Overlooked?

Today is the first day of Sen. Ted Stevens' trial, as has been written ad nauseam.  If it sticks to the schedule they've laid out, it will finish in roughly four weeks.  But here's something no one has thought, or at least written, about....what does it mean for the Republican Party's prospects (presidential race to some extent, but mostly Congressional) if the longest-serving Republican Senator in history - who also hails from the same state as the vice presidential nominee - is convicted of corruption charges a week before the election?