Looks like the "right" is prepping themselves for Coleman LOSS

[SoCalDem]

This is a good article..even if it's from a wingnut source:)


Minnesota 101 (No Fraud In Minnesota Senate Election Recount)
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OTg5M2RjZjZkNDk5NWFhOGRlODMzMGMwOTg3YWViY2U=

April 08, 2009, 4:00 a.m.

Minnesota 101
There is not much good to say about Franken, but he did not steal the election.

By Scott W. Johnson
snip....

Republican Norm Coleman — has emerged as the probable loser of the three-stage post-election proceedings. Senator Coleman lost nearly 500 votes during the first stage — the canvass — conducted by local officials tabulating votes immediately after the election. At the end of the canvass, Senator Coleman appeared to have won the election by 215 votes out of nearly 3,000,000 cast.

The closeness of the result led to the recount — the second stage of the post-election proceedings. With a margin within one-half of one percent, Minnesota law dictated a hand recount. The required recount is essentially administrative in nature. Minnesota law also provides for a judicial proceeding — the election contest — before a panel of three judges to resolve disputed questions of fact and law following the recount. The election contest is the third stage of Minnesota’s post-election proceedings.

During the recount Senator Coleman lost his narrow lead to Franken, coming out on the short end of a 225-vote margin. Senator Coleman has challenged the result of the recount in the election contest. The election-contest trial took place over seven weeks. The case is pending before the election-contest panel of three judges, but the result appears foreordained, based on rulings made to date by the panel. In all likelihood, the election-contest panel will declare Al Franken the winner, and Senator Coleman has already vowed to appeal the result to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

snip..

For a while, I thought so, too. If I had observed the events through the media outside Minnesota, I would still think so. As a Minnesotan with a closer view, with friends lodged in every corner of the post-election proceedings, I have a different perspective on the chain of events that has brought Coleman to his imminent loss to Franken.

snip...

From the outset of the post-election process, the Coleman campaign was remarkably passive in its approach to the recount. The Coleman team appeared to improvise strategy from day to day and spent time spinning the Franken campaign’s activities. They did not appear to have a handle on what was happening or on what was likely to happen. I found getting information from the Coleman team like pulling teeth. For a while I thought they were withholding information for some reason. By the end of the recount, I concluded that they simply didn’t know what was happening.

snip...

I have known Chief Justice Magnuson professionally for more than 25 years. Justice Anderson was my law-school classmate and is my friend. In my view, they are two of the best judges serving in the Minnesota courts. Although the board’s rulings on challenged ballots favored Franken during the recount, there was no noticeable partisan division among the board. Accordingly, the imputation of misconduct to the board such as is implicit in the Journal editorial is misplaced.

snip....

— Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and contributor to Power Line.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I hope they are getting ready for that loss.

And I also hope that the Coleman people will finally, finally, accept that loss, and stop fighting it in the courts.

I mean, really.

:eyes:

K&R

[trayfoot]

2. It is about time they conceded defeat!

[elocs]

3. This is why I would prefer to hear from more DU Minnesotans about this,

who actually know what is going on in their state than the many who post their opinions here that are based on what they think rather than the facts.

[Blaze Diem]

4. I agree. Please MN Duers, weigh in on the opinions & remarks from your very beautiful State.

What is said locally?
Bypass the media and give it to us 'straight from the horses mouth'.
Thanks

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

5. Everyone I've talked to wants this to be over, but we are laughing.

I don't talk to many right-wingers...I live in a very liberal part of St. Paul, but the people I've talked to really want this to be over. And many of them are blaming Coleman.
I did run into some frothing-at-the-mouth winger's vehicle (not literally. just parked behind it) that had a bunch of homemade bumper stickers on it, including one that said: "FRANKIN THIEF!"

I was sooo tempted to leave a note on this guy's windshield that read: "Hey, assface, if you're going to identify yourself to the public as a rabid, frothing idiot, the least you could do is spell his name right so people can't easily identify you as an idiot from long distances. Somebody might take you seriously, then."

Unfortunately, this is probably going to be the tone for Franken's years in the Senate. That he "stole" the seat. That he "doesn't belong there". The GOP has made it clear they will not accept Franken as the junior senator from Minnesota. I would fully expect Reid to send several strongly-worded letters to them about Senate decorum in the near future after Franken is seated.

Yeah. We want it to be over. But we are glad that Minnesota has very detailed election laws written for just this kind of situation. Everything's been followed to the letter, even (I'm sad to say) Pawlenty's insistence on not accepting the results and certify the election.
He's starting to stretch that excuse a bit thin, though, and I relish the situation he's been put in. He must appeal his party because he's a partisan hack, but if he actually does the correct thing, he has to allow Senator-Elect Franken to be seated very, very soon.

Then there's Coleman's other legal troubles...

[SoCalDem]

8. Doesn't he have "wife-problems' too?.. n/t

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

9. That's the worst-kept secret in the state

Coleman used to live in DC. His wife lived in California with a "budding acting career". It's an unfortunate fact about Hollywood that for women, the older you get, the less roles you are offered. And if you're a relative unknown, your odds on "making it big" are that much more slim the older you get. According to IMDB, Laurie Coleman has acted in six roles since 1998.

Norm apparently likes Asian women, and has been seen numerous times with women not his wife in bars around St. Paul when he was mayor. (He switched parties in the middle of his term 'cause he knew that he couldn't defeat Wellstone in a primary.)

We don't call him "Zipper" 'cause he invented it.

But after all these years, nothing's come of Norm's extra-marital efforts. I don't think anything will.

[cascadiance]

6. The longer Coleman waits to resolve/concede, he sets the precedent for Dems to do the same later...

... if there are in similarly close elections in the future.

Imagine how Gore might have used this election's result's processes of litigation to demand a full recount of Florida in 2000! We might have had Al Gore as president today had that happened.

So go for it Coleman! You're just burying your party even more. I wonder if other Rethugs will start realizing this soon and tell Coleman to give up so as not to mess things up too much for them in the future.

And it won't have been just him too. Remember how long Rossi was in the courts in Washington trying to unseat Gregoire as governor too.

[Old and In the Way]

7. I agree.

While short term it would be good to have Franken seated, this long soreloserman play only makes Republicans look more juvenile and whiney. It does present a precedent for Democrats as well. With any luck, Norm will get indicted before he quits the race...wouldn't that be delicious?