So, Franken has finally won.

Now comes the hard part: establishing credibility.

Read the rest at True/Slant.

And when I watch the following inanity, I genuinely wonder if the folks at Fox News simply don’t care anymore about being anything but a mouthpiece for the RNC.

By the way, I count more than twice as many notable Republican politicians who were former celebrities than Dems. Actors include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fred Thompson, Ronald Reagan and Sonny Bono. Sports stars include Tom Osborne, Steve Largent, Jack Kemp and Jim Bunning. Can you name anybody on the Dem side except for Bill Bradley, John Glenn and now Al Franken? I can’t think of anybody else who was genuinely well known other than those folks, but feel free to add others in the comments section.

But hey, whatever. It’s Fox.

This isn't much of a surprise after today’s ruling, but the fact that he won’t prolong this any further is certainly welcome news.

From Minnesota Independent…

The former senator called Al Franken this afternoon to congratulate him on his victory nearly eight months after election day. The concession came shortly after the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling naming Franken the winner in the protracted contest.

“I’m really at peace,” Coleman told reporters at a press conference at his St. Paul home. “I’ve had a lot of time to process this election, think about the past and look to the future. So I really have a sense of peace for where things are at.”

Coleman vowed to work with Franken as he becomes Minnesota’s junior senator. He insisted that the fact that Franken will become the 60th Democratic senator — giving President Obama a filibuster-proof majority — played no role in his decision-making process. “Whatever I can do now to be a unifying force that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

And note that last paragraph…now Obama has a filibuster-proof majority.

But will he use it?

Discuss.

Nearly 9 months after the election, there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel for Minnesota.

From the AP:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s long-running Senate race.

The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.

However…

Coleman hasn’t ruled out seeking federal court intervention.

Ugh.

Norm…seriously…it’s time to pack it up. It was close, but you lost and every recount has shown that. Not only that, I think nearly every single court decision has gone against you. Minnesota needs a Senator and it’s pretty clear that you won’t be it. Move on already.

More as it develops…

Here he is on fiscal conservatism…

“If you’re going to be, for example, the party of fiscal discipline and be the person who’s talking about fiscal responsibility, then you better do that. Hypocrisy doesn’t sell. And, the Republicans have to be true to their values, true to their principles and walk the walk.”

I don’t know…Pawlenty just isn’t doing it for me. Perhaps a viable VP pick, but Presidential material?

At least he acknowledges that the Republican brand is damaged.

And of course Coleman will appeal, but it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll be calling the former SNLer Senator Franken in the very near future.

From Star Tribune:

After a trial spanning nearly three months, Norm Coleman’s attempt to reverse Al Franken’s lead in the recount of the U.S. Senate election was soundly rejected today by a three-judge panel that dismissed the Republican’s lawsuit.

The judges swept away Coleman’s argument that the election and its aftermath were fraught with systemic errors that made the results invalid.

“The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately,” the panel said in its unanimous decision.

In rejecting Coleman’s arguments, the panel said the Republican essentially asked it to ignore Minnesota election requirements and adopt a more lenient standard allowing illegal absentee ballots to be counted.

Frankly, I don’t see what other legal rabbits Coleman can pull out of his hat at this point, and even conservatives are starting to call for him to quit. He has little recourse now than to try and get another recount, but the last one put him more in the hole so I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

So yes, it’s time for Coleman to accept defeat and hang it up. Otherwise he’ll kill his chances to challenge Franken in the next election.

More soon…

It’s all done for Coleman, and yet…

From Star Tribune:

Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election, after the counting of about 350 formerly rejected absentee ballots this morning.

Franken captured 198 of the ballots, while Coleman took 111. The ballots added 87 votes to Franken’s recount lead, enlarging his margin over Coleman to 312.

The result makes it even more likely that, barring an unforeseen circumstance, Franken will prevail in the election lawsuit that Coleman filed in January to contest the Democrat’s 225-vote recount lead. The three-judge panel presiding over the case has not said when it will issue a final decision.

Coleman will appeal the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court, his lawyer Ben Ginsberg said after today’s proceedings. One of the grounds for the appeal will be unequal treatment of the ballots, Ginsberg said.

Hopefully we’ll have a resolution soon because this is getting ridiculous. And then Coleman can challenge Franken in the next election. But Minnesotans deserve a final decision as soon as possible because they need a representative in the Senate.

It just keeps going and going and going and…

However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. The Minnesota Supreme Court dealt Coleman’s chances a pretty big blow a couple days ago when they said that only a handful of absentee ballots would be reevaluated. And this is shaping up to put the Republican Governor of the state in a bit of an awkward position.

From Politico:

Franken won big Tuesday when a three-judge panel allowed the review of no more than 400 absentee ballots in a race he currently leads by 225 votes. Coleman’s camp says an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court is coming; once that’s done, the dispute lands in Pawlenty’s lap.

If Franken’s ahead at that point, Pawlenty will have a choice: sign the election certificate that will allow Democrats to seat Franken in the Senate or play to the Republicans whose support he’d need in 2012 by withholding the certificate while Coleman challenges the election in the federal court system.

“The Republican Party nationally and in Minnesota is playing not just with fire, but with dynamite,” said Rep. James L. Oberstar, a Democrat and the dean of Minnesota’s congressional delegation. [...]

If Pawlenty and the Republicans push it further, he says, “this thing is going to blow up in their face.”

To his credit, Pawlenty has never said he’ll do anything but go with the court’s decision, but at what point do you call it a day? At what point does Minnesota need a representative in the Senate instead of letting a political opponent drag this thing on endlessly through the courts? I’ve long contended that they should just hold another election and go with those results instead, but that’s not going to happen at this point and allowing Coleman to make appeal after appeal isn’t politically tenable either, is it?

More as it develops…

I can’t believe this thing is still going on, and it’s now going to be decided by the courts…which is an awful way of doing this.

But hey, if it’s good enough for the Oval Office…

Still, Franken can’t be happy that this is how it’s going to go down. Talk about a cause for Minnesota Republicans to rally around when reelection time rolls around.

From Star Tribune:

After seven long weeks, Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election trial came down to a debate Friday between following the rules and a notion of common sense.

Now the choice is up to the judges, whose decision will be critical — if not final — in eventually naming Minnesota’s new U.S. senator.

During closing arguments, Republican Norm Coleman and his lawyers urged the judges to bend their rules, which have hampered his case, and rely more on “common sense” in deciding which disputed ballots deserve to be counted.

But lawyers for DFLer Al Franken said Coleman failed to meet requirements to prove that election problems deprived him of enough valid ballots to have tipped the balance.

“The law requires proof that an error did, in fact, change the outcome,” Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton told the three-judge panel. “That is exactly what is missing from the record.”

So yeah, expect Coleman to appeal, but I’d imagine that he’ll lose that argument too and Franken will actually be a Senator.

Stranger than fiction.

Did Stevie Wonder feel like a freshman at the senior prom? (AP photo)

Barack Obama is now turning Wednesdays into his own upscale version of Chamber of Commerce/Rotary Club mixers, serving up cocktails, Maryland crab, Wagyu beef, Nantucket scallops and citrus salad — according to a recent Associated Press review of 2009 White House parties.

I confess to not knowing what Wagyu beef is, but I do know the Cardinal Law of Networking: Never act too excited or overeager, regardless of how powerful your potential contact is.

The last thing you want is to be perceived as a fan instead of a potential business partner.

Apparently, several congressmen who have been invited to nibble on Maryland crab this year have been too starstruck to care.

Check out what U.S. Rep Mike Honda (D-Calif.) told the AP about his experience being in the same room as Barack Obama:

“People like me felt comfortable in his presence,” said Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., a self-described “poor country boy” who said he felt like a “freshman going to the senior prom” when he attended a White House reception for leaders of the congressional caucuses.

“Sometimes when you’re in the presence of the most powerful person in the world, in the most powerful democracy in the world … I was in awe that I was comfortable,” said Honda, chairman of the Asian Pacific American Caucus. “I think that’s his style and how he grew up, who he is.”

OMG, Mike, please text me and let me know what you’re gonna wear the next time you meet the president!

U.S. Rep Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) is blown away that Obama watched a football game with him.

Smitten even more is U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a guest at the same Super Bowl party.

“My favorite part was when he personally served us cookies — oatmeal raisin — when we were watching the game,” she said.

It is true that relationships and status can dramatically change when your colleague gets a big promotion. But Klobuchar served for two years in the Senate with Obama, likely rubbing elbows with him before at left-wing ice cream socials.

Now, she’s openly gushing about him serving her cookies.
**
Darren Garnick is a Boston-area freelance writer and documentary filmmaker. For more political schlock, visit www.cultureschlock.com

I think they should just have another revote, but I’ve heard that’s a tough nut to crack because of costs and legal issues. So I understand why some want to lean on the courts.

From Minnesota Independent:

“The most obvious, clean resolution is resolution by the [current] three-judge court, with no appeal,” says [Guy] Charles, a University of Minnesota Law School professor who is teaching at Duke University Law School this year. The next, least-complicated scenario: A decision from the current court is appealed to the state Supreme Court, but with no further appeal or recourse to any other venue.

“I don’t think those two are likely,” Charles says. He sees the losing side pressing its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it may not get there. “I would be surprised if the court accepted the petition,” he says.

That would leave the state high court’s decision standing. “I think the decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court will be the final decision,” Charles says.

Still, do Minnesotans really want their next Senator being chosen by judges? Seems like I remember something like this happening 8 years ago and we weren’t too happy with the result.

Also, a decision like this immediately throws the Senator’s credibility into question, and that’s the exact opposite of what you want if you’re representing your state.

Last question…why haven’t we figured this stuff out by now? Because the idea that we’re still having issues with how we count votes is CRAZY.

Ugh.

The Minnesota recount saga still hasn’t ended, but Coleman is already moving on?

Hrmm…

Last session’s senior senator from Minnesota Norm Coleman, still battling Al Franken to be seated in the Senate, has taken a paid job as a consultant to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which harshly attacked Obama last fall, its executive director, Matt Brooks, said.

Coleman will join the group as a “consultant and strategic advisor,” and will also travel the country fundraising on the group’s behalf, Brooks said.

“It’s an opportunity for him to, now that he’s got some down time on his hands, to really help us while this case is being adjudicated,” Brooks said. “He hasn’t given up at all” on retaking the Minnesota seat.

Maybe “he hasn’t given up at all”, but appearances matter and I can’t help but think that when Minnesotans find out that Coleman is moonlighting, they won’t exactly look upon that favorably.

More as it develops…

Coleman is suing to challenge Franken’s lead.

The saga continues…

Republican Norm Coleman’s trial challenging DFLer Al Franken’s lead in the U.S. Senate recount will begin Jan. 26, according to an order issued this afternoon by the three-judge panel that will hear the case.

The order did not map out when specific issues would be argued, nor did it touch on other details surrounding the rare proceeding, including whether cameras will be permitted.

However, it set the time for the hearing on Franken’s motion to dismiss Coleman’s challenge for Wednesday. If that motion fails, another hearing would be held next Friday on any motions made for summary judgment followed by a pre-trial conference.

As I’ve said before, the only way to legitimately get a real winner out of this is to hold another election. I don’t know if there’s any appetite in Minnesota to do this, but whoever does ultimately “win” from this recount will be looked at the same way Bush was in 2000.

Is that really how Franken wants to start out?

Coleman will challenge this in the courts, but it appears as if Al will become the Senator from Minnesota.

From CNN:

The canvassing board on Monday will say a recount determined Franken won by 225 votes, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told CNN.

However, Coleman’s campaign, which contends the recount should have included about 650 absentee ballots it says were improperly rejected in the initial count, has indicated it will challenge the certification.

Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said his team believes the recount process was broken and that “the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid.”

“The effort by the Franken campaign, supported by the secretary of state, to exclude improperly rejected absentee ballots is indefensible and disenfranchises hundreds of Minnesota voters,” Sheehan said.

After the results are certified, Coleman’s campaign will have seven days to file a challenge.

Honestly, this feels like a tie to me and I wish they’d just do a runoff election. That seems to be the only truly fair way to determine who is actually the winner in this one. And if I were Franken, I’d request something like this because he could be seen as an illegitimate winner. Hardly what you want if you’re a junior/celebrity Senator.

However, Norm Coleman is going to the courts to add even more rejected absentee ballots. Still, to overcome a 225 votes deficit at this point seems extremely unlikely.

Here’s more from the Star Tribune…

DFLer Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 225 votes over Coleman, according to a newspaper tally of the officials’ count of the absentee ballots. Franken had led unofficially by 49 votes going into the day and gained a net 176 votes from the new ballots.

With the recount complete, focus immediately shifted to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which continued to consider a request from the Coleman campaign to alter the process and add more absentee ballots to be reconsidered. But by early evening there was no word from the state’s highest court as to when it would rule or hear arguments. [...]

Under state law, an election certificate formally naming a winner cannot be issued until all legal disputes are resolved.

The lawsuit, called an election contest, is expected to center on the issue of the excluded absentee ballots as well as disputes over ballots the Coleman campaign believes were double counted and a decision to use Election Day machine totals, rather than recount totals, in a Minneapolis precinct where more than 100 ballots went missing.

How bleak are things for Coleman?

Nate Silver explains…

Either way, a number of legal stratagems that might have seemed appealing to the Coleman campaign might now be somewhat mooted. For instance, even if all 130 ballots that the Coleman campaign claimed were double-counted for Franken were removed from his tally (but no ballots at all had been double-counted for Coleman), Franken would maintain a significant advantage. With Franken doing so well among the absentee ballots that were counted today, moreover, any Coleman attempts to get more absentee ballots counted would seem to have a high risk of backfiring.

So I think the best shot Coleman has right now is to try and get a reelection…which seems highly unlikely given the new margin of victory Franken has.

More as it develops…

(Thanks to Jake Dahn for the tip.)

With Al Franken up just 50 votes in the Minnesota recount, congressional Republicans are worried the Democratic controlled Senate might try to seat Franken provisionally. Now, Republican Senator John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has threatened a filibuster if Democrats try to seat Franken before the Minnesota secretary of state and governor certify the election results.

Seating Franken before the election is certified would make him appear the presumptive winner and would make any challenges by Norm Coleman seem like an attempt to overturn the election. In reality, the vote tallies are too close for anyone to make assumptions until the 1000+ improperly rejected absentee ballots are tallied.

But Cornyn won’t likely have to live up to his threat. The new Congress is seated Tuesday and Democrats say they have no intention to seat Franken, even provisionally.

That means we could be weeks or even months away from knowing who will represent Minnesota in the Senate.

Update by Justin:
With the recount technically over, Franken leads by 225 votes.

What looked completely unlikely just a few weeks ago has turned around for the funnyman as he has won some key decisions in the past week and is now ahead by just 46 votes.

That’s right…46 votes.

From the Star Tribune:

A state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday narrowed the options available for Sen. Norm Coleman to erase a slim lead held by DFLer Al Franken in the Minnesota election dispute, and Coleman’s campaign threatened a court battle that could leave the Senate seat vacant for a month.

The Supreme Court denied a bid by the Coleman campaign to prevent local and state canvassing boards from tallying votes that the incumbent says may have been counted twice. Most of the votes at issue are from DFL strongholds.

The justices said the campaign’s claim of double-counted ballots is better resolved in a court hearing where evidence can be presented, instead of by canvassing boards.

The order allows those disputed ballots to remain in the vote totals, at least for now.

So what options do Coleman have left?

According to FiveThirtyEight, not many…

Although Franken’s lead over Coleman is narrow — 46 votes — the only substantial group of ballots remaining to be counted are rejected absentees. But both campaigns have been operating under the assumption that those absentee ballots are more likely to add to Franken’s margin than subtract from it.

I have to hand it to Franken…he stuck in there and took the appropriate legal routes to swing this back in his favor. And in a race that I think we can all agree was a tie, the guy with the best lawyers wins.

More as it develops…

Like the election itself, the Senate recount has ended — except that it hasn’t.

At 11:29 a.m. Friday at the Wright County Government Center in Buffalo, state Elections Director Gary Poser pasted a sticker on one last challenged ballot and whispered, almost to himself: “We’re done.”

But not quite. Officials continued to search for 133 Minneapolis ballots that apparently are missing. And until those ballots are found or judged impossible to locate, the recount won’t be over, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said Friday.

By mid-afternoon, Minneapolis officials had turned their elections warehouse inside out but failed to find the envelope containing the ballots.

Pending the fate of the missing ballots, the Star Tribune calculates that Republican Sen. Norm Coleman leads Democrat Al Franken by 192 votes — a margin 23 votes narrower than the 215-vote lead that Coleman was awarded by the state Canvassing Board just before the recount began Nov. 19.

The Secretary of State’s Office, leaving out the disputed precinct altogether, shows Coleman ahead of Franken by 687 votes.

The Franken campaign reached yet another conclusion — Franken ahead by four votes — by including a projection on 6,655 ballots challenged by both campaigns.

At this point, Franken is beginning to look foolish. Even if all of the missing ballots were to be unequivocal votes for Franken, which is unlikely, he would not be able to overcome Coleman’s margin. At this point, Franken has two choices — he can bow out with class or he can drag this race through the Courts or, worse yet, use Democratic strong-arm tactics in the Senate to force his way into the seat.

It’s up to you Al.

The recount in the Minnesota U.S. Senate election is almost over. But the legal challenges mean there will be no official winner for awhile longer. Right now, incumbent Republican Norm Coleman leads Democratic challenger Al Franken by 251 votes with several thousand contested ballots awaiting review.

The state canvassing board will convene on December 16th to begin sorting through the challenged ballots. After that, there is still the possibility of a court case. I’m sure the people of Minnesota are thrilled.

While 251 votes is a tiny margin when you consider 2.4 million voters cast ballots, it’s still hard to envision Franken winning enough challenges to take the lead. Hopefully, once the canvassing board finishes their work, Franken will concede. Then again, he is, by all accounts, a rather obstinate fellow. He may choose to drag this thing out well into next year.

But I think Franken needs to be careful about perception. He performed well enough to make himself a viable candidate in future elections. He hardly wants to leave the impression that he’s a sore loser or more concerned with personal power than he is with democracy. My bet is he fights as hard as he can through the ballot challenges and then gives one of those concession speeches that everyone will praise as being “statesmanlike.”

We’ll see.

I just posted about this a few minutes ago, and then this update pops up…

Minnesota’s Canvassing Board voted unanimously to reject Franken’s request to include thousands of absentee ballots that are not included in the recount in the Minnesota senate race between the Democratic challenger and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

The Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount, stressed during a hearing today, that they weren’t rejecting the merits made by Franken’s attorneys. The panel also indicated that the fight over the exclusion of the absentee ballots from the recount will most likely land in court. Some 12,000 absentee ballots were rejected from the initial vote count because of technicalities and errors.

The supermajority dream is beginning to wane, and for that I think we can all be thankful. The Dems don’t need unlimited power when trying to build a more unified government. Best to be a few seats shy so they’ll have to work across the aisle to convince moderate Repubs to join them. That’ll give the GOP some needed leverage to make sure red America is represented when legislation comes up for a vote.

But then there’s always 2010…