John McCain and Sarah Palin on Tuesday called on Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to resign, a day after the veteran Alaska lawmaker was convicted on federal corruption charges.
Other Republican senators followed suit, as did Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president.
“Stevens has broken his trust with the people and … he should now step down,” McCain said in a statement issued by his campaign Tuesday morning.
Palin said the time had come “for him to step aside.”
“Even if elected on Tuesday, Sen. Stevens should step aside to allow a special election to give Alaskans a real choice of who will serve them in Congress,” Palin said in a written statement.
Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, insists he is innocent and will continue to run for a seventh full term as he fights his conviction in court.
He was convicted Monday on seven counts of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and free work on his home in Alaska.
| Cindy |
October 29th, 2008 10:20 am ET I think Stevens should step down too. But in reality if everyone stepped down who broke our trust and did wrong then we’d lose most of congress! They are all corrupt so it’s funny seeing them telling someone else to step down because of corruption when most of them are in the same boat yet haven’t been caught yet. Cindy…Ga. |
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| Larry |
October 29th, 2008 10:35 am ET Good. I don’t know how these elected officials say they want your vote to represent you and then they have the gall to embarrass us by abandoning our trust. That is why we must know everything about a person’s background and moral fibre BEFORE we elect them to represent us. |
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| chuck |
October 29th, 2008 11:52 am ET Only God knows how corrupt this man really is.He should be investigated from the beginning to the end and I storongly believe that Sarah Palin should also be investigated.WHY ? Birds of a feather flock together. This is straight talk my friends. |
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| GF, Los Angeles |
October 29th, 2008 11:59 am ET Sen. Stevens is proof of why we the people should not be re-electing the same person over and over. I for one will not be re-electing my Congressman since he never responded to neither CNN’s nor my disclosure of his earmark requests and because he’s been representing me for quite some time. Time to get rid of these crooks and usher in a new one. |
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