Now, nearly seven months after the ballots were cast, it all comes down to this: The Minnesota Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in the appeal by Norm Coleman of the ruling handed down by the three-judge panel that made up the Election Contest Court. That ruling upheld and confirmed the results of the recount than Al Franken won and Norm Coleman lost — a recount that Coleman tried to stop even though it was mandated by state law.

Puppethead reminded me that yesterday was Al Franken’s birthday. Sorry I missed it, Al! I figure I’ll try to make it up to Al by talking about how he seems to have grown as a candidate and a person in the two years he’s been on the campaign trail.

And we wait, and we wait, and we wait some more. Man, June 1 can’t come soon enough. That’s the date set by the Minnesota Supreme Court for oral arguments in the Coleman appeal of the Election Contest Court’s verdict on Coleman’s contest of the Minnesota senate recount that Al Franken won.

Cruised by the UpTake’s liveblog and spotted this Tweet from Rachel Stassen-Berger: ” Rt/ @Rasmussenpoll 54% Say Coleman shld concede;63% say Franken will win,16% expect Coleman win http://tinyurl.com/RR0203 #mncontest”. Wow. That’s the second time this week I suspect that longtime Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen didn’t get the result he wanted.

Pharaoh Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota governor and would-be Republican presidential candidate, has made it clear that he values the good opinion of Grover Norquist and Republican primary voters more than he values his own state.

While we wait for The Glorious First of June, the date on which oral arguments will be held before the Minnesota Supreme Court in RE: the Norm Coleman appeal, I thought I’d take a little time to talk about Twitter — specifically, about those who seem to know how to use it sensibly.

Well, Team Coleman has finally issued their reply (h/t to The UpTake for posting the PDF) to the devastating response of Team Franken’s to the Coleman appeal brief. Guess what? Team Coleman’s strategy with regard to the Franken brief is apparently to pretend it never happened, because their ‘reply’ doesn’t address any of its arguments at all, but simply restates their appeal brief. Even funnier is that they actually are now making stuff up as they go along.

As we wait for the Coleman response, if any, to Team Franken’s devastating counterfiling to the Coleman appeal of the Election Contest Court’s ruling that Al Franken won the 2008 Minnesota election for Paul Wellstone’s old Senate seat, here are some tidbits for you to digest.

Ever since December, reports have been floating around about the FBI’s interest in both the Nasser Kazeminy case and in Norm Coleman’s ties to it. Now, those reports have been given a bit more substance: A Minnesota person who has been interviewed by the FBI in regard to the case says that the FBI is indeed investigating allegations that former Senator Norm Coleman had clothing and other items, such as vacation trips for himself and his family, purchased on his behalf by Kazeminy.

For all the woofin’ being done by Michael Steele and others about how Norm’s going to be fighting to the bitter end to get back Paul Wellstone’s Senate seat, I strongly suspect that his mind is no longer on the contest and appeal. He’s already trying to figure out how he’s going to afford the next big legal challenge, the Kazeminy lawsuits, as refinancing his house is no longer an option in this crashed real-estate market. That’s why he’s asking the Federal Elections Commission to allow him to use campaign funds to pay his Kazeminy legal fees.