blow out on election day. He predicts that Begich will win it by about 15 points.
What awaits the diminutive man who wore a Hulk tie on the Senate floor when he was prepping for a fight, always for something for Alaska (roads, more money for septic systems for Alaska Native villages, airstrips and post offices, bus stations and federal buildings)? Maybe it's prison. Maybe it's here, back home, among the people who will always call him Uncle Ted. The people who will say: He might be a crook, but he's Alaska's crook. He's just one of us.
Makes me think that even after he is dead, he will haunt Alaska; a ghosly presence. And what a good halloween costume that would be- ghostly, ghoulish, old Uncle Ted, dragging his ball and chain.
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