Franken leads +312.
Number of valid ballots (absentee or otherwise) remaining to be examined by a court of law and counted by the Secretary of State's office of Minnesota: 0.
No rulings or decision from the Election Contest Court (ECC.)
Thoughts and delusions while waiting, past the Orange fold....
UPDATE: Billmon has a front page diary from the US Supreme Court angle and some of the dynamics looming on the Coleman/Franken case at THAT level:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
So here is diary #122 and you know what THAT means, right? ONLY 78 more until the "100 diaries on the same subject" (100DoSS) Kos rule kicks in! (This is a rule akin to the infield fly rule, conditions for scoring a safety, or whether you can ground your club when your ball rests on a snowbank or if the sand grounding rule is in effect). Thats right, in 78 more diaries I can put up the PayPal link and make another appeal for the WineRev Tahiti-in-January Fund.
Meanwhile I'll have to be content with contemplating the madness in yesterday's diary---- no not Ben Ginsberg (who is disgusting) but madness: some of you people were connecting WineRev and Pulitzer prize in the same comment and sentence!
Look here:
WineRev, we are near the end of this mess. (67+ / 0-)
The absolute clear winner is that you deserve a Pulitzer for the work you have done.
by Phil S 33
67 tips for this comment!!? I mean, I tipped it too because of the snark level but then the linked comments that followed got 32, 29, 12, 24, 17, 3 and 12 tips!
People! Listen up! We are supposed to be REALITY-BASED around here, RE-AL-I-TY! (Isn't that a song lyric from MoTown somewhere?)
Pulitzer? One of you went to their website and brought back the info that on-line organizations are eligible under certain conditions. Thats the comment that got 29 (29!) tips....
Pulitzer?
Pillsbury cake mix box copy, maybe (on a good day.)
Pittsburgh Penguins play by play with Mike Lange?....Yeah I'd like to sit in the booth with him one time.
But Pulitzer? For a OSU econ major, M.Div., M.Th. Luther Sem grad (see? no journalism anywhere) who has sold shoes, preached some, helped raise 2 kids who fence, and who is starting to learn something about wine after 4 years in the biz and has been flogging/blogging the Senate election that will not die...... surely you jest!
I'll try what you're smoking.... but I'm..... I'm...... you are..... um.... Whoa! Madness. Just madness.......
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Afterglow is definitely the word after Tuesday's open & count session has moved Al Franken's lead in the MN Senate race to +312. We can do just a bit of basking while waiting for the ECC to either a) rule on the Mpls 133 and/or the 100 alleged "duplicate/double counted ballots" or b) roll those issues and other points into a final decision. No word as of first thing this morning but I personally am hopeful we will get a decision yet this week.
Reactions and reflections are showing up in various places for your casual perusal.
Doug Grow, once of the Star Trib and now writing for the Minn Post has a pair of pieces. The first is a short article on how the Franken campaign was ready with a plan for a recount from Nov. 4.
Volunteers — including lawyers and everyday Franken supporters — were quickly trained so they could attend every district where ballots were to be recounted......
Volunteers, hundreds of them, also were involved in carrying data from each recount station in the state back to Franken headquarters, which was operating 24-7, according to Jess McIntosh, Franken's press secretary.
Marc Elias was already on board on Election Day as an attorney. And unlike most campaigns the Franken headquarters got BUSIER after Nov. 4 than before.
http://www.minnpost.com/...
But the real story is a wonderful profile piece from Grow on Franken's campaign manager, 36 year old Stephanie Schriock. (First noted by Allen03, h/t). If you're on Franken's e-mail list she's the one who's been signing and sending fund-raising e-mails.
But Schriock is a rising star for sure, so much so that Bob Schrum and other Muskie leftovers can leave now.... and take the DLC with them. Schriock is MN born (Mankato), grew up in Butte, MT, came back to MN for college (Mankato State). Fresh out of school she became finance director for a (D) campaign to unseat MN-01 (R) Gutknecht in '96. (Close loss.) In '98 (age 25) she was campaign director for (D) Bill Luther's win over John Kline in MN-02 (Kline won the rematch in '00).
Then in '03 she signed on as treasurer for an obscure VT governor's try to become president, Howard Dean, and rode herd on the idea of using the Internet for fund-raising for politics.
In '06 she managed another long-shot campaign back in her "other" home state: John Tester's 3000 vote cliff-hanger win for Senate in MT. (She and the staff & the DSCC prepared a recount plan and strategy since it looked so close. She assembled a team for what turned out to be an unnecessary effort when Burns conceded....but thats when she met....Marc Elias!)
I tell ya that is one HELL of political resume for age 36!
More great stuff here:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
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While we wait, so does the other side. Now while generally the term "think piece" and the current Republican mindset go together about as well as Alaskan sea water and the Exxon Valdez, Scott Johnson's piece at the National Review is more than passable. Sure, its written from a pro-Coleman view but doggone it this is what the "other side" used to look like and sound like and for the sake of the health of American Democracy SOMEBODY better start sounding like this again.
Johnson incorporates some of his language about the MN State Canvassing Board that he wrote at the time of a certain Wall Street Journal excuse for an editorial. I saluted him then for it and I'll give him props for sticking up for Magnuson and Anderson now against the mouth-breathers of the "Moran wing" of American politics. (At the time I wrote him an open note and gave him a doff of the hat even though I said flat out he & I probably saw very little in common politically.)
And...... in its own way, on the Franken Swearing-In Day Johnson's piece may become something of a valedictory and go-to explanation for the right-of-center folks who later come looking for answers to "What happened in MN?" and don't trust/believe other sources.
http://article.nationalreview.com/...
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And speaking of Chief Justice Magnuson and Associate Justice Anderson (Barry, not Paul, also an associate Justice), word comes from a Supreme Court spokesman confirming that if either side appeals the ECC decision, both will recuse themselves from any involvement.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/...
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And what do I mean....."if either side appeals the ECC"? The WineRev glue sniffing has finally reached Lloyd Bridges' levels in the control tower of "Airplane"? Either side?
Well, yes. Yesterday I put up a scenario to get some speculation/ feedback from the legal eagles who have been hanging around here and from what I can make out in nearly 300 comments no one took me up on it. So I'll reprint it here and ask again: if there is an ECC decision that does not include a Certificate of Election........
The ECC will rule finally who got the most valid ballots. Then the loser/Norm has 10 calendar days (weekends included) to file an appeal with the MN Supreme Court. If the court accepts the case then he has 15 days to bring ECC transcripts and evidence to the MNSC and file their case.
This is pretty cut & dried and a lot of folks around here on Kos think Norm will file about 9 3/4 days into the period, and take 14 7/8 days to get the stuff to the MNSC. This maximizes the delay tactics of the RNC and lets Pawlenty off the hook because he can say, "Look, I'm waiting for an appeal to play out."
But what about a scenario that flitted across the comments a few days ago? Legal types, what think you? Is the following even possible procedurally? And what think you of the strategy? Risks?
Scenario: The ECC rules the Mpls. 133 lost ballots IN (as they are now) and rules no evidence exists/was submitted regarding "double counting" of duplicate ballots for Franken. Decision: Franken received the most valid ballots.
Decision Day +1: bond is posted for an appeal of the ECC decision and papers are filed with the MN Supreme Court......by FRANKEN. Mr. Franken petitions the court of appeal from the ECC's decision as the injured party/loser since the ECC declared Franken the winner in the US Senate race but failed in its duty as "court of final determination" to issue or compel a state official to issue a Certificate of Election. Uproar ensues.
Decision Day +2: A small U-Haul panel truck (your donation dollars at work) pulls up at the loading dock of the MN Judiciary Building. Driver and helper get out, unleash 2 2-wheelers. Clerk of Courts/Supreme Court looks at driver's clipboard, peers in back of truck at dozens of "banker's boxes", all color coded and numbered, and says, "Whats this?"
Driver says, "Like it says at the top, these are all the transcripts, evidence and exhibits of a court case about the Senate election. From ah... Lillehaug, Elias & Hamilton, attorneys of record. Sign here."
45 minutes of unloading follow as Clerk of Courts tags all boxes. Noon: Acting Chief Justice Alan Page announces in a statement the Court will hear oral arguments on Decision Day +4.
Otherwise nothing in the Thursday morning media here in MN apart from what's been incorporated above. I'll grab a shower and head off for the early shift at the wineshop and bring the Mogen David leftover wine/grape syrup from the Passover table to church tonight. (Very odd the link between the 2 should be Mogen David.... I mean a charming merlot from Carmel winery on the slopes of Mt. Carmel, sure, but Mogen David? I just report what happens). Hope that will hold you until the ECC rules (fingers crossed..... or if you are Estonian, holding your thumbs). From yust southeast of Lake Wobegon:
Shalom. A blessed Pesach to the Star of David folk!