After six weeks of representing Norm Coleman’s case to the three judges on the Election Contest Court, the Coleman legal team has “provisionally” rested — which means it’s now the Franken team’s turn at bat.

New polling in Pennsylvania shows broad and deep dissatisfaction with Senator Arlen Specter, who is up for re-election in the blue-trending Commonwealth in 2010.

Once again, the Election Contest Court’s desire to keep from giving Team Coleman any sort of justification to appeal this to the Federal level has trumped the need to spank them for their egregious misconduct. Instead of tossing the double-counting gambit or even Pamela Howell’s tainted testimony from the case, the ECC will allow it — but at the same time, Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble’s firm will be required to pay $7500 in court related to the delay caused by Team Coleman’s failure to provide the Howell information to the court as well as to the Franken legal team.

The malfeasance committed by the Coleman camp with their star witness Pamela Howell may well have knocked away whatever remained of the Coleman case, which was already on shaky ground with their admission that the 132 missing ballots from a Minneapolis precinct did indeed exist. Even worse, the whole rationale for the Coleman camp’s carrying on — the desire to delay Franken’s being seated and hope that the Republicans have enough senators to block Democratic legislation — may be rendered moot by Jim Bunning’s temper tantrum in Kentucky.