It has now come down to this: With Al Franken in the lead (a 50-vote lead as of today), and with the wrongly-rejected "fifth pile" absentee ballots likely to add to Franken’s lead (and thus make Coleman’s planned legal challenges look even more silly and weaselly), Norm Coleman has all but run out of tricks. He has one left, and that’s to try and bully the county elections officials and the state canvassing board into rejecting most of the fifth-pile ballots — and/or to accept only those from (surprise!) Republican-leaning areas.
This is why it was a mistake for the Minnesota Supreme Court to mandate that the campaigns be included in the process of judging the "fifth pile", or wrongly rejected, absentee ballots: All this did was give Coleman another straw to clutch and another delaying tactic to burn through in his efforts to muddy the waters so that Al Franken’s Senate victory is tainted in the eyes of the public.
Part of Coleman’s attack on the legitimacy of the recount process is an attack on those entities that try to provide honest real-time coverage of it. I’ve already mentioned how the Republicans, led by paid operative Michael Brodkorb, have tried to smear Mark Ritchie. Now Brodkorb is trying to make it a two-fer: Smear Mark Ritchie while smearing the fine videographers of The UpTake! Behavior like this is what earned Brodkorb the nickname "Son of Turd Blossom", because it’s straight out of the Karl Rove playbook.
But really, it’s all increasingly for naught. Coleman will not be able to keep out enough fifth-pile ballots to stop Franken from winning. In fact, he almost certainly won’t be able to keep out enough fifth-pile ballots to stop Franken from increasing his lead. Like sands through the hourglass, so flow the chances of Coleman’s keeping his Senate seat. (And now you know why I’ve been using that particular graphic.) In a few short weeks, despite all the hollering and obstructionism and hoo-ha, Al Franken will be seated with Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota’s delegation to the United States Senate.
In the meantime while you wait to see that happen, make Michael Brodkorb cry: Visit The UpTake and throw a few shekels their way, if you can.
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Al! You’re gonna win, baby! Hang in there!
I just can’t wait.
Senator Al Franken.
I sure like the sound of that.
(fingers crossed that it happens, PW)
These are the days of our lives.
Let’s hope Al wins. He is qualified. He’s a very smart and educated contender. Coleman…not so much.
Al’s presence alone in going to drive Ms. McConnell crazy. Al is going to have a lot of fun with those self-righteous pigs.
Go Franken!
Thanks, PW, for keeping us current as things develop.
Minnesota is concerning in that it there is such a close lead…what is in their water?
A week ago Coleman met with Swiftboater Benjamin Ginsberg. Cornyn’s recent “sowing chaos” statement is presumably just the beginning of a nationwide full-court press of innuendo and slime in the media. I don’t believe it will go over well in Minnesota, but the goal is to intimidate the Democrats in the Senate, and possibly the courts.
It never ends. It will never end.
PW: So good. Remind me/us again…What is the fifth pile?
http://theuptake.org/en/info/donate/
Well, I’ve been Brodkorb’d again, PW, and it ain’t pretty! *g* The execrable Coleman/Brodkorb duo is a match made in GOP hell. So ditto PW’s suggestion to support The UpTake with whatever you can possibly afford. Click here. Minnesota thanks you, Al Franken thanks you, and I thank you. Trifecta!!
mostly fluoride . . . see my shiny smile? *g*
O Barbara…You betcha. Looking good for you folks, the rest of us, too, actually. I keep hearing there is more cold weather your way…Are you doing OK?
Gosh dontcha know that stuff was put in yer water to undermine your precious bodily fluids!
494 hrs & 33 min
It’s mighty cold. Wind picking up, sandwiched between today’s snowfall and Thursday’s forecasted snow. Urgh. Wishin’ my cuddling guy were here, that’s for sure.
wine? *g*
Yes thank you – Red if you have it
494 hrs & 28 min
a nice little Cabernet, vintage 2009?
I bet you are…post-Christmas, wet, and cold. Not a great combination. Enjoy the election and the Lake. Glad you showed up.
Sounds great!
494 hrs & 26 min
Thanks.
PLease remind me again about the fifth pile…I have forgotten the details.
Absentee ballots that were wrongly rejected. I can’t remember who decided that was so, but not surprisingly, Coleman now wants only those from areas where he did well (read: Republican strongholds) to be considered. The drama that requires drama-mine!
2009? Are you still stomping the grapes? “g”
Thanks. I also heard that part will likely not be done til during next week. It has been interesting to watch how orderly all this has seemed after watching the Florida mess.
Yup. Purple toes in preparation for pouring the lovely stuff into those nice little boxes. *g*
Norm Coleman is the king of the frivolous lawsuit. I assume in the past Senator Blo&Go went along with his Party and complained loudly and often about so-called “frivolous lawsuits?” Would be interesting to find some of those quotes and point out the hypocrisy of Mr Blown&Gone’s campaign tactics over the years.
his purpose, his only purpose is to de-legitimize franken
in addition, he is used to rove getting things dome illegally, for instance we remember the last democrat who won but the count said otherwise found himself in jail
Isn’t norm under investigation by the FBI for something?
As The Stomach Churns.
Can you say Neiman Marcus? I guess the details will “out.” Already talk of big legal costs ;)
Sorry to be gone dinner was done now it is really done. Sorry, had an open bottle of Bardelino so poured some and still working on. Hope your box doesn’t leak before I get some fresh. *g*
493 hrs & 50 min
Oh, you drink REAL wine! (((blush))) No, wait! Not blush. Anything but blush! Ummm, Riesling?
That would be a great start to 2009 if Franken holds on to win in Minnesota. What confuses me is how many people in Minnesota voted for Coleman after being attached to the hip of Bush all these years.
There was a lot of unpleasant stuff making the rounds about Franken. Mostly his Saturday Night Live days, running crosswise of those good old family values. And then there was the tax issue. Apparently he paid all taxes owed, but to one state, whereas he was supposed to pay to something like 14 different states. Coleman people had a field day positioning him as a tax dodger. And though I believe Al is the vastly superior candidate, he does have a sometimes prickly personality and does not generate a tremendous amount of warmth. But he’s not phony. Norm “new teeth” Coleman is about as genuine as, ummm, his new teeth.
PW — Just today I finally fully understood why the Supreme Court did what it did, requiring the candidates to be involved with the process of sorting the 5th pile ballots, deciding the criteria under which they would be counted. Richie clarified it during his call-in program on MPR’s Midday program, and light bulb — I got it.
So much of our State Law regarding recounts is a product of all the decisions made in Anderson v. Rolvaag in 1963, one sometimes forgets that sometimes you really don’t want a court to do something other than follow the precidents of that recount. And apparently that is what is the case here. We just don’t want “settled law” opened up during this recount, because then many other parts of the process would be open to appeal, to new argument, and it is better to stay within the tested precidents that derive from Anderson v. Rolvaag.
What Richie said is that if the candidates/campaigns cannot come to agreement, then the Supreme Court could appoint a magistrate to do certain specific tasks — and one of those could be dealing with the absentee votes. Richie also made another point — if an individual voter knows their ballot is one of the wrongly rejected absentee ballots, they can individually execute a petition to the Supreme Court requesting that their ballot be counted. Don’t need a lawyer or anything fancy, just a petition to the court to count your vote. I suspect Franken’s team has a pretty good idea of which ballots in this class are his, and could easily show up with more than half of that class petitioned, and thinking the Supremes don’t want to spend New Year’s eve looking at ballots — well ad Magistrate can do that job you know…. Richie as much as laid it out in his interview. None of this would go outside the lines of Anderson V. Rolvaag — so it just might be how it ends.
Coleman’s trick today — asking that ballots in piles 1-4 be included, is an interesting trick, but in the end, I don’t think it will help him. He went to court initially to oppose even sorting into the five piles, and lost, and was told to agree to a process, which apparently he did. He did not raise the question of wrongly rejected’s being in piles 1-4, and he lost on the overall question of counting all ballots that did not clearly meet the disqualifications of state law that define those piles, so the scope of the court order in which he has been ordered to participate does not include anything in piles 1-4. It may be that either Franken or the SoS and AG have to go back to the supremes for a clarification of scope — but I don’t think that would take all that long, particularly as the Court apparently reviewed the agreement on rules and process last week, on which they predicated their extension of time.
But it was only listening to Richie today that I finally understood where that order for candidates/campaigns to cooperate came from — it is in Anderson v. Rolvaag. And just too much about how you do a recount in Minnesota Law comes from that leading decision. If the Legislature wants to change it — fine, they can do it when we are not recounting an election, and it may well be they should consider what happens when no agreement can be reached between reasonable sides, but “settled law” should not be busted open on a whim. And this is a conservative court, so they are just being properly conservative and sticking with settled law.
I do think there will be individual petitions, (That possibility is apparently in State Law,) and I expect there will need to be a return to the court for clarification of the scope of their order, (Just Pile Five), but I also think it is almost over.
For those who are not “learned in Minnesota Recount History” the case, Anderson v. Rolvaag was the final Supreme Court decision in a recount of a Governor’s race that ended up on election night favoring Anderson by about 90 votes, and after five months of court going and arguing and finally recounting all the ballots under court supervision, ended up with Karl Rolvaag becoming Governor in March of 1963, by about 90 votes in Rolvaag’s favor.
One could say that precisely recounting elections is something of a Civil Religion in Minnesota. Along with winter ice fishing, it is something to do before the seed companies send you what you ordered and you have to get busy.
This is extremely helpful. Thanks!
Thank you, Sara, that was most enlightening, perspective-wise.
Truly appreciate the background information.
(Ritchie impress me more, every single day.)
DW