Uh boy. . . does he walk around with a "kick me" sign taped to his butt too?

Norm could have done the responsible thing and had his staff wrap all this up before his term was up. He's certainly had some inkling that the election count was not going his way.

He was playing a game of chicken with the Senate, hoping that HE would be provisionally seated "for the good of his state and his constituents".

Now, instead, they've got to open up and pay his staff for doing what they should have been doing through December.

pshh, everybody knows that Coleman's staff is incompetent on constituent services anyway - send em over to Klobuchar.

Eric Kleefeld states: "Of course, the underlying reason that the seat is vacant right now, and Minnesota therefore lacking in full constituent services, is that Coleman is keeping Al Franken's win bottled up in court, and he and the Senate GOP are objecting to any provisional seating."

Is Eric trying to do a funny here? "Informed comment" WOULD NOT STATE that "Coleman is keeping Al Franken's win bottled up in court...". The reason being that (a) Franken has not yet won (and there is still a chance he may not) and (b) the court is not merely an inconvenient "bottling up" contrivance as Eric is suggesting. Rather the court is last place for ensuring that the intent of Minnesota voters is reflected in the finally tally of the votes. Eric, why are you being so snarky about our election process?

Also, Eric seems to be putting forth the poppy-cock idea that the reason why Franken has not yet been seated is that Coleman and "Senate GOP are objecting to any provisional seating". Well Coleman's views are irrelevant (he is no longer even a member of the U.S. Senate).

With regards to Franken's not being seated, perhaps Eric should go back and carefully review the law. He might discover that the senate does not have the arbitrary (unfetter) authority to seat whom ever it wants.

Eric, the reason why Franken has not yet (and should not yet) be seated is that the Senate does not yet have the authority to do so). The citizens of each state determine through the voting process who represent them in the Senator. (To put this no-brainer a different way: Senate does not determine who will represents the States! In of discussion. Correct?) Winner of the 2008 Minnesota Senate Minnesota election has not yet decided. A candidate has not yet been certified -- preciously because the winner has not yet been determined. What Franken did "win" was the "recount" -- and what the Canvassing Board did do was to "certify the results of the recount". What they DID NOT DO, and could not do, was certify the winner of the election. That requires action on the part of both the Governor and the Secretary of State. And by law, they are not authorized to take that action until AFTER the "contest phase" has been complete and the final determination of vote totals has been made.

TPM has not take the time to provide much in the way of "informed comment" designed to shed light on Minnesota's "deliberative process" of determining the rightful winner of an election. Rather, than providing insightful, "informed comment", it has peppered its reporting with glib and too often ill-informed side-bars, perhaps laying the foundation for a new kind of Boo-Hurrah Journalism where "snarkyness" is the order-of-the-day. Am I being unfair? Maybe? Or maybe I'm just too "Minnesota Nice".