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I'm Al Franken, And I Demand A Recount

Nov 5, 2008
By .
Politics & Current Events

Big Al, meet Little Al:

Speaking afterward on behalf of Franken, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak scolded Coleman for his embrace of victory, telling KSTP-TV that "we won't know what Minnesotans wanted" until the recount is complete. "There's a law here; we follow the law," Rybak said.

Meanwhile, the campaign of Franken is starting the process of compiling reports of voting irregularities, as Minnesota officials today prepared for the painstaking process of recounting ballots.

The odds of overturning a 725 vote margin in a state like Minnesota, which is far smaller than Florida and which doesn't employ the outdated punch card system, are practically nil.  But if there's anyone I'd have expected to put his state through a miniature version of the Hell that was Florida in 2000, it's venomous tax cheat Al Franken.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

11 Comments
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11 Comments

  1. Ken  •  Nov 5, 2008 @12:15 pm

    Is a Congress that contained Gopher and Sonny Bono big enough to contain Al Franken? I suppose. But I can't say that I'm sorry to see him go down in flames. He's unlikable.

  2. Ezra  •  Nov 5, 2008 @2:59 pm

    Not to inject a little reality here, but the recount is a State mandated one. Although, Franken's inevitable legal challenges are not mandatory, I grant you. I tend to agree that there is not a great chance of overturning the vote here, but the recount is not being instituted by Franken in this case.

    On a side note, the venom in this post should be directed at Ted Stevens a hundred times over. How the heck did that guy win?

  3. Patrick  •  Nov 5, 2008 @3:53 pm

    Did you read what I wrote in the post one down? And I suspect that you read what I wrote about Stevens at the other blog, which was far worse than anything I've said about Franken here.

    That said, Al Franken is scum. Anyone who makes fun of disabled veterans, or kids with speech impediments, in public, is scum. Anyone who couldn't win a Senate race this year, in a blue state against a weak Republican candidate, is scum and a loser to boot.

    Don't waste your time defending scummy losers Ezra.

  4. dbt1949  •  Nov 5, 2008 @6:00 pm

    ……….and he wasn't funny at SNL either.

  5. Grandy  •  Nov 5, 2008 @7:11 pm

    I thought the "vote for the criminal to force a special revote and then vote for whichever R runs" thing was still in play in Alaska?

  6. Chris  •  Nov 5, 2008 @7:30 pm

    Given that Coleman's press conference caused my normally-mellow wife to march in the door and announce "Coleman is a douchebag", I don't find RT's response particularly unusual.

    It's already down to <500 votes before being certified. Minnesota doesn't have chads, but we are heavy users of optical scan ballots, and there are all sorts of ways to mark one of those in a way that makes intent clear and doesn't scan properly. It's unlikely that the result will change, but this is how we do it here. And with a winning percentage of .02 percent (one in 5,000), it's certainly worth taking a look. Contrary to Ezra, the recount is not mandated – it's triggered automatically, but Franken can choose not to have it done.

    Coleman's not exactly a weak candidate. Minnesota's full of ticket splitters and he's an incumbent senator.

  7. Chris H.  •  Nov 7, 2008 @8:50 am

    337 votes separate Franken from Coleman now, with at least 5,000 provisional ballots to be assessed along with the actual hand recount.

    Yeah, good idea Patrick. No need to doublecheck the math here or anything. Sure, historically 20-30% of provisional ballots end up being valid…which would be about 1,000…but yeah, stop the count. Lets sneak the douchebag who danced on Paul Wellstone's grave back into the senate.

    Great post.

  8. Patrick  •  Nov 7, 2008 @4:10 pm

    Why so tense, dude?

  9. Chris H.  •  Nov 7, 2008 @9:41 pm

    I'm very much an Al Franken fan. Paul Wellstone was very close to Franken and much of Franken's political fiber is shaped by Wellstone's legacy. So that's one.

    Secondly, two of my best friends are very close friends with Al and his family. Al's humor can be acidic at times, but much of the time the target is himself. Apparently Al makes fun of everyone, but 90% of the time the target is Al Franken, and they describe him as warm and gentle and generous and real, as well as the possessor of a first-rate mind. So that's another. The fact that I think Norm Coleman is neither a first-rate mind nor the possessor of much of a moral compass is another one.

    You describe him as a Tax Cheat, and then link to an article that specifically says "he's not a tax cheat". Franken was lazy and stupid with his taxes, but he didn't avoid paying–he just stupidly paid what he owed to the wrong states. I can understand that, and while it's concerning, it doesn't seem like anything dishonest was taking place.

    A typo discovered today gave Franken another 100 votes. He now trails by 236.

  10. Derrick  •  Nov 10, 2008 @8:19 am

    I'm getting flashbacks of the recount debacle during WA's gubernatorial race in 2004. You guys have a way to go to match that one though.

  11. Chris  •  Nov 13, 2008 @12:36 pm

    God, I hope we don't get anywhere near the WA 2004 race. What a mess.