GOP Sen. Ted Stevens Loses

clipped from tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com The Associated Press has projected that GOP Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens has lost re-election, with the final major batch of absentee ballots giving Democratic challenger Mark Begich an insurmountable lead. The current vote count: Begich 150,728 votes, Stevens 147,004 votes. Begich's lead of 3,724 votes is greater than the roughly 2,500 outstanding ballots. By percentage, the 1.18% lead is beyond the 0.5% threshold that would have entitled Stevens to a state-funded recount. Even if every last single outstanding ballot went to Stevens -- an unlikely scenario, to say the least -- he would still lose, and even if they broke for Stevens by a strong margin it would still likely be outside of the state-paid recount threshold.

Now they won't have to kick him out. Bonus, Sarah Palin's hopes that she gets to appoint Steven's successor goes down a series of tubes.

Still, what does this say about the average Alaskan? Stevens is a convicted felon. It shouldn't even have been close. Republicans are so freakin' crazy up there that they'd rather re-elected a prison-bound criminal than a Democrat.

Now those are partisan blinders.