Minnesota Governor Now Pushing Coleman's Spin On Absentee Ballots
The spin war over wrongly-rejected absentee ballots in Minnesota keeps on going, with today's deadline for sorting them and sending them to the state for counting perhaps adding a heightened sense of urgency.
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was just on Fox News, where he said the number of wrongly-rejected absentees was "between 1,300 and 2,000."
Here's the thing: The local election officials throughout Minnesota have the number at around 1,350, after they sorted through all the rejected absentees. In order for it to be 2,000, you would have to include the 650 additional ballots that the Coleman campaign is suing to have put in, and which the local officials all say were thrown out properly.
And as luck would have it, those 650 come from Coleman's strongholds -- so they would probably be more than enough to put him back in the lead over Al Franken.
This is disappointing, but it's to be expected. Pawlenty is a party-first guy. Throughout the general election campaign, you couldn't turn on the television without seeing this guy spewing whatever the McCain campaign's talking points were for that particular day. Frankly, I never understood all of the commentators touting him as the next best new thing in the Republican party.
January 2, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
From my perspective he _is_ the next best new thing for the Repubs ;-)
January 2, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Coleman and the Republican Party will use every trick in the book to keep this seat, and if Frankin and the Democrats don't fight them every inch of the way, matching them rock for rock, Coleman will get the seat.
Frankin and the Democrats should not "misunderestimate" the capacity of Republicans
for deviousness.
January 2, 2009 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Franken campaign needs to stop fucking around, and go back to the MN SC immediately requesting relief on the grounds that Coleman is NOT participating in good faith in the process outlined by the court's previous decision. Because, in obvious, demonstrable fact, he's not.
You cannot give these low-life scum an inch, or they will find a way to cheat their way back into office.
January 2, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Given that Norm Coleman is against the counting of most of the 1,350, for Pawlenty to start the number of "wrongly-rejected absentees" at 1,300 isn't so bad.
January 2, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real test is how does one design a completely transparent election system that is capable of accurately anticipating many of these apparent problems in such a way that no one came claim misrepresentation, double counting, disenfranchising a voter and so forth.
Sounds like Congress needs to create some binding legislation on the States to conform with accepted practices for conducting elections and covers any possible mishap that one can think possible. Such accepted practices, as accounting principles if you take my hint, so no matter what State, the rules would be the same and not left to political partisanship or maneuvering favoring one particular candidate over another.
And for those situations clearly out of the ballpark, steps an election board/panel/congress should follow to accurately determine a voters intent that leaves no doubt to the average citizen the vote tally is correct and claims of cheating are null and void.
January 2, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can back to bankrupting the state of MN now Pawlenty..... don't raise taxes though, just fees.
January 2, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Franken has no illusions about the nature of his opponents. And his lawyers have generally been tip-top, although perhaps were outmaneuvered in the absentee ballot arena.
It's unfortunate that the Senate Democratic leadership is so astonishingly inept and feckless. I think the Dems could have a 90 to 10 advantage and the Thug Party would still have Harry Reid tripping over his shoelaces and letting the Thugs dictate.
As for Pawlenty, I suspect he is doing less than his maximum effort to salvage this for brother Norm. There is a long sub-text of Tim having to step aside for Norm, at the behest of Karl Rove, as both have sought the SAME higher office here, a couple of times. But Pawlenty's getting shoved aside has ironically worked in his favor, as far as his political fortunes have played out.
So by fudging his comment, and NOT unequivocally endorsing the Norm Coleman camp's late maneuver to add 650 rejected ballots, Pawlenty may be doing just enough to keep from eroding his own standing with the Thug hard-core, without totally committing himself to Norm's cause.
January 2, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink