When will the new Minnesota Senator take his seat?

Here is another view just in (2 April)

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20785.html

HA!

WHEN will all of the hubdub predictions on the Minnesota Senator be unfrozen and SETTLED, maybe?

I suspect the answer might just be the same as in the above question - yes?

Funny; after the 2000 Presidential Election debacle, Gore and the Dems could have chosen to file appeal after appeal after appeal, but for the good of the country they stepped aside. Yeah, they griped about it...but they did step aside. Meanwhile in Minnesota, Coleman has lost. And lost again. And lost again...yet he and the Repubs still "vow to fight on" through an endless series of appeals. Ostensibly "to be sure every vote is counted," though--as anyone paying attention can clearly see--it's just another damaging ploy to hold onto one of the very few vestigial shreds of political 'power' the Right has. Thing is, they haven't figured out that such games are part of the reason they've lost that power. Funny, huh?

How wasteful and very, very sad...

Gore only stepped aside after losing recount after recount, running out of options in the courts, and facing the prospect of Florida Senate stepping in and determining the result which would not have gone in his favor.

This is an absolute low point in human history if him stepping aside is held up as an example making a decision for the "good of the country"!

Read your history book. Gore could have appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court--as Coleman and the Repubs have vowed to do in Minnesota--yet he elected not to do that. Not because he feared losing, but because he didn't want the division to escalate further.

Too, there were many Democrats urging Gore to fight on, while everyone on the right obviously wanted him to step aside. In Minnesota, however, there isn't the same unanimous support from his own party for Coleman to continue; a growing number of conservative voices are joining with the left in asking him to give up for the good of the state. The point being: when even your own party is saying it's time to throw in the towel, it's time to throw in the towel. Don't you think?

You know, it used to be that the GOP was known as a party that was great at winning elections, but not so hot at running things once they were in office. Now it appears as though they're not too great at either.

:-)

"Background: The battle for the Minnesota Senate seat - unsettled since the November General Election - grinds on through the courts"

NO NO NO

These Minnesota question(s) grind ON AND ON AND ON through hubdub...our prediction money has been tied up for HOW MANY MONTHS THROUGH THIS DEBACLE? Can these questions either be VOIDED or REOPENED so that we can get our money out and move on...

Just because American politics is stuffed up with Minnesota doesn't mean that hubdub has to be stuffed up as well...We need a stimulus package: LET US OUT, PLEASE!

@sqlman:
There is no comparison. Gore never won a single recount. Even the private "recounts" held after the election was over confirmed the results.

Coleman won and held his lead until recently when Franken "found some votes", and invalidated others - there absolutely is an outstanding question about the results.

Coleman "held his lead until recently"? Where did you read that? He had an infinitesimal lead until the Minnesota-mandated--not Franken-requested--recount started a few days after the election. Since then, he's lost every recount, official and otherwise. He's the one who fought to bring more ballots in, in the hope that they'd sway the count his way, but most of those he asked for simply added to Franken's lead. The voters of Minnesota have spoken; the board of elections has spoken; the courts of Minnesota have spoken: Franken won, period. Any further political attempts by Coleman to deny Minnesotans full representation in Washington is only going to backfire and cost both him and his party. You think he/they would be aware of that.

Supreme judges are lazy - sorry May is out if Coleman will not concede.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/43620032.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU

Coleman and the elephants aren't going down without a fight: "Former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman asked Minnesota's highest court to order the counting of at least 1,359 additional ballots and possibly thousands more in his Senate race or go so far as to throw out the election entirely." (italics mine)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/apArticle/id/D97T18V80/ (4/30)

American people are known for having short attention spans, but I believe this is going to hurt the Repubs in the long run; the good folks of Minnesota are being denied representation in DC by a fellow who lost, then lost again, and lost again. If the court were to throw this out and order a new election, Franken would likely win again...and still Coleman may be standing shouting about how unfair it all is.

Yeesh...

06/25 12:10 EDT The Minnesota Supreme Court didn't release their ruling at 10:00 A, as expected (http://www.courts.state.mn.us/?page=230), so we have to wait a bit longer.

"...the Senate will soon recess for the Fourth of July holiday. Even if the state Supreme Court rules today (6/25) in his favor, it could be that Sen. Al Franken won't be sworn in until after Independence Day." (http://www.minnpost.com/politicalagenda/2009/06/25/9799/coleman-franken_ruling_another_thursday_another_wait_another_who_knows)

AP: Franken poised for big gains in recount - Huffington Post December 14, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/15/ap-franken-poised-for-big_n_151042.html


Ahmadinejad Gains Votes in Partial Recount! - June 29, 2009 Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/29/747818/-Ahmadinejad-Gains-Votes-in-Partial-Recount!

The 'Absentee' Senator
Franken wins by changing the rules.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640687950076679.html
The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.

Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.

But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.

What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right. The three-judge panel overseeing the Coleman legal challenge, and the Supreme Court that reviewed the panel's findings, in essence found that Mr. Coleman hadn't demonstrated a willful or malicious attempt on behalf of officials to deny him the election. And so they refused to reopen what had become a forbidding tangle of irregularities. Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact.

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