quote: The court's unanimous, unsigned opinion declared that Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast" and is entitled "to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota."
Oh wow. This had fallen almost completely out of my mind.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
No kidding it's about damn time.
I still wonder if Pawlenty will put off signing it until Coleman can file even more briefs.
Putting it off any further takes us out of being thorough and into being ridiculous.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
and Coleman concedes!
quote: "I just congratulated Al Franken on his victory," Coleman said in a press conference with reporters. "I told him it's the best job he'll ever have representing Minnesota in the United States Senate. The Supreme Court has spoken, I will respect its decision, and abide by its results," Coleman also said.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
quote:Originally posted by Norm Coleman's Concession "Statement": I have never believed that my service is irreplaceable. We have reached the point where further litigation damages the unity of our state, which is also fundamental.
Hah.
At least he remembered to thank Amy Klobuchar and her staff for picking up the senatorial slack.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Over half a year later, Coleman runs out of legal recourse and only then does his being a jerk subside.
...
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Give the dude some credit. Ya know that if Coleman were to have appealed to the US SupremeCourt, the Gang of Five woulda nullified Minnesota's mandatory recount, just as they prevented Florida's mandatory recount. And Coleman led by 206 votes before the recount.
[ June 30, 2009, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I have to admit, I'm skeptical of claims of Coleman being especially jerkish, given that contested close elections are becoming the rule rather than the exception when they're very close like this.
And Franken ain't a saint either. He's kind of a schmuck too.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I'd gotten the impression that Coleman didn't have a chance of winning and that everyone was just waiting out (and the state was paying for) his challenges till Minnesota could have it's full legislative representation by seating Al Franken. If that is the case, I'd see as being pretty jerkish.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, to be fair I haven't followed this race closely, at least not since a few months back (man, we're talking about a frickin' election in late June!). But anyway, lemme clarify: I don't see Coleman being especially jerkish for a politician, relative to other politicians.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Sounds too much like the election in Iran. How many of the Coleman votes were "lost"?
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Sounds too much like the election in Iran. How many of the Coleman votes were "lost"?
Oh goodness...Just...just shut up.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Ron, are you seriously implying there was a conspiracy to get Al Franken elected?
And if so could you please provide some proof to back up your claim?
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Actually, it's true: a surprising number of Coleman's voters actually intended to vote for Ahmadinejad.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
So for them Franken would be the next best thing.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Right! A Jewish comedian and USO entertainer and an antisemitic Muslim fundamentalist with no sense of humor... It's like they're twins!
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: Right! A Jewish comedian and USO entertainer and an antisemitic Muslim fundamentalist with no sense of humor... It's like they're twins!
I would argue that Al Fraken doesn't exactly have a sense of humor. At least, not a good one. As far as comedian, I think you have to stretch the definition of the word very far to apply it to him.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Sounds too much like the election in Iran. How many of the Coleman votes were "lost"?
Ron, just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean you get to reasonably liken him to the guys responsible for the Iranian election crimes.
Geeze.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Sounds too much like the election in Iran. How many of the Coleman votes were "lost"?
Yours is a mind forever polarized, attuned only to favorable impressions of your own and unfavorable impressions of the 'other side.' The vote is close, but recount favors the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate. So immediately, the comparison that crosses your mind is my god, it must have gone down like the vote in Iran, this can't be real democracy and the situation that you posit is vote fraud.
What's extra fun about this is that these paranoid suspicions would have never graced your mind if the position of the democratic candidate and the republican candidate been reversed.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
If we're of the opinion that every vote counts and if either side could win by one vote isn't it fair then to make sure all votes are properly counted? I know one race for a town that was decided by a coin flip as both sides got same number of votes.
Posted by brojack17 (Member # 9189) on :
Apparently he's good enough, he's smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like him.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Right! A Jewish comedian and USO entertainer and an antisemitic Muslim fundamentalist with no sense of humor... It's like they're twins!
I'd watch that tv show, especially if they really were twins.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Who did the recounting of votes? Weren't Democrats in charge, for all practical purposes?
History shows, unfortunately, that this sort of thing has gone on repeatedly. Dead people voting, more votes counted than the number of people who live in a given district, fake voters registered by ACORN, etc. Any close election is fair game to the machinations of any political machine. The only solution is to win by a big margin.
Democracy is better than monarchy, but it seems that eventually democracy will fail. It just may take a while.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
thanks for your insightful critique. Now I can go on ignoring you and not feel bad about it.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
538 did some interesting analysis before the recount on why he would expect Franken to win. Basically, poor and first time voters were more likely to vote for Franken and they are more likely to make a mistake (like showing up at the wrong polling place). Those votes are still legitimate and the voters still deserved to have their vote count. I read somewhere that for voting fraud, democrats and republicans (as they do with most things) approach it from opposite sides. Republicans want to make sure not a single illegitimate vote is counted, while Democrats want to make sure not a single legitimate vote is missed.
As of yet, no dead people voted in MN, the number of people voting in any district were consistent with expectations and no fake ACORN voters have actually ever showed up.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Who did the recounting of votes? Weren't Democrats in charge, for all practical purposes?
Why do you think that Democrats were in charge of recounting the votes?
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Who did the recounting of votes? Weren't Democrats in charge, for all practical purposes?
Why do you think that Democrats were in charge of recounting the votes?
No, no, no. The Democrats were in charge for all practical purposes. Sure, there were Republican observers present. But what the liberal media won't tell you is that those helpless Republican observers were forced by Democratic thugs to help fix the election for Franken!
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Isn't the Minnesota Secretary of State a Republican? I don't recall off the top of my head, but I believe so.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Isn't the Minnesota Secretary of State a Republican? I don't recall off the top of my head, but I believe so.
DFL
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
That proves it!
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Of course the Democrats were in charge. If the Republicans were in charge they would have made sure their person won no matter whom they would have to bribe, intimidate, or use extraordinary rendition on. Since that didn't happen then the only possible conclusion is that the Democrats were in charge.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Isn't the Minnesota Secretary of State a Republican? I don't recall off the top of my head, but I believe so.
Not quite. Mark Ritchie, the Secretary of State, is a Democrat. Tim Pawlentry, the Governor, is a Republican.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Right! A Jewish comedian and USO entertainer and an antisemitic Muslim fundamentalist with no sense of humor... It's like they're twins!
I'd watch that tv show, especially if they really were twins.
They fight crime!
[ July 01, 2009, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: Sterling ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
I wonder if Ron follows Peter Hoekstra on Twitter.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Never mind. Apparently he's just listening to Rush Limbaugh again.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
So, ah, a certain lack of perspective, you're suggesting...? Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.
By exercise, you mean an exercise in brain cell destruction right?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Who did the recounting of votes? Weren't Democrats in charge, for all practical purposes?
History shows, unfortunately, that this sort of thing has gone on repeatedly. Dead people voting, more votes counted than the number of people who live in a given district, fake voters registered by ACORN, etc. Any close election is fair game to the machinations of any political machine. The only solution is to win by a big margin.
Democracy is better than monarchy, but it seems that eventually democracy will fail. It just may take a while.
PEER THROUGH MY MAGICAL HYPOCRISY LENS
Ron Lambert on the Al Franken winning the minnesota recount: 'Oh, the democratic party candidate won? Well, you know, massive democracy-crushing vote fraud happens all the time. I guess America had an okay run but democracy is doomed in the end, you know. I guess this shows that'
Ron Lambert if Norm Coleman had won the minnesota recount: 'See, Democracy always prevails. I'm unsurprised that the liberals used so much money in order to keep the Republicans down a seat for so long. Why do they hate America?'
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
what about the voters who couldnt vote in florida cuz' they were black ron back in 2000?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Of course the Democrats were in charge. If the Republicans were in charge they would have made sure their person won no matter whom they would have to bribe, intimidate, or use extraordinary rendition on. Since that didn't happen then the only possible conclusion is that the Democrats were in charge.
Dan Savage did a story on this phenomenon back in like 2001 for This American Life that always strike me as different from the pack. Basically he, as a political amateur that election cycle, tried to take an even handed approach (as far as a gay rights activist can manage it) to who was really "worse" about these issues, especially voter intimidation and general voter tampering, Republicans or Democrats.
He felt, and I think rightly, that the media was, in the spirit of being fair and not appearing to be partisan, portraying the two parties as being largely equal in this regard. The mainstream news would go off of the information provided by party press packets most of the time. When Savage actually looked at the qualitative differences between party practices, he found that the Republican approach was nearly sinister in its ruthlessness, while the Democratic approach generated most of its own problems out of incompetence or basic neglect.
For instance, two stories that would be "matched" on the news at that time would be a story about a Democratic voter registry generating a bunch of false names, and registering people up to 20 times, and another story about a Republican call center that had called people claiming to be pollsters, and then offered to register only Republicans, even going so far as to destroy registration cards when employees registered democrats, which is a federal crime.
So, on the surface, the news was pairing these stories as if they were equal, but in fact the results would be entirely different. Registering fake people, registering the same person multiple times, or paying registrars in rocks of crack cocaine (as was done on one occasion), don't lead to massive voter fraud. That situation was the outcome of a foolish policy that payed registrars by the card, encouraging the party's workers to cheat in order to make more money. Those fake people weren't actually going to show up and vote, after all. Whereas the Republican story was far more serious- they registered people to vote, and then destroyed those ballots, meaning that those people would be disenfranchised come election day, and there would be nothing to be done about it.
I'd really like to know if there are stories like that about Democratic party practices. I don't think there are. Maybe the Kennedies 40 years ago with their boxes of ballots, but in the last 10 years? In the last 20? I have seen stories of incompetence, naivete, stupidity, etc, but the kind of sinister crap that Republicans of many stripes have tried to pull regarding voter registration and vote counting over the years gives me the willies.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
You will be able to find evils and improprieties on both sides; the question is to look at the source and see if the attention they pay to these improprieties are angled sharply based on which party is doing it.
Use WorldNetDaily as an example: if they can point to something that a democrat or a democratic organization did, they will do so. They will do so with gusto. They will do so with gustatory claims like "democrats, the party of fraudsters?" — and when republicans get caught doing the same stuff, there will be ... muted silence, perhaps some tepid analysis, and a reassurance of how it is unrepresentative of the whole.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Yeah, but what do you think the whole is? Do you think fraud is as common to both parties?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
That's kind of like asking which filthy pig smells worse. At a certain point, I don't think it really matters.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Well, of course, my filthy pig smells better!
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Just for the record, I have never watched or listened to Rush Limbaugh. Not even once.
I have been saying ever since the 2000 election that Gore actually won Florida. The media exit pollers got it right. The networks that called the state early for Gore were right. The problem was the confusing butterfly ballot, that induced thousands of Jewish voters to vote for the Christian fundamentalist, Pat Buchanan, when they thought (and would have told the exit pollers) that they voted for Gore. But one of the great ironies of that debacle was that the butterfly ballot that confused so many voters was designed by a Democrat. She should have been drummed out of the party.
Uh--Darth_Mauve, I have to ask: What is "extraordinary rendition"?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Actually the bigger problem in Florida was the disenfranchisment of tens of thousands of legal minority voters by Katherine Harris.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: That's kind of like asking which filthy pig smells worse. At a certain point, I don't think it really matters.
I think it matters. I realize this is the prescribed attitude to these things, "they're all politicians" and that, but frankly I would like to have a complete picture of their involvements with corruption in detail. I think, I suspect, one party would be much more deeply corrupt than the other.
The press are quite insistent on making it appear that this is a tit-for-tat competition, but I don't believe it, I need more evidence.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Yeah, but what do you think the whole is? Do you think fraud is as common to both parties?
Presently it's the Republicans. They're just flat-out worse by a long shot and while it does not get a lot of attention, the way they handled Iraq was the single largest case of graft, abuse, and spoils that America has ever, ever weathered.
If you know enough about how the conservatives played Iraq as their own personal kickback farm and how a lot of the same people who were behind this horrific abuse are still slumming around as heads of the conservative network of think-tanks and sinecure incentives, you know that there is absolutely utterly no comparison between them and the Democratic Party right now.
Not that this is a permanent condition or anything; the democrats used to beating the pants off the republicans in tammany hall style politicking but have long since been eclipsed and fallen into the shaky role of the fairweather reformers.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Great article- just wish there were a few more details in it about the system in place.
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