Rusty silver linings

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

Franken looks poised to be declared the victor under a cloud of questionable tactics. The WSJ catalogues the missteps and inconsistencies that Franken appears to have exploited.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html

Nate Silver takes a baseball bat to the WSJ editorial here:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/...heir-fact.html

[Tex]

Apparently not looking forward to a fight with Republicans, Reid has elected not to seat Franken just yet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/polit...rpc=22&sp=true

Powerline posts several interesting links about the controversy:

The New York Post says:

The issues raised by the Coleman campaign are legitimate. Resolving them has been expressly reserved by the board and the state Supreme Court for the election contest - the final stage of Minnesota's election process. They do not constitute the complaints of a sore loser.

Nov. 5 wasn't long ago. It was the day when Al Franken demanded that every vote be counted (once). But it's already ancient history in Minnesota.

Minneapolis' own Star Tribune has a fairly even-handed editorial:

Coleman is justified in going to court. We give him that nod not because we believe that the Canvassing Board has erred. ...

But as several of the judges who sit on the board pointed out during their proceedings, there’s only so much that an administrative, vote-counting body can do. The Canvassing Board lacked the authority to order county election officials to act. It could not conduct evidentiary hearings, take testimony or make findings of fact.

Courts alone have the legal standing to do those things. That makes the judicial branch best suited to pass judgment on which remaining rejected absentee ballots should be counted.

Which is essentially what the MN Supreme Court said in denying Coleman's requests during the recount.

The Weekly Standard publishes it's own column on the controversy as well, and after detailing the problems, handicaps Coleman's chances as an "inside straight."

It seems like the odds are very long, given the size of Franken's lead vs. the number of ballots still in question. I gotta hand it to the Dems, their cheating was first rate.

[Tex]

Harry Reid had an interesting quote yesterday:

“Norm Coleman will never ever serve [again] in the Senate,” Reid told Politico’s Manu Raju. “He lost the election. He can stall things, but he'll never serve in the Senate.”

Seems a little prejudicial, doesn't it.

Meanwhile, Powerline's Scott Johnson mildly criticizes both the WSJ editorial and the Coleman campaign's post-election recount strategy.

It's unfortunate that in what is supposed to be a recount, the more aggressive candidate gets rewarded with new votes, but that is how politics is played.

[MikeWaters]

Elections that fall into the sampling error suck.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

Harry Reid had an interesting quote yesterday:



Seems a little prejudicial, doesn't it.

Meanwhile, Powerline's Scott Johnson mildly criticizes both the WSJ editorial and the Coleman campaign's post-election recount strategy.

It's unfortunate that in what is supposed to be a recount, the more aggressive candidate gets rewarded with new votes, but that is how politics is played.

More aggressive? As in "wanted all votes counted?" Well, yes- in that regard Franken was more "aggressive," whereas Coleman only wanted votes counted from districts that voted for him.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

More aggressive? As in "wanted all votes counted?" Well, yes- in that regard Franken was more "aggressive," whereas Coleman only wanted votes counted from districts that voted for him.

Heh. Bull.

[Tex]

The Franken campaign--you know, those guys who only wanted to have all legitmate votes counted and have been nothing but honest and upstanding during the recount--is now supporting a lawsuit to add new (presumably Franken) wrongfully excluded votes to his tally.

Perhaps Coleman's petition to include other wrongfully excluded votes has him nervous after all.

But he's not adding votes. No, no. Just counting legitimate ones.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../01/022546.php

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

The Franken campaign--you know, those guys who only wanted to have all legitmate votes counted and have been nothing but honest and upstanding during the recount--is now supporting a lawsuit to add new (presumably Franken) wrongfully excluded votes to his tally.

Perhaps Coleman's petition to include other wrongfully excluded votes has him nervous after all.

But he's not adding votes. No, no. Just counting legitimate ones.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../01/022546.php

tit for tat. If you don't like what Franken is doing, you should really hate what Coleman is doing, particularly since it was Coleman's idea to start down this path. Tell you what, how about they both drop it and Franken just wins?

What ever happened to the Coleman who said if he were behind, he would just concede? I guess that makes him as honest as our resident Republican apologist.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

tit for tat. If you don't like what Franken is doing, you should really hate what Coleman is doing, particularly since it was Coleman's idea to start down this path. Tell you what, how about they both drop it and Franken just wins?

What ever happened to the Coleman who said if he were behind, he would just concede? I guess that makes him as honest as our resident Republican apologist.

Translation: "I like it better when Franken cheats."

[Tex]

A University of Minnesota law professor weighs in on the constitutionality of the recount, drawing parallels to Florida 2000:

But as matters stand now, the Minnesota recount is a legal train wreck. The result, a narrow Franken lead, is plainly invalid. Just as in Bush v. Gore, the recount has involved "unequal evaluation of ballots in several respect" and failed to provide "minimal procedural safeguards" of equal treatment of all ballots. Legally, it does not matter which candidate benefited from all these differences in treatment. (Mr. Franken did.) The different treatment makes the results not only unreliable (and suspicious), but unconstitutional.