(bolding mine) Don’t military voters lean republican? Does the Coleman campaign have some reason to think the duplicated ballots supported Franken more than him, or is he just grasping at a straw?
How come they never have seem to have these election problems in Canada?!
Because nobody cares about the candidates or issues there?
D&R
Military officers do. Not so clear a trend with military soldiers in general. And even less so with the current ones, who are not enlisted military but mainly reservists.
Nobody knows better than the soldiers on the ground whether they are finding any WMD’s in Iraq, whether the people of Iraq look on them as liberators, and whether they can claim “Mission Accomplished!”. Or even if they know what the mission is.
There was a widely-reported story earlier this year that troops now on duty in Iraq were donating to the Obama campaign 6:1 over the McCain campaign, IIRC and FWIW.
Yeah, but then when you looked into it, you saw that it was only a tiny handful of individuals who contributed to either, making it really hard to draw any wider conclusions.
Ah. I’d never seen anything on how big the sample size was. Thanks.
Given the amount these troops are paid compared to their civilian jobs, and the effect on their family finances back home, I’m not surprised that they aren’t giving a lot of contributions.
Was interesting at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Six of the seven of us (adults) had voted for Barkley. Only my Fox News watching 70 year old mother voted for Coleman. She was awful quiet during that conversation. 
I didn’t see that, but Franken’s 48 vote lead today is more meaningful than his 250 or whatever lead last week. This was Coleman’s best shot left to overtake him. Now he is in the position of hoping the absentee ballots, which his campaign has fought to exclude from the count, will come out in his favor. Although the Coleman campaign said today that the lead is “artificial” and there is “no doubt” Coleman will win.
Ouch! I just noticed that Intrade has a $100 Coleman contract going for $15. The free market apparently thinks Coleman is toast.
I still think, no matter who wins, the other side will feel cheated . They will think they were robbed.
A new election is the only way to cleanse the office. It will feel tainted.
State law does not ermit for another election, and if the losers feel cheated, let them prove it. If Coleman ends up pulling this out, I’m not going to cry foul. I’m satisfied that the Canvassing Board is doing an honest, above board job.
What do you do if the re-vote is too close to call?
Both the campaigns have known the names of the rejected absentee ballot voters for weeks now. No doubt they have all been looked up on the campaign databases, and have been contacted by campaign workers to determine who their absentee ballot is for. So presumably both the campaigns have a pretty good idea of how these votes will come out.
And since the Coleman campaign wants to exclude them, and the Franken campaign wants to count them, it’s likely that both campaigns came up with a total favoring Franken.
I love it that Coleman will end up with the unique distinction of having lost to both a professional wrestler and a comedian.
Maybe he can run against Garrison Keillor for a seat on the Minneapolis School Board, or something…
Neither Norm Coleman nor Garrison Keillor reside within the Minneapolis School District.
And there aren’t any Minneapolis School Board elections for 2 years, until 2010.
Yeah, my grandmother is having similar problems. Both my Grandparents and my mom voted strictly Republican for the longest time.
My grandfather, though, has done a 180 since retiring and now votes Democratic. My aunt was more politically apathetic until she met her new BF who is a personification of your politically active “working class Democrat.” Grandkids vote Democrat (my sister is getting her Ph.D. at BERKLEY and has assimilated).
We’re making progress though. Last time we went up she gleefully volunteered how impressed she was with a recent Obama interview she saw. “He really IS a family man!”
Especially since 48 was the number Nate predicted.
I know, I’m having a hard time regarding Nate’s prediction with anything less than open-mouthed awe.