It’s going to a three-judge panel, folks!

It’s almost kinda sad, watching Norm Coleman commit political suicide on the apparent orders of his Republican minders.  Here he is, a guy who switched parties and later cultivated Karl Rove and Dick Cheney so he could skip merrily up the political ladder all the way to the White House, being made to end his political career not with a bang or a whimper, but with the metaphorical tossing of battery acid into the collective faces of Minnesota residents. 

If he’d been allowed to concede once the recount was done, he might have had a chance of starting a comeback in 2010 by running against Lori Swanson, the increasingly unpopular State Attorney General; it would be a good fit for him, as he spent seventeen years (1976-1993) in the State Attorney General’s office, serving as the state’s chief prosecutor and solicitor general under Warren Spannaus and Skip Humphrey.   But with his truly Calvinballed contest of the recount, he’s pretty much queered any future attempts by him at electoral politics.  Even some conservatives, like blogger Matt Lewis, see this.   (Coleman might, if it’s still open once he’s finished wasting the time of the three-judge contest panel and/or the Minnesota Supreme Court, have a shot at being RNC Chair, but he’d need for all the other candidates for the job to take each out before this could happen.)

But Norm still soldiers on, spending money like water on his Hordes o’ Lawyers on this race.  Meanwhile, it looks like his other legal expenses might be growing again, too:  The Texas Kazeminy lawsuits are in the news again, with word that the defendants are trying to get the case put on hold for at least two months — which is about the length of time that the Coleman contest is likely to exist.   Meanwhile, Harry Reid may actually show a spine and dare John Cornyn to try and block the seating of Franken.  (Yeah, right.)