With the prospect of Senator Al Franken looking more likely, the usual suspects are beginning to freak out.
The right-wing propagandists at NewsMax have issued a very! important! email! to their followers, declaring that Franken is “scary” and “unethical,” and in an unsurprising twist to those of us who are left-of-center, Soros-controlled:
“When Election Day came and went last November, Norm Coleman led Franken by almost a 1000 votes,” says the NewsMax email, which is true, if “750” is “almost a thousand.”
“But then,” NewsMax says, “Franken and his liberal allies counter-attacked.”
How did he counterattack? By going to the God-Head. “Franken traveled to New York where billionaire George Soros threw a fundraiser for Franken helping him to raise millions for his legal fight. Franken has used Soros money to wage a fierce legal fight.”
Now, if you’ve been paying attention to the recount, you know that there’s been a common theme to the “fierce legal fight” surrounding it: the fight has been dictated by Norm Coleman. It was Coleman who filed suit about the mythical “trunk ballots,” Coleman who filed suit to prevent counting of the absentee ballots, and Tuesday, Coleman will go to court to try to block ballots the campaign says were double-counted. Franken’s fierce legal fighting has mostly involved having lawyers show up to argue his side in these lawsuits, which is awful, I guess.NewsMax says that Franken “demanded that ‘rejected’ ballots – ballots that local election boards in Minnesota ruled were in error and should not be counted – be considered legitimate for the vote,” which again is true, except that the ballots were rejected in error, as even the Coleman campaign concedes. And NewsMax says that shockingly, “Franken then got the Minnesota Supreme Court, in a 3 to 2 decision, to agree with him.”
This is, of course, true. When Norm Coleman sued to get these ballots blocked, three members of the Supreme Court agreed with him. Of course, two of those three were Tim Pawlenty appointees, and the other Republican on the court — Paul Anderson — issued a dissent in which he said the majority didn’t go far enough in allowing the ballots to count. And of course this was in response to a unanimous vote of the State Canvassing Board, which includes two other Pawlenty appointees including Pawlenty’s former law partner. But this does not undermine NewsMax’s point; indeed, it is central to it.
And of course, let’s not forget about Mark Ritchie, the evil Secretary of State. Did you know that “Ritchie was backed for election to his post by groups supported by Soros”? Wheels within wheels, man. Wheels within wheels.
NewsMax closes with the claim that “the Wall Street Journal has noted that it is simply statistically impossible for all of the questionable ballots falling so much in favor of Franken – when the race was so close to begin with.” That discovery came from noted sock-puppeteer and liar John Lott, who did indeed write such an article, and who has continued his argument of late by cherry-picking data to fit his own preconceptions.
Which is, of course, what NewsMax and the right is doing. They bring up the usual bogeymen — ACORN shows up, as does Ritchie over and over — to cast doubt on Minnesota’s electoral process. And if you’re not familiar with the process, you might get hoodwinked.
The fact is that Minnesota’s electoral system has been tested here, and it’s passed. The Canvassing Board operated fairly and in as open a manner as can be imagined. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the absentee ballots was not perfectly to either side’s liking — but that’s probably a sign that it wasn’t a bad one. The duplicate ballot issue and the missing ballots in Minneapolis are both the sort of vexing mistakes that will happen in a system run by humans — that is, they’re mistakes — but everyone seems to be handling them in an honest, above-board manner, and the rule of law has held so far. In short, the system works as well as it can in a race that will be decided by less than one vote per county.
It’s still possible the lead could swing back to Norm Coleman, and if it does, I’ll say the exact same thing — that the system worked. But the right doesn’t want to admit that. Maybe it’s because they actually have stolen an election in the past decade, and they think we’re out to do the same, but the right wing intends to tear down Al Franken any way they can, and to do it they’re going to attack Minnesota’s electoral system, a system that has been fair, above-board, and yes, bipartisan in its operation.
It’s a shame. Because the way the system has worked could have been a point of pride for Minnesotans. As Justice Paul Anderson — a Republican appointee — said last week, we’re not Florida. And I’m kind of sick of the right trying to claim we are.
(Cross-Posted from Minnesota Progressive Project)
I’m proud of the way it’s worked, and i’m sick of people telling lies to make it sound like we don’t know what we’re doing.
All the way back to the first day, when Coleman and his supporters were calling for Franken to concede – when it DIDN’T MATTER. Franken didn’t call for the recount, state law did.
I worry less about the rightwinger sites (though, man, my dad is visiting next week and he’ll have every talking point down) and more about the “regular minnesotans” who have no idea how this works and have managed to miss the repeated explanations in the print, radio, & online press.
I have a new vocabulary phrase for you, NewsMax: “Mandatory recount.”
I’m secretly hoping that franken doesn’t get it, just because I’d rather the dems have 58 rather than 59 senators for psychological reasons.
Edit: I should probably explain. (I think fivethirtyeight did a piece on this a while ago) It’s easier to get someone to vote against the party (or whatever) if they know they won’t be the deciding vote. e.g. A Republican would be less likely to cross party lines if they know that’s the deciding vote than if they don’t think it would tip the scales.
Of course all this is largely irrelevant as a true filibuster hasn’t happened in quite some time.
The Republicans’ strategy throughout the last ten years at least, and through this recount process, has been to limit the number of votes. This is the strategy of a losing party with a losing philosophy. The Republicans have tried to discourage poor people and minorities from voting with a whole list of draconian measures to deny people the vote, and they have smeared and launched a propaganda campaign against ACORN whose major sin has been to register poor and black voters who usually vote Democratic. Now in the Minnesota recount, Coleman’s forces are unable to gain votes for him, so they are trying to chop away at the Franken votes.
The Democrats, on the other hand, try to bring more and more people into the process. The more people who vote, the Democrats seem to say, the more people we will have voting for Democrats. The contrast between the two parties is the contrast between a winning party, the Democrats, and a losing party, the Republicans. The Republican brand is losing voters, the American people have rejected the Republican way of doing things, and the only way the Republicans can survive is to limit the growth of the Democrats. The Republicans are acting like losers. They might squeak out a victory in Minnesota with their negative and nihilistic strategy, but in the long run, unless they change their philosophy of government and of the organization of society, they are destined to be marginalized in the foreseeable future as losers.
One of the biggest issues here is the poor sportsmanship of the Republican party.
When they use a recount and use quasi-legal methods to win an election or two (cough… cough… FLORIDA), it’s the will of God shining through the political process to appoint His one and only chosen theocrat to lead humanity into a golden age (even if that golden age means destroying our personal liberties, tying us into TWO unending conflicts without any plan for follow-through, and letting corporate interests drive the economy into the ground).
But when the Democrats are involved in a LEGALLY MANDATORY recount and actually use 100% legal methods to close the gap with the Republican candidate (and maybe not even actually win!!), it’s CLEARLY the work of a dark anti-Christian and un-American conspiracy financed by none other than Satan himself in an attempt to light crosses on fire and burn Creation down around our heads.
Are we seeing a theme here?
It’s like Pseudologia fantastica with a purpose.
Happy Holidays and a great Thank You for Hereville from Thereville with A & R & D & KWRegan—who spent too much non-shopping time doing a detailed refutation of your John Lott here and comments further down that page and in earlier threads at FiveThirtyEight.com.
I’m looking forward to a Franken victory — not necessarily because it’s a Franken victory, but because then Coleman will follow his own recommendation and concede for the good of the state and the people. Just like he encouraged Franken to do, before the recount.