The phrase “all that juicy porn” was used in a Coleman campaign ad in reference to a mildly bawdy satirical piece Franken once wrote for Playboy. Let me tell you, that was false advertising. I read the piece. I’ve seen juicier material in shampoo commercials.
A MN Supreme Court ruling that could most charitably be called “muddled”.
Franken will be certified as the winner at 2:30 CST tomorrow.
Coleman still intends to be a vagina about it.
…and that starts with “p” and that stands for “pool.”
Well Coleman’s response is yet to be seen. There have been some small indications that he may not challenge and may concede (if being declared the loser by the board of elections can be considered conceding)
And this just in…
Court rejects Coleman bid to consider rejected absentee ballots
Since the Supreme Court has rejected Coleman’s claim, what does that do to his chances of winning a suit, should his campaign decide to file one?
Robin
At the risk of appearing snarkilicious - a suit about what? There’s almost nothing left. The process was so relentlessly transparent, there are no surprises to be found. There is a small pile of rejected absentee ballots (600 or so?), but those were processed openly. If he wants to contest those somehow, the burden of proof will be on him, and then those votes would have to be miraculously one-sided in Coleman’s favor - he can’t just break even, or win a majority of them, he must get damned near all of them. Insurmountable legal hurdle plus miraculous result equals profit!
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/with_more_absentee_ballots_cou.php#more
for a better analysis. For those seeking to avoid infestation by liberal cooties, it breaks down as follows: even if Norm! wins the lawsuit, and gets an unreasonable proportion of the rejected ballots, he still comes up short.
It appears he has two unsavory options: continue with (probably hopeless) lawsuits and obstruct Franken’s taking his seat and hope he doesn’t seal his political doom by appearing to be a WATB or
Concede as gracefully as possible.
Coleman may well prefer option #2, hoping to retain some good will for some future run. The question then becomes whether or not the national Pubbies see some advantage to dragging out the inevitable and keeping the Dems from getting one more offical (D) in the Senate. Norm! is their creature, they created him, they own him, they will use him and cast him aside. Unless he actually has a testicle in that withered nut-sack, and actually has some dream of a political future.
Of course, that only really works if they can sell the story that the election was stolen! stolen! Given the relentlessly transparent process, that’s gonna be a tough one.
It would be an uphill battle, to say the least, given the thoroughness and transparency of the recount process in Minnesota. I don’t even know what his grounds would be. Even, for instance, he were to win his already rejected claim (due to utter lack of evidence) that some of Franken’s votes were “double counted,” that would net still only net Coleman 46 votes and still leave him behind Franken by 179 votes.
This last effort ofhis had to do with trying to get absentee votes counted from Republican districts which have already been rejected for cause by the county and had those rejections upheld after review (if you see language claiming that Coleman is trying to count “wrongly rejected” ballots, please be advised that the “wrongly rejected” contention is coming from the Coleman campaign, it’s not something that has been proven true).
Political rhetoric aside, Coleman’s actual chances of getting this result reversed are pretty much slim and none, and slim’s on its way out of town.
He doesn’t have a future run. He has a future as a lobbyist or as a professor at the Humphrey Institute (or some other institution) - or maybe with a think tank. Since lobbying/think tank work is often partisan, it might be in his best interest for the future to go down swinging. He won’t win points with Minnesotans, but that isn’t where he needs to win point now.
So it’s all over but the shouting.
Yay!
Robin
This is Minnesota. So it’s all over but the shrugging and murmuring.
He still might have another shot Governor if Pawlenty doesn’t seek a third term. I think Pawlenty probably will run again, though, since his original plan to become VP fell through.
Yea, indeed. I wonder what it feels to win by less than .01%? Al Franken’s always espoused the idea that an elected official has to be concerned with all his constituents, not just the ones who voted for him; guess he’ll get to prove it.
Mandate!
I may have to make hotdish to celebrate.
Robin
It’s official.
The Canvassing Board has just formally announced their results: Franken won the election.
That argument doesn’t depend on facts anyway. There most certainly is a GOP faction interested more in waving the bloody shirt (no matter how the blood got there) than in responsible democracy. We saw that in Florida in 2000, where the claim that Gore’s wanting all the vvalid otes counted actually meant the Dems wanted to “steal” that election, too.
What will limit the effectiveness of that approach this time is that it’s only 1 Senate seat, and party control doesn’t depend on it. But the Usuals, e.g. WSJ, are trying it nevertheless.
Gentlemen, start your lawyers.