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FRANKEN V. COLEMAN UPDATE.
Al Franken is now only 237 votes behind Norm Coleman, and a recount will decide the race next month. In general, recounts frequently favor Democrats because more marginalized communities tend to have more ballot problems and counting errors, but you never know. Still, it would be great to rid ourselves of Coleman.
COMMENTS (11)
Was talking to a City Council staff person in Minneapolis today and she seemed to think that a lot of first-time Somali voters may not have filled in the bubble on the optical scan ballots correctly. Obviously those votes would favor Franken. I'm wary of wishful thinking but it is certainly well within the realm of possibility.
Posted by: Chris O. | November 7, 2008 12:55 PM
Great to be rid of Coleman, also very great to have Al Franken in Congress. If he's ever invited on the O'Reilly Show, I'd literally sell my car to be in the studio audience. (My car sucks so that's not as impressive as it might sound, but you get the idea.)
Posted by: Cyrus | November 7, 2008 1:01 PM
I'm just glad for now that MN votes on machines that use voter-marked paper ballots, which will make the recount possible. I was very wrong about predicted problems in PA this year but the fact remains that most of PA voters use machines that are not able to be independently audited and that's very bad.
Posted by: eRobin | November 7, 2008 1:09 PM
If Al Franken finds enough votes to overcome Coleman's lead, it will give a new meaning to the term "Those clowns in the Senate".
That's all he knows.
Posted by: El Viajero | November 7, 2008 2:11 PM
I'll be so glad to get rid of Norm, but I have to say I wish someone else would have gotten the Dem nomination, other than Franken. He's a pretty terrible candidate, and while he's no Blue Dog, he's also not as progressive as a Senator from Minnesota could be.
Posted by: jeebus | November 7, 2008 2:50 PM
Well, we're getting rid of Coleman no matter what happens. I'd definitely prefer Frankin over a Pawlenty appointee, but the thing I'm most excited about is seeing that scumbag in an orange jumpsuit.
Posted by: msw | November 7, 2008 4:00 PM
A couple of years ago during the run-up to the midterm elections, I made a victory brunch in Cambridge, MA, for Al Franken, who might have been going to run then, but was assembling a war chest for whenever he did run. We had every conceivable Minnesota-resonant food that also tasted good, especially the food of the newest minorities in the state -- Hmong, Somalian, etc. We even overnited the state fish.
Maybe it's working now.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | November 7, 2008 4:03 PM
Are we really better off with Al Franken in office?
Posted by: Anonymous | November 7, 2008 5:07 PM
Anonymous: Yes.
Any other questions?
Posted by: Chris O. | November 7, 2008 5:40 PM
"Are we really better off with Al Franken in office?"
He's good enough, he's smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like him.
Posted by: Firebert | November 7, 2008 11:20 PM
Hillary went all out campaigning for him. That's good enough for me. Oh, and the fact that I sent him a thousand dollars.
I sure hope he makes it. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when Merkley came through.
Posted by: BoyBlue | November 8, 2008 3:15 AM