We won Virginia’s flag. Don’t mess with us.
Yeah, but don’t forget that Texas stole your hockey team from you. 
I’m curious - if MN did have instant runoff, who do you think would have won. Presumably, the question is, who would the Barkley voters have selected for their second choice? I don’t think the answer is obvious, and while perusing Dean Barkley’s web site for some clue about where he stands on the issues, I find that I wish he were running in my state! I think I agreed with him on about 90%. I understand why he got such a high percentage of the vote (for an Independent).
I think Barkley took about equally from both Franken and Coleman. I would have voted for him myself if he’d been polling just a little better. He was actually my preferred choice of the three, but I was worried about Coleman winning a close plurality and voted (as I suspect a lot of others did) prophylactically for Franken rather than for who I really wanted to see win.
In an instant runoff, I think it still would have sphinctered up just as close, but I think Coleman might have squeaked one out. Conventional wisdom is that Barkley took slightly more from Norm than from Al.
If a re-vote were to occur now, I think Franken would win, if not in a landslide, at least unambiguously. Minnesotans were not in love with either of these guys during the election, but Coleman has now declined considerably more in popularity during this recount/challenge process (and his burgeoning money-funneling scandal hasn’t helped either).
Nor has being exposed as a rank hypocrite (re: “I won, so Franken should spare the state any further delay and concede now” early on, as opposed to “I’ll take this fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, The Hague and the Interplanetary Court on the Moon, if I have to, no matter how long it takes” now), even for a politician.
A partial ruling from the court. An entirely expected gut punch to Coleman’s chances. Operation deny Minnesota it’s voice in the Senate will continue for months to come, however.
Well, the court sure has seemed to have dotted their 'I’s and crossed their 'T’s, so I don’t see anything getting overturned on procedural grounds. It’s all over but for the interpretation, eh?
Talking Points Memo has a good article on this, and a comments section that offers some very interesting sidebar. Check it out!
Very robust sidebar indeed. Much better than the Star-Tribune’s comments section.
Ponder this: Rush Limbaugh, in his crowning moment of notoriety – a second life, even, after he jumped with his walk-on on The Drew Carey Show-- will have to say the magic words: Senator Al Franken.
Bill O’, too. And the Manatee. Their heads will go 'splodey and it will be funny.
Seems the court is really doing its level best to make this as easy a summary dismissal as possible for the state Supreme Court. Goodspeed to that sentiment!
I haven’t heard Normie’s team noising off about that Equal Protection lawsuit lately. I guess his funds must be drying up. It does appear that this could be over in a few more weeks after the MSC appeal (which I haven’t seen a single knowledgable legal commentator give the slightest chance of success). I’m still too pessimistic to be optimistic, though. Coleman’s cause is deeply lost, but the RNC might very well keep funding him purely as a stalling tactic. It’s not like they’re not dickish enough.
Ironically, the more they push Coleman to keep dragging this out, the more it hurts his chances at reviving a political future (particularly another Gubernatorial run) in Minnesota. They’re using him like a dishrag at this point. They fully intend to discard him when it’s over, but, thus far, Coleman has not had the sack to put an end to this. If he wants another chance to run for Governor (and it’s still not completely impossible that he could win such a run), I think he has to call his election challenge quits after the MSC appeal. If he does continue on (with RNC funding) in the federal system or pursues a civil lawsuit, I think that will signal that he’s resigned to end of his political career and is now playing for some kind of promised pot of gold in the private sector as an eventual reward.
Coleman’s problems are further complicated by the money funnelling allegations (which just heated up again in the last few days).
One more little wrinkle is that, under Minnesota State law, Coleman could possibly be forced to pay Franken’s legal expenses for this challenge if he loses. He’s just really on the wrong end of the shit stick in every conceivable way. If he wasn’t such a prick, one might even feel pity for him.
One might. But one doesn’t.
So would anyone care to predict when the senate seat will be filled? Jeez…it’s 4 months into the year and still no senator chosen.
My best prediction is that it will happen once Norm appeals to the MN Supreme Court and they laugh him out of the courtroom. At that point, the MN statutes say that Franken MUST be issued a certificate of election and then the battle moves to DC. I have no idea what the Republicans in the Senate can do to keep Franken out with a valid cert of election.
IANAL, caveat emptor.
This was the cruelest April Fool’s Day prank of all. I really had my hopes up until I clicked the link in the story. Damn you DailyKos!
This is excellent news for the McCain campaign!
Ah. Those were the good ole’ days. I remember reading Balloon Juice (a blog I heartily recommend to fellow lefties) back during the campaign and after every McCain gaffe, a commenter would inevitably say, “This is good news for McCain!” It honestly never got old for me.
McCain suspends his campaign and threatens to not show up at the debate? Of course that’s good, its mavericky! McCain doesn’t know how many houses he owns? Good news! (And I especially loved the tortured pundit explanations as to how that one would hurt Obama and help McCain.) My favorite was one commenter’s blog with a post titled- “John McCain Admits to Raping Babies, Stealing Candy; Media Agrees Great News…For McCain”
And you (It’s been 50 years. I probably can’t say “we” anymore.) were fighting the Sioux at the same time!
They are counting the 400 or so ballots right now at www.theuptake.org Coleman is not getting the 80% he needed. Franken is actually ahead, and his lead is up to near 250 at the moment.
Yeah, Coleman’s lawyers said a couple of weeks ago that they expected Franken would slightly increase his lead after these last few ballots are counted. Both sides pretty much already knew what was in those envelopes.
OK, I’m assuming that count on the screen is the total lead, everything included? Not just the count of the batch being reviewed?