Norm Coleman is a Sore Loser

Original Link: http://pvlounge.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=87&Itemid=39

By Erald

Norm Coleman continues to fight for a Senate seat that is all but gone. After thorough recounts and endless judicial decisions, Franken remains ahead, but Coleman plans to go all the way to the Supreme Court -- the United States Supreme Court, that is.

It's been quite some time since the outcome of the 2008 Minnesota Senate contest was in any doubt. A panel of three judges has now ruled that Al Franken won more votes in that election than former Senator Norm Coleman. Franken is currently ahead 312 votes, and we're done with the counting phase. Legal challenges are Coleman's only tools now. His attorneys have promised to appeal the latest judgment to the Minnesota Supreme Court next week. The Supreme Court is probably going to kill Coleman's hopes and reinforce just about every ruling up until this point: Franken won this damn election.

At this stage, we're way beyond the search for electoral integrity. Coleman and his goons in Minnesota have been taken over by the Republican national apparatchik. The Republicans are trying desperately to prevent the addition of yet ANOTHER Democratic senator to Congress. With so many important votes and so many important issues on the line, it's very plausible that a single person could mark the difference between victory and defeat. Both sides know this fact, but the Democrats have been strangely timid and diffident about pressing their case. They realize that Franken will ultimately win, in a few months at the latest, and they don't want to appear like they're sabotaging the process. The Republicans? They could care less about appearances. This fight is something like life-and-death for them. They are dragging their feet the whole way. In a fundraising email to supporters, John Cornyn, the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, blasted the entire process:

Since Sen. Norm Coleman was first ahead by hundreds of votes at the end of election night, the Democrats have aggressively worked to change the rules of the game after it’s been played. Last night, they succeeded in convincing a three-judge panel to issue a fundamentally misguided ruling that disenfranchises over 4,000 Minnesota voters. They did so by imposing a different, and stricter, standard for votes to be counted rather than following the rules that were in place in Minnesota on Election Day. In doing so, constitutionally-valid Due Process and Equal Protection concerns have been raised.

Amazing bullshit even by Republican standards. Republicans have annoyed us for years about tort reform and excessive litigation, and here they are squeezing every last iota of opportunity from the legal system, all in the hopes of delaying the Democratic agenda by just a few more weeks and months. The current Republican Party is one of the best circus acts I've ever seen. Most people are telling Coleman to give up the fight, but Coleman is just a pawn in a larger political game. Even if Coleman wanted to leave while he could still save some dignity, national Republicans would not tolerate a withdrawal from the process. They'll fight this the whole way through. There won't be an honorable conclusion equivalent to Gore graciously bowing out back in 2000. It'll be just an ugly, nasty, and protracted legal fight. In the end, Republicans will be forced to accept what we already know now: the process was fair, accurate, and indicates that Franken won.