And whoever’s manning the camera? I don’t need to see the guy’s nostril hairs, thanks…
It’s Minnesota politics. They gotta do something for excitement!
The count is over. Unofficially, it’s 198-111-42. A net of 87 for Franken, which now puts his total lead at 312. Clearly this is excellent news for the McCain campaign.
COLEMAN APPEALS TO EUCLID
'Linear Mathematics Shows
Pro-Franken Bias, Says Campaign’
So when does Franken move to have the issuance of the certificate ordered?
Can Coleman sue Coleman for adding to Franken’s lead?
Well, he’s tried everything else. Now he needs to summon the dark god Cthulhu, who knows a thing or two about non-Euclidean electoral geometry…
After it goes to the MN Supreme Court (where no one expects Coleman’s appeal to have a chance).
Then the ball will be in Pawlenty’s court. The letter of the state law is:
In case of a contest, an election certificate shall not be issued until a court of proper jurisdiction has finally determined the contest
Generally this means the State Supreme Court, but yeterday, Tim Pawlenty said he plans to be a scumbag about it and refuse to sign a certificate until Coleman exhausts all ability to drag it out on a federal level (which Pawlenty happily says will take “months”).
Both Coleman’s and Pawlenty’s careers are now dead in Minnesota. Pawlenty is delusional enough to think he has a shot at the White House, though, so he’s pulling as much party train as he can.
I wish to underline that the posters are referring to Euclid, the revered and honored Greek founder of geometry, who’s heritage of tormenting junior high school students continues to this day. Thats EUCLID, not to be confused with a similarly yclept poster known hereabouts for wit, probity, and genial good humor.
“All right, Your Honor, first we must assume that Minnesota is a Klein bottle…”
Coleman would have to jump in with a federal lawsuit pretty fast in that case or Pawlenty would be in the position of refusing to sign the certificate in the event Coleman might file a federal lawsuit.
Wouldn’t the MSC (Chief Justice Alan Page - sorry, that just makes me smile) simultaneously issue an order to the Gov or the SecState to do it, under penalty of contempt? It’s not like they wouldn’t expect a problem with that otherwise.
I think the MSC could try that, but then Coleman could conceivably get a stay from a federal court (I still don’t think it’s been clearly established whether Coleman would try to appeal directly to SCOTUS or would go through a circuit court first) pending appeal. The federal courts don’t have to hear it, but they could probably stay the certificate for a while.
I think he could move for it right now, IIRC the denial said in so many words that he had to wait for the counting to be done. But I doubt he would succeed, so I doubt he will bother. I’m certain that he will once the MnSC has ruled (If they rule in his favor), since I highly doubt the MnSC likes the federal bench sticking their nose into it.
I don’t understand why the federal courts would have any jurisdiction, since this is obviously a state matter, despite the fact that the Senate itself is a federal institution. The only ultimate “federal court” with any jurisdiction on this is the Senate itself, actually.
I’d be very surprised to see this Court dare to interfere with another election as long as it lives.
Alan Page is an associate justice.
This whole thing has officially jumped the shark. How after all this Franken is not sitting in the Senate is a real disrace. Enough already. Coleman is being a real dick. And my opinion of Tim Pawlenty is changing pretty fast. After the election I thought he was one of the few more sensible Republican voices seen on TV. Now, he is cutting short his political career for… for … for what exactly? I do not see how the Republicans can expect to win on this. Both Pawlenty and Coleman are willing to shortchange the people of their state with only one senator simply out of partisan spite? Amazing.
The opportunity to be President. He has about as much chance as I have - well, slightly more since he will run - but his candidacy will be dead after one primary (maybe two, Iowa is close enough that he might manage to get neighbor state carryover) if he doesn’t protect GOP turf on this.
Once he wins the primary, he can worry about how to spin this to “we wanted to make sure the will of the voters was carried out” and sound convincing to the middle.
ETA: The other driver here is think tank/lobbyist jobs. I’d assume Coleman and Pawlenty will both get treated well by the power brokers long term if they play ball now.
The only way Pawlenty can get into the presidential consideration is if he wins the Governorship again. He may want to consider what his partisanship is doing to independent’s opinion of him.
(Not that I care. I used to work with the guy. Total weenie.)