How Alaska Will Remember Sen. Ted Stevens | Newsweek Politics

CAMPAIGN 2008
A Titan in Trouble
Tony Hopfinger 10/28/2008 12:00:00 AM
Ted Stevens assumed his U.S. Senate seat in 1968—the same year the North Vietnamese Army launched the Tet Offensive, the Beatles recorded "Revolution", and Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. It was also the year when Alaska was discovered to be sitting atop the largest oil fields in North America. A crude relationship was born between Alaska's politicians and its economic lifeblood—one that helped keep Stevens in office for 40 years, and could now end the career of the longest-serving Senate Republican in history.
CAMPAIGN 2008
'American Idol’ Meets ‘Northern Exposure’
Karen Breslau 9/10/2008 12:00:00 AM
When I traveled to Alaska last summer to meet an obscure Republican governor named Sarah Palin, I never would have thought that a year later her face would be staring at me as I traipsed through the Anchorage airport yet again, from every tabloid and magazine cover in the country. What I could imagine was that Sarah Palin was exactly the kind of Republican, were she not sequestered in Alaska, who had the potential to breathe new energy into her party. I had chosen Palin during my yearly talent hunt for promising female politicians to feature in our annual women’s leadership issue. Working from a list of female governors---my sample size was all of nine---Palin immediately leapt out: her approval ratings were 90 percent and she was a Republican picking a fight with Big Oil in Alaska. The FBI corruption probe into Alaska's senior leadership---including the once-venerable U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (now under indictment for filing false financial disclosures) was just heating up. Palin seemed to have no qualms about throwing her fellow Republicans under the dogsled. Plus she was only 43 at the time, and the leadership of her own party seemed to hate her. Sounded like a story to me. It's been fascinating over the past 11 days to watch the whole country having the same reaction I did a year ago. "It's 'American Idol' meets 'Northern Exposure'," says University of Alaska historian Stephen Haycox, who, like all Alaska experts, found himself in high demand last week.
POLITICS
McCain’s Mrs. Right
Evan Thomas 8/30/2008 12:00:00 AM
Sarah Palin posed for a photo spread in Vogue, but that's about as far as the glamour goes. She piles her hair up in a librarian's bun and wears what she calls "schoolmarm" glasses (one blogger compared her to "Tina Fey's sexier sister"). She was at one time a beauty queen, Miss Wasilla 1984, in her hometown, population: 7,000 or so. "We were really surprised when she wanted to do it," her father, Chuck, told the Vogue reporter. "That wasn't her thing." Basketball and hunting were more like it. Palin regretted the whole beauty pageant experience. "They made us line up in bathing suits and turn our backs so the male judges could look at our butts. I couldn't believe it!" she told Vogue.
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
Into the Wild
Tony Hopfinger 7/30/2008 12:00:00 AM
In early 1953, Ted Stevens and his wife at the time, Ann, were headed up the bumpy Alaska Highway in their overloaded Buick. Stevens, who was 29, had left Washington, D.C., to take a job with a Fairbanks law firm. But he wasn't there to kick back and enjoy the wilderness. Within six months of arriving in Alaska, the Harvard Law grad was appointed as U.S. Attorney in Fairbanks. And thus began an epic political adventure that would dramatically shape the landscape of his adopted state.
ELECTION QUIZ
Which of Us Just Ran for President?

Once upon a time, as many as 18 people were competing in the race for the White House. Now, heading into Super Tuesday, the field is down to a small handful of front runners. But before we turn to the survivors, let's take a fond look back at the also-rans with a game of"Did I Run or Not?"Four of the men shown below ran for president; four of them did not—and one of those four is currently in jail. Can you guess who's who?
Now This Is Woman’s Work
Karen Breslau
In 1998, voters in a focus group were asked to close their eyes and imagine what a governor should look like. "They automatically pictured a man," says Barbara Lee, whose foundation promoting women's political advancement sponsored the survey. "The kind you see in those portraits hanging in statehouse hallways." They most certainly didn't visualize Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a former beauty-pageant winner, avid hunter, snowmobiler and mother of four who was elected to her state's highest office last November. Or Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a badge-wielding former federal prosecutor and onetime attorney for Anita Hill who has redefined the debate over illegal immigration in her state.