Ted Stevens may turn 85 today, but he has little to celebrate.  In the wake of a corruption case that ended with him being convicted on seven felony counts of failing to report over $25,000 in gifts, Stevens will come out on the losing end of what has been a close election between him and Democrat Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage.

Stevens is the longest serving Republican member of the senate, having held his seat since the Johnson administration.  Begich initially faced an uphill battle in his attempt to oust Stevens, whose family is akin to royalty in the state.  But, when a month before the election, Stevens became the convicted felon on the ballot, a vote for Stevens became less of a sure thing.

The odd fact in this whole story is that Ted Stevens could not even vote for himself!  In Alaska, convicted felons are stripped of their voting rights.  Imagine that...if Stevens had won re-election he would have been the first convicted felon to win election into the senate.  A law-breaker, who has lost the right to vote, would be writing and passing legislation.  I think our democracy narrowly escaped what would have been a shameful day in American history.