Why Norm? Why not just give up?

…because:

Even after the recount and panel-findings, the 312-vote margin separating the two men equals about .01% of the 2.9 million votes cast. Even without any irregularities, this is as close to a “tie” as it gets. And there have been plenty of irregularities. By the end of the recount, the state was awash with evidence of duplicate ballot counting, newly discovered ballots, missing ballots, illegal voting, and wildly diverse standards as to which votes were counted. Any one of these issues was enough to throw the outcome into doubt. Combined, they created a taint more worthy of New Jersey than Minnesota.

New Jersey? Them’s fightin’ words.

Minnesota has had enough national embarrassment in the form of…

Mark Dayton

Jesse Ventura

Paul Wellstone

and now…

Al Franken?

(and being compared to New Jersey – which by the way is actually closer to Franken’s “true” residence than Minnesota)

It has not ceased to amaze how far Minnesotan’s will go in the interest of having a non-Coleman candidate and that Al Franken is the best the opposition could muster.

An empty seat is a viable alternative.

39 thoughts on “Why Norm? Why not just give up?

  1. I think something needs to be mentioned here.
    If 2.9 million votes are cast, and the vote is close enough that a recount is warranted (as it was in MN), and the pile of rejected ballots is greater than the tentative margin of victory, there will never be anything that can be called an honest popular-vote win.
    The winner will be chosen by ballot officials or judges deciding which of the rejected ballots to include or exclude. The winner will have lawyered his way to victory, he or she is the choice of judges, not “the people”. This was as true in FL in 2000 as it is in Minnesota in 2009.
    What a mess.

  2. 2000/2008. Compare and contrast. Add to the list of reasons Norm shouldn’t give up that he’s exposing you wingnuts’ complete lack of principle.

    Now that you’re a minority party, you may want to work on putting some credibility in the bank. At this point, you’re way overdrawn.

  3. “Combined, they created a taint more worthy of New Jersey than Minnesota.”

    Heh heh. A teabagger talking about a taint.

  4. To listen to Angry Clown you’d think that the dem congress had a higher approval rating than Bush had, or that Obammy won by more than 5 points against a non-incumbent.

  5. Angry Clown it looks as if you are finally going to get a Senator that truely represents the Angry Clown community.

  6. Al Franken wouldn’t have been Angryclown’s first choice to be a senator, but then Angryclown votes in NYC. How hard can it be to represent Minnesota anyway?

  7. How hard can it be to represent New York anyway? Just find some bimbo from Arkansas. She’s a Yankees fan! Go Stinkees!

  8. New York’s a big, diverse state with 19 million people, Kerm. To keep Minnesota voters happy, Angryclown figures you just keep the farm subsidies high and the price of gingham dresses low.

  9. drop the farm subsidies. drop ethanol. and drop the dresses, just not your dress AC.

    Also drop the Wall Street bailouts.

  10. “complete lack of principle”

    Hey AssClown, did you even read what Roosh wrote and linked to? Reading comprehension was never something you were ever good at, AssClown.

    This is not so much about which of these AssHats get more of the tainted recount votes.

    This is about upholding the principle of clean and consistant election standards.

    This recount brings gerrymandering to a new level.

    Our recount process is flawed and unable to produce the true winner of the election. Therefore we all lose. I call for a run off election. I wish we could vote for “none of the above.”

    Maybe AC could could give the recount a “shunning” and make everything better. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

    ASSCLOWN SHUNS MINNESOTA RECOUNT. COLEMAN AND FRANKEN DROP OUT OF RECOUNT TO JOIN HIM IN “THE THREE ASSCLOWNS” COMEDY ROUTINE.

  11. Minnesota, for all her faults, does not deserve to have the TWO stupidest Senators representing her.

  12. “Minnesota, for all her faults, does not deserve to have the TWO stupidest Senators representing her.”

    Wellstone!, Mark Dayton, Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken. Seems like a good fit to me. There are plenty of things that I like about this state, but political intelligence is not one of them.

  13. Minnesota, for all her faults, does not deserve to have the TWO stupidest Senators representing her.
    I disagree. They represent the DFL to a fault.

  14. Actually Mitch, Wellstone was no embarrasment, certainly far less so on a relative scale (if at all), than Coleman getting spanked by Parliament Member Gallway on the BS Oil-For-Food investigation Coleman chaired which turned up mostly that the US (under Clinton AND Bush) had done CRAP all correctly, failed in its oversight responsibilities, and was mostly just witch-hunting.

    But ya’ know what, this is actually about the fact that Coleman has no viable legal case unless you feel that a uniform standard applied not-quite-uniformly because of the vagueries of human differences constitutes an equal protection claim.

    IF you do, then you believe that everything should be centralized (as Coleman suggested is the potential remedy), meaning, no more local governance in election, for that matter, no more humans apparently. And you all claim to stand for small government..sheesh. Yeah, except when you’re losing.

    Coleman’s legal arguments were crap, were resoundingly repudiated by the courts, including the MN Supreme Court which told Coleman to prove his case, and the contest court, which told him how. He FAILED. This isn’t about Franken (who, btw is three times the person Coleman is, but that’s not the issue) – it’s about the rule of law, of the right of the people to have whomever won sitting in the seat, rather than obfuscatory delay. The contest court in its decision, time and again, shredded Coleman’s legal claims, and numerous legal scholars have said his chances on appeal are virtually non-existent. But for Bush v. Gore, an incipid, rancid decision in the first place, he’d have NO chance. But as this isn’t a Presidential election, and as there IS and WAS a uniform standard, and as there IS wording in the MN election statute about MANUAL recount, even the legally blindered conservatives on the SCOTUS are EXTREMELY unlikely to intervene. Coleman lost, get over it, to quote one arrogant, biased ass – namely Antonin Scalia.

    But apparently, in your blog post here, you don’t care about the legal correctness, the allowance for human variance, the preventing of big-brother elections. No, you’d rather see an empty seat than Franken, and to hell with elections, the law, and the will of the voters – no matter how narrowly decided.

  15. This is actually Roosh’s post.

    But this bit here:

    Coleman getting spanked by Parliament Member Gallway on the BS Oil-For-Food investigation

    You keep repeating that as if it’s remotely true. Galloway appeared, and threw his little tantrum at Coleman – who had Galloway boxed in, and like a good prosecutor had paid enough enough rope for that vacuous slug Galloway to not only hang but stuff himself.

    You’ll note that history proved Coleman, not Galloway, right. (Or will you? Are you even aware how that investigation ended?)

    The whole “Galloway clobbered Coleman” meme is a diversionary talking point started by Media Matters, and duly picked up by all the lefty repeaters. You’ve bought it without knowing the facts, although to be fair so did the rest of the left, since that’s what they do.

  16. This isn’t about Franken (who, btw is three times the person Coleman is, but that’s not the issue)

    Maligna – say that a thousand – no a million times – and it still won’t be true.

    Coleman has a history of public service, leadership and economic development as a Mayor of a city still restored by his efforts and a respected career as a Senator.

    Franken is best known for his work in a gorilla suit, prodigous use of the “F” and “C” words, tax evasion, and as a talk show host for a still-failing radio network.

    Again, I am amazed that he is the best the DFL could muster and that even you would stoop so low as to count him in the same category as Coleman, let alone sizing him up in any way as superior in character to Coleman.

    Its not a matter of opinion. Its a matter of public record.

  17. Franken is a despicable little toad. No wonder Peev likes him. George Galloway is a terrorist loving piece of excrement. No wonder Peev likes him.
    Coleman’s legal arguments were crap
    Coleman’s legal arguments are based on equal treatment under the law for ALL voters. No wonder Peev hates them.
    You suck big time, Peev.

  18. Kermit blathered: “Coleman’s legal arguments are based on equal treatment under the law for ALL voters.”

    Go read the Supreme Court’s unsigned opinion in Bush v. Gore sometime. The “equal protection” argument is explicitly limited to that case only. You know, in case somebody ever wanted to try using it to put a Democrat in office. Unfortunately it also means the court’s one-time-only rationale won’t help Coleman in the slightest.

  19. Sorry, Clownie. I have this sad, naive notion that every man’s vote should be equal. I realize that Democrats find this inconvenient. Especially Al Franken (Piss be upon him). I still hold out hope. Way too many good men have died to uphold this principle.

    I understand that New Yorker’s votes have never been equal. I would hope we in the provinces could do better than you sophisticated servants.

  20. You have a paranoid, myth-centric belief system, Angry Clown.
    The court’s per curiam stated that their opinion on the violation of the 14th amendment in Bush V Gore (supported by 7 of the 9 justices) was “limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
    This is true, non-partisan, and wise. It was simply a statement that the arguments made in the FL vote contest before the supremes were unique to Bush V Gore. What is your problem with that?

  21. Suck on it, Terry. You wingnuts have no “equal protection” problem when the voting machines in African American neighborhoods don’t work or require voters to wait in line for hours. See how many other Supreme Court opinions are expressly limited “to the present circumstances.” The Court, which is the only institution in America with the authority to rule on the meaning of the 14th Amendment, said that all it means in voting cases is that Bush wins the 2000 election – nothing more. The Supreme Court legislated a result. The fact that you wingnuts applaud (tell me some other application of equal protection to strike down state law you kooks have ever approved of), speaks only to your lack of principle. You disapprove of activist judges unless they’re activist right-wing judges. When you don’t lie, it’s only because the truth suits your immediate purposes.

  22. It is incredibly comical to hear you wingnuts mewling about equal protection (“so many good men have died,” simpers Kerm). You wingnuts might as well claim to love the Miranda Rule or the right against compelled sef-incrimination. The only rights you support consistently are the right to keep and bear grenade launchers and your own perverse reading of the 10th Amendment.

  23. The equal protection argument is also expressed as “one man one vote.” Since we know that there were at least 26 (DFL-leaning, by the sheerest of coincidence) precincts in which more votes were cast than peope voting, there is something here that should not pass legal scrutiny. Whether that can be satisfactorily remedied by the courts is a valid question, but an empty seat isn’t entirely unreasonable. They’ve done it before.

  24. Wingnuts would rather decrease their state’s Senate representation by half than seat a duly elected candidate with whom they disagree. Tells you all you need to know about you fringe-right kooks.

  25. My God you are rambling, Angry Clown. You are not even making any sense. It was democrats that opposed the voting rights act. If you got a problem with the way votes are held in democrat-leaning precincts, you deal with it. You keep blathering on about how you guys are in charge. Hell, you’ve had control of both houses of congress for two years. Doing something is better than whining about those big, bad conservatives not letting you take their money.
    You gotta problem with Bush v Gore take it up with the Florida Supremes. That bunch of Democrat judges, appointed by a corrupt democrat governor, couldn’t even follow their own state’s constitution.

  26. Wow, talk about rambling! I really think being out of power for three months has made you wingnuts mentally ill. I mean more mentally ill.

    Oh oh, Mitch is gonna think I want to throw him in a concentration camp now. Angryclown has just turned to, gasp, eliminationist hatred!!!!!!

    Angryclown’s a good 16 inches taller than Janeane Garofolo, Mitch. That must make you EXTRA TERRIFIED!

    If I have to be a Nazi, can I be Albert Speer?

  27. Damn, AssClown really gets bitchy when “Desperate Housewives” gets preempted, don’t he?

    Probably there are gonna have to be many tubs of Pralines & Cream emptied before anyone in the NYC area gets a proper sphincter polishing again.

  28. I think it’s time all good Republicans took AC’s advice and grabbed the reins of power.

    Take over the polling places.

    Apparently, Democrats don’t care that different counties had different standards for who got to vote and who didn’t. I guess that’s how it works in Chicago and Five Points, so it should work here, too.

    Fine, I want to be in charge of counting absentee ballots in Ramsey County. Hmmm, that name sounds vaguely Black and therefore likely to vote Democrat. Oops, looks like the signature is smeared. Disqualified.

    What? What’s the problem, AC? No Equal Protection required, remember? So we have different standards – so what? If it’s okay in NordEast Minneapolis, why not here?

    If not every vote is equal, if some are more equal than others and Democrats are okay with that; then I want to be the one who decides which ones we count. It’s the Democratic way.

    Learn or die, Republicans.

    .

  29. Yep, six weeks after 9/11, the Times buried the lead. Read further. The recount found that, under almost any standard, more valid ballots were cast for Al Gore than for your hero. Not that you kooks care, of course. But stop pretending you have anything to say about recounts. It’s all a power grab to you unprincipled wackos. Unfortunately it looks like you’re losing this one.

  30. I wonder when angryclown will stop whining incessantly about Bush? I mean, he’s not the President anymore, so buy a box of tissues already!

  31. Since we know that there were at least 26 (DFL-leaning, by the sheerest of coincidence) precincts in which more votes were cast than peope voting

    Any chance anyone will ever name these counties and show the vote numbers for them?

  32. I assume AC is talking about this paragraph from the article:

    If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin. For example, using the most permissive “dimpled chad” standard, nearly 25,000 additional votes would have been reaped, yielding 644 net new votes for Mr. Gore and giving him a 107-vote victory margin.

    That paragraph is immediately followed this qualifier:

    But the dimple standard was also the subject of the most disagreement among coders, and Mr. Bush fought the use of this standard in recounts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami- Dade Counties. Many dimples were so light that only one coder saw them, and hundreds that were seen by two were not seen by three. In fact, counting dimples that three people saw would have given Mr. Gore a net of just 318 additional votes and kept Mr. Bush in the lead by 219.

    Which means that when the clown stated :”he recount found that, under almost any standard, more valid ballots were cast for Al Gore than for your hero.”,he is lying. Unless by ‘valid ballots’ he means rejected ballots with dimpled chads that were visible by one or two examiners out of three, but not three out of three examiners.
    I believe we’ll call those ballots ‘big top ballots’ in honor of their greatest champion.

  33. Hmm . . . I’m afraid that I may have “buried my lede” with that last, snarky sentence.
    The fact that Gore won in scenarios where only one or two out of three examiners saw a dimple in the ‘Gore’ chad, and that Bush won in scenarios where all three of the examiners saw the dimple, means that Gore won the election in scenarios where where the validity of the ballot was in the greatest doubt.
    Your move, AC.

  34. The Coleman Franken senate race has been very close, and was intently contested. Whoever is declared the loser will be facing bitter disappointment, probably even more bitter given how close the win / lose margin.

    I was very impressed with the incredible grace with which John McCain made his concession speech. There comes a point where WHOEVER loses, it is important to be a good loser – if only as a prerequisite to running the next time. UNLIKE Florida, we have had a recount, whether we individually like the result or not. Whatever the final decision by the state supreme court, that should be IT, the end, finito. While legally having the option to take this controversy to the Federal Supreme Court, I think it is very important to respect the authority of the state of Minnesota over a state of Minnesota election. Given the numbers, and that no election will ever be perfect, Minnesota has done a pretty respectable and fair job. While there have been a few problems, there is NO indication whatsoever that those problems were in any way partisan. Enough is enough.

    Fairly or unfairy, dragging this out past the state supreme court strongly appears to be giving greater importance to the national GOP’s interests, and not nearly enough importance to the business of representing Minnesota residents. For the record – I’m very unhappy with the amount of contributions BY BOTH the GOP and DFL from people outside of Minnesota with no actual connections to this state other than their own national agenda. It undermines the interests of resident Minnesota citizens.

  35. Statistically the swing from election night Coleman to post recount Franken is a huge indication that the problems were indeed partisan and have tainted the election enough to render it a useless sham.

    Don’t try to kid yourself, DogCrap, you are about as partisan toward the Dems as they come.

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