Michelle Malkin » A real clown takes a Senate seat

A real clown takes a Senate seat

By Michelle Malkin • January 5, 2009 10:23 AM

It’s all but official: A professional Democrat clown will join all the amateur ones already in the Senate.

Al Franken is going to Washington:

Democrat Al Franken will be declared the winner of the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota, emerging from a ballot recount with a slim margin over Republican Norm Coleman, state officials said on Sunday.

But Coleman, the incumbent, has asked Minnesota’s supreme court to require that a few hundred additional absentee ballots be included in the recount — and he could then ask the court to investigate the contest all over again.

“At the moment, Franken has a 225-vote lead,” after the weekend counting of what were deemed the last uncounted absentee ballots, said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat who oversaw the process.

Ritchie said unless the supreme court acts on Coleman’s request and orders more ballots to be counted, he will reconvene the state’s Canvassing Board on Monday to certify Franken as the winner of the November 4 contest.

Coleman’s campaign intends to do just that, but Minnesotan Ed Morrissey at Hot Air notes:

His best bet may be the inconsistencies in challenge resolutions and the lack of a statewide, uniform standard in addressing the absentee ballots. Even that may not help much at this point, though. According to Coleman’s team, up to 1,000 absentee ballots should have been included instead of excluded, but gaining 225 votes out of 1,000 ballots will be a tall order — although not impossible, as Franken gained 200 out of the 935 absentee ballots they did count. Ballot challenge inconsistencies will have less of a chance, as those are inherently subjective and the court will give the Canvassing Board the widest possible latitude.

In the end, a dead heat winds up getting decided by the incompetence of individual voters who under any other circumstances would not matter at all. That’s what we had here.

May Minnesotans get what they deserve.

***

WSJ spotlights the funny business in Minnesota:

Minnesotans like to think that their state isn’t like New Jersey or Louisiana, and typically it isn’t. But we can’t recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate. The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken. If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator.

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#201

On January 6th, 2009 at 2:36 pm, Bill Grant said:

karenhasfreedom said:

Wow, just wow, how did we get to this point?

I have been repeating that over and over.
#202

On January 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm, happyscrapper said:

On January 6th, 2009 at 2:35 pm, Bill Grant said: The only thing funny about Minnesota is that you clowns think duck decoys belong in the living room.

That I can laugh at.

I didn’t even get to “slackjawed Scandi-snowbacks” who think it’s a real good idea to spend all their free time freezing their asses off in a shed on a lake scratching at their iceholes.

You just described my husband.

And the other half just elected the biggest douche bag ever to disgrace the senate… and that is saying something.

I agree.

I would think you had gotten used to the ridicule up there in your dingy igloo.

I live in a very nice home on the shore of one of our gorgeous lakes.

LOL, I am not the one defending the idiots who elected Al Frankin. Go back to Lake Wobegon and talk to your fellow snow monkeys about how you can reduce your carbon footprint to stop global warming…. Because you wouldn’t want Minnesota to warm up to bearable or anything.

I didn’t defend the ones who voted for Franken. I defended the ones who didn’t! I think the whole global warming thing is an invention of Al Gorebot and is a complete croc. I drive an SUV and I’m proud of it.

So, while I still think you are a creep, at least we agree on a couple things.
#203

On January 6th, 2009 at 4:57 pm, Bill Grant said:

So, while I still think you are a creep, at least we agree on a couple things.

OK, we agree, While I AM a creep at least I don’t live in Minnesota. (Where they DO have mosquitoes the size of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.)
#204

On January 6th, 2009 at 5:05 pm, Me said:

Happyscrapper, I have no idea how your son-in-law could vote for such a man. Furthermore, I’m Canadian and I’ll tell you right now no one here would vote for sleaze who thought breast cancer was funny or has a violent temper.
And, yes- I say “toque”, too. What else do you call a woolen winter hat?
#205

On January 6th, 2009 at 5:26 pm, chapoutier said:

And, yes- I say “toque”, too. What else do you call a woolen winter hat?

Believe it or not, they just call it a woolen winter hat. A lesson painfully learned my first winter in college in NYC:

“Boy, cold outside. Better get my toque.”

“Your what?”

“My toque.”

“Huh?”

“You know…a toque.”

“I have absolutely no clue as to what you are talking about, you hick.”
#206

On January 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm, Me said:

I don’t understand, chapoutier. It was in plain Canadian French!
#207

On January 6th, 2009 at 5:51 pm, happyscrapper said:

On January 6th, 2009 at 5:05 pm, Me said:

Happyscrapper, I have no idea how your son-in-law could vote for such a man. Furthermore, I’m Canadian and I’ll tell you right now no one here would vote for sleaze who thought breast cancer was funny or has a violent temper.
And, yes- I say “toque”, too. What else do you call a woolen winter hat?

You have to know my son-in-law and you would understand. He is definitely one of a kind. I think he voted for Franken, not because he thinks that a$$ho%e will make a good senator, but because he liked him on SNL. Yes, I know…he is the father of my grandson and that frightens me. But I love him even though he is a bit wierd. And I hope you know I was totally kidding with my previous remark about Canada! It was a tongue in cheek kind of remark. By the way, did Franken really make a joke about cancer? God help us.
#208

On January 6th, 2009 at 6:08 pm, Me said:

Don’t worry about the Canada thing!
Sarah Palin was good on Saturday Night Live. Surely your son-in-law would vote for her.
Yes, Al Franken, when writing for SNL, wrote a skit about a man who couldn’t stand his wife because she had breast cancer surgery (you can read about it in Do As I Say, Not As I Do by Peter Schweizer). What a real human being this guy is.
#209

On January 6th, 2009 at 7:39 pm, happyscrapper said:

On January 6th, 2009 at 6:08 pm, Me said:
Don’t worry about the Canada thing!
Sarah Palin was good on Saturday Night Live. Surely your son-in-law would vote for her.

You would think, wouldn’t you? But no, he voted for Obama and Franken. I think he is going to end up being embarrassed by both of them.