CARROLL — After speaking at a get-out-the-vote  rally in Carroll Saturday, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, stood outside the Moose Lodge talking on his cell phone to a senate candidate thousands of miles away in, well, moose country.

Harkin told Iowa Independent that he was one of a few senators acting as a kind of a political “godfather” for Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage who is taking on convicted felon U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, in what is a tight race that could give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority.

“It’s going very well for him,” Harkin said of Begich. “I think we’re going to pick up that Alaska seat. I think people just recognize that, you know, only five senators in the history of this country have ever been convicted of a felony. This is not going to sit well.”