It’s The Year Of Franken All Over Again
By Mitch Berg
What’s the worst thing about Al Franken’s slow, apparently inexorable path through the courts to the Senate?
Is it that he is – by all accounts from people who’ve had to deal with the guy socially – a jerk? No – we aren’t electing a pal.
Is it that he has all the “Gravitas” of Carrot Top?
It will take Tuesday’s long-awaited ruling from a three-judge panel, an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, maybe a swing through the U.S. Supreme Court and possibly a separate journey through the federal court system.
And if all that works in Franken’s favor — well, that will be the easy part. Because even assuming he ultimately defeats Norm Coleman, Franken will still have to convince his new colleagues that he’s not just a celebrity.
“He is going to have a lot to prove,” says Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker, “not only because of where he came from but by the means with which he got there. Republicans are going to regard him almost in the same way as Roland Burris, and clearly he is not.”
“Like all the celebrities that came before him, Al Franken is going to have to demonstrate he’s not using the U.S. Senate as another stage,” Baker says.
Yeah, that’s part of it.
Is it that he demonstrates for all to see that Minnesotans – 50.00000001 percent of them, anyway – are, yet again, a bunch of chuckleheaded yayhoos who treat their franchise with all the serious reverence of a frat-party drinking game?
Yeah, that’s another part of it.
That since election day Franken has spent less time in Minnesota than some Serbian war criminals?
Oh, yeah. Big part.
Is it that you not only couldn’t find one Minnesotan out of a hundred who could explain to you how we went from a 200-vote Coleman lead on election night to a 300-ish-vote Franken lead today, and that there are dozens of different standards for counting contested votes in this state, and that even the state’s courts aren’t on top of it all, and that an election system which, we’ve been assured for decades, is awash in integrity really seems to be just as malleable and perforated as a New Jersey sanitation contract?
Yeah. Big part of it.
It’s hollow consolation that Franken guarantees me six years of great blogging and talk radio material; my gain is Minnesota’s loss. What next, Minnesota? Kathleen Soliah for Attorney General? Betty McCollum as regent of the U of M? Phyllis Kahn carrying the Football for Obama?
A Minnesotan with a ballot is like a teenager with a can of spray paint.
Half of ’em, anyway.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:42 am
Half of ‘em, anyway.
Well, 58% of the electorate had the good sense not to vote for Franken. The problem is that 15% decided to vote for Dean Barkley. And that Norm ran a bad campaign.
It’s irritating, but that just means we have to go after Senator Pool Drain in ’12.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:56 am
“He is going to have a lot to prove,” says Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker
Not really. Expectations are non-existent. And in terms of seniority (and relevance) Franken will be ranked number 100 out of 100 US Senators. The only purpose he will serve is to be a rubber stamp for Reid-Pelosi.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:24 am
Mitch, was that Powerline that got to the real issue. Liberal Mpls has the philosphy that every one who wants to vote, should be able to. So they were very liberal in accepting voters who didn’t quite follow the rules. Conservative Republican areas followed the law to the letter, therefore rejected many more ballots.
That and Crazy Al’s team just out hustled Norm’s when it came to post November efforts. Such as identifying rejected absentee ballots that were proabably Franken votes.
But if nothing else, Al is a role model. You can be a coke snorting clown, and still get elected to US Senate. Maybe Al and Joe Bidens daughter can compare notes.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:25 am
BradC, so maybe Franken will be a Betty McCallum. Just sort of keeping a seat warm while voting party line.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:28 am
Mitch Berg misstated: “What’s the worst thing about Al Franken’s slow, apparently inexorable path through the courts to the Senate?”
Haha, yeah, like Al’s the one exhausting every legal trick in the book to delay the seating of a duly elected U.S. Senator. Sore losers!
April 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Doesn’t matter. The path is slow, and it’s apparently inexorable.
What’s the quibble?
April 1st, 2009 at 9:26 am
Dunno. I guess if you want to call whining to the courts to overturn an election a “quibble”…
April 1st, 2009 at 9:48 am
With a little luck, and all deliberate speed, we may only be looking at four years of Franken, not six.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:45 am
How’s that? Al’s going to die or resign?
April 1st, 2009 at 11:16 am
Kerm, if the legal wrangling and hearings stretch out for two years…
April 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am
I believe it was Senator Tom Coburn who said “”Every day in the Senate without Al Franken is a great day!”
April 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
AssClown, what is your point? Besides your dunce cap.
Do you support Franken? Why?
The fact is that this election showed us that our election system in MN is broken when the poll is so close.
Even MN Supreme Court Justice Anderson stated: “I do think it’s a real issue, and I think it’s a very good likelihood that there is double counting here.”
So much for one person, one vote.
Obviously a run off election is better than this flawed process. What a joke!
April 1st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
AssClown is attracted to Porn-O-Rama due to the dolt’s uncanny resemblence to a butt vibrator.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Angry Clown supports Franken because it means that New York will be the only state in the union to be represented in congress by three senators.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
If I were Carrot Top, I’d sue Mitch for defamation of character for the comparison to Franken. =)
April 1st, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Coleman didn’t run a bad campaign. It was his voting record over the past six years that gave us pause. We ran the mushy moderates, the type of candidate the lefty’s always say they could vote for. They didn’t, they never will. Our base shrugged and voted for not Al and not O if they bothered at all.