Stevens bids adieu; GOP looks ahead

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By Sean Lengell and Donald Lambro, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, gave an emotional goodbye Thursday to the body he served for 40 years, signaling the end of an era for the Republican Party on the same day that a new poll shows the party's popularity at historic lows.

"My motto has been here: To hell with politics, just do what is right for Alaska," Stevens said during his 10-minute floor speech, a day after conceding defeat in his bid for an eighth term.

Stevens, who never shied from his desire secure for pork-barrel spending projects for his state, conceded defeat Wednesday to Democratic challenger Mark Begich after the latest count of absentee and questioned ballots from the Nov. 4 election widened the Anchorage mayor's lead to 3,724 votes.

Even if Stevens had won, he still faced expulsion from the Senate after his October conviction in federal court for concealing gifts from an oil-services company.

So as the 85-year-old lawmaker walks away from the post that he has held since 1968, Republican approval polls remained in a free fall, suggesting that voters increasingly are tired of a party that is seen as having turned its back on fiscal responsibility in favor of widespread misuse of power.

A new Gallup Poll shows that just 34 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Republican Party, as its leaders sought to redesign a conservative agenda aimed at winning back disaffected party members and independents.

"After suffering major blows in the election, the Republican Party is experiencing its worst image rating in a least a decade," the Gallup Poll reported Thursday, with a whopping 61 percent of Americans holding an unfavorable view of the Republican Party.

The poll, conducted Nov. 13 to 16, found that the party's anemic favorability rating has fallen by an additional six points, down from 40 percent in mid-October. Democrats, on the other hand, had a favorability rating of 55 percent, about the same as last month. Notably, 91 percent of Democrats approved of their party compared with just 78 percent of Republicans. The nationwide poll had a three-percentage-point margin of error.

Republican lawmakers, still smarting from the election beating, said the poll confirms that Republicans' need to recommit itself to core conservative values of limited government and national security.

"I think we, as a party, need to restate our principles and stick with them - which are maintaining fiscal responsibility, maintaining a government that's affordable, maintaining a strong commitment to national defense," said Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, after learning of the country's low esteem for his party.