{"id":11576,"date":"2010-11-04T14:22:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T21:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11576"},"modified":"2010-11-04T14:22:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T21:22:38","slug":"the-republican-plot-to-steal-the-minnesota-governors-mansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11576","title":{"rendered":"The Republican Plot to Steal the Minnesota Governor's Mansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Republican Party has jumped into the recount of the Governor\u2019s race with the\u00a0amp turned up to 11<\/a>, screaming about ACORN and fraud and tabulation errors in Hennepin County. But anyone with any rudimentary understanding of recounts \u2014 and that includes everyone in Minnesota \u2014 knows that unless there is real, systemic fraud ((Minnesota\u2019s elections are among the cleanest in the nation; despite all the rancor and bitterness in the Coleman-Franken recount, Coleman\u2019s attorney admitted during his arguments before the Minnesota Supreme Court that there was no indication of any fraud whatsoever<\/a>.)) , there is no chance whatsoever that Emmer<\/a> will find the 9,000 votes that would allow him to overtake Mark Dayton and win the governor\u2019s mansion.<\/p>\n

And yet the Republicans are shouting as loudly as possible that they won\u2019t be out-lawyered. They\u2019re even\u00a0asking their supporters<\/a> to report \u201cirregularities.\u201d\u00a0Among those they\u2019ve helpfully suggested<\/a> are things that aren\u2019t illegal, such as giving voters rides to the polls, same-day registrations, \u00a0and \u201cexcessive vouching\u201d for newly-registered voters; things that are illegal but were being done mainly by Republicans, like voter intimidation and campaigning in the polling place; and things that aren\u2019t irregularities at all, like voting machines that jammed at some point during Election Day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(Now, they\u2019re not totally blinkered; they do suggest Republicans check to make sure their absentee ballot was counted, and I\u2019ll join them in that. I want every vote counted. So whether you\u2019re a Republican, Democrat, or Other, you should check the\u00a0Secretary of State\u2019s website out to see if your ballot was counted<\/a>. And also, to get indoctrinated by ACORN.)<\/p>\n

Why are the Republicans pushing so hard for a race that\u00a0even one of Coleman\u2019s attorneys suggests is out of reach<\/a>? Because at this point, it isn\u2019t about getting Tom Emmer elected. It\u2019s about setting the stage to keep Mark Dayton from taking office right away in January.<\/p>\n

The people of Minnesota, in their infinite wisdom, decided to turn the legislature over to the Republicans \u2014 indeed, they gave the Senate to the Republicans for the first time since the end of the nonpartisan era. At the same time, they decided to give the Governor\u2019s mansion to Mark Dayton \u2014 not by much, but that was their decision. They voted for divided government, as they have for most of the past three decades.<\/p>\n

This is not good enough for Republicans. They want unified government, so they can ram through budget cuts and tax breaks for the rich. And \u2014 dare to dream \u2014 redistricting, which would allow them to finally turn Minneapolis and St. Paul into one Congressional district with all those minority voters conveniently segregated from the rest of the state.<\/p>\n

They can have that.\u00a0All they have to do is stall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Minnesota law says that a Governor serves until their replacement is seated. It\u2019s happened before. In 1962, Elmer Andersen and Karl Rolvaag ended up in a recount that would ultimately be decided by just 91 votes. Andersen, the incumbent governor, ultimately lost, but served in office into early 1963, leaving only after the recount was concluded.<\/p>\n

In this case, the incumbent governor is Tim Pawlenty, who \u2014 you may have heard \u2014 harbors presidential aspirations. While Gov. Timmy is not really interested in serving as governor past January (indeed, he\u2019s been rather disinterested for most of the past two years), the prospect of passing big tax cuts, abortion restrictions, and a double-super-secret ban on gay Muslims has him quite happy to stay in office into overtime. \u00a0Add to that the fact that the biennial budget is due this year, and the Minnesota GOP\u2019s incentive to drag out the recount for as long as possible, filing frivolous lawsuits and appealing nigh unto infinity, is obvious.<\/p>\n

I believe we should have a recount. I believe that the race is close enough that we should go through the ballots one more time, just to make sure that a Woodbury election officer didn\u2019t accidentally bring home a sack of 10,000 Emmer ballots by accident. I don\u2019t think the outcome will change, but I think it\u2019s close enough that we should take a look. That\u2019s only reasonable, and only fair.<\/p>\n

But if the initial recount comes back around 9,000 again? Then Emmer should concede.<\/p>\n

The people of Minnesota chose to elect a Republican legislature and a DFL governor. It\u2019s worth having a recount to make sure of that. But once we\u2019ve made sure of that, we need to move on, to give Minnesotans the governor and the legislature they chose. Make no mistake: if the GOP intends to stretch this out simply to gain partisan advantage, then they are clearly, willingly, and recklessly denying the will of the people. They must not be allowed to get away with that. Period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Republican Party has jumped into the recount of the Governor\u2019s race with the\u00a0amp turned up to 11, screaming about ACORN and fraud and tabulation errors in Hennepin County. But anyone with any rudimentary understanding of recounts \u2014 and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-zaniness-right-wingers-etc","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}