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There have been many defining moments in the career of Sen. Ted Stevens in Alaska—perhaps the biggest is to start next week in a Washington, D.C. courtroom.

In a report published today in the New York Times, Carl Hulse accurately summed up the situation for a national audience:

"What makes the proceedings so astounding is not just that Mr. Stevens is a figure of outsize proportions in Alaska and the Senate. Or that the gifts came from a company headed by a longtime friend of Mr. Stevens at a time when the relationship between federal officials and the oil industry is under scrutiny. Or that his state, usually an afterthought in national elections, is now at the center of America’s political conversation because of the selection of Alaska’s little-known governor for the Republican presidential ticket. Or that he is the king of earmarks when such spending is itself on trial on the campaign trail.

"No, on top of all that, the criminal proceedings will start about 40 days before Alaska’s voters must decide whether Mr. Stevens, 84, merits a seventh full term. His trial, near enough to the Senate so that he can excuse himself from the defense table to go cast votes if necessary, will substitute for his campaign in the closing weeks of the race."

Hulse quotes Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Report as saying the trial will determine the outcome of the election.

That strikes me as a fair analysis. If Stevens is acquitted, he may have a chance to win another term in the U.S. Senate, where he has served for 40 years.

If he is convicted, he will become a longshot against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the Democratic candidate. It's hard to imagine that he could overcome the legal and political obstacles attached to a guilty verdict.

If, by some chance, he did win the election, Stevens would be only the fifth senator to be convicted of a crime.

The 99 other members of the Senate, all of them concerned with how they might look in their home states, would have to decide whether he should be allowed to hold office.

In a real sense, the most important voters this year, as far as Stevens is concerned, will be the 12 men and women selected to serve on the jury.

Before the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee, I would have said that the Stevens' indictment would have been the biggest political story of the year in Alaska.

For the entire 50 years of statehood, Stevens has been a figure to be reckoned with, from his work at the Interior Department to his failed attempts to win the Senate position in the 1960s, to his appointment by Gov. Wally Hickel in 1968 and all that followed.

The trial is the most serious political and legal threat Stevens has faced in 40 years.