Franken Opens Three-Front Offensive in Minn. Senate Dispute

[babylonsister]

Franken Opens Three-Front Offensive in Minn. Senate Dispute
By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff


Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken launched a counteroffensive Monday in the ongoing legal battle to determine whether he or Republican incumbent Norm Coleman won the November 2008 U.S. election in Minnesota.

Among other things, Franken’s campaign requested that state officials authorize him to be seated in the Senate, pending a decision in pending court proceedings on the disputed election outcome. That proposal — based on last week’s declaration by the state election canvassing board that Franken had narrowly defeated Coleman — was immediately rejected by both Gov. Tim Pawlenty , a Republican, and Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat.

The race was prolonged last week when Coleman filed suit challenging the results of the vote recount, certified by the canvassing board on Jan. 5, that showed Franken with a lead of 225 votes out of 2.9 million cast. Coleman, in his complaint, claims that election officials counted some votes twice, did not count some improperly rejected ballots and were not consistent in handling missing ballots during the six-week-long recount.

The Franken campaign responded to Coleman’s suit on three fronts.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003007980

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Bargaining chips for Al Franken

Little by little, he's going to stoke the fire under the feet of the MN (and national) GOP. By springtime, Coleman will be reviled as the ultimate "Sore Loserman".

This is the way Democrats are supposed to fight -- and it's why the GOP has selected Franken as their new Public Enemy #1. They can't strike out at Obama, and their animus against the Clintons has made them laughingstocks, so they have turned on Franken, to try to make him an "example". Only it's working in reverse.

ANY result Coleman gets that puts him over Franken will be subject to the old criticism that "Coleman and the Republican Party forced the vote to be counted and re-counted over and over again until they got the result they wanted."

Coleman has got to be feeling like a Democrat flying a plane in an ice storm. And what more deserving creature could there be than him?

--p!