Don't look now, but a stolen election is very much in prospect.
It is difficult to conceive of a more worrisome relationship than between ignorant voters and . . . well-organized political activists.
– Ilya Somin in How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy, 2004
The race should not have been close. But a series of TV spots slimed Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) as "corrupt" and implied he accepted bribes from the twin evils, Big Business and Big Oil, as quid pro quo for his Senate votes, among other alleged crimes. Apparently the TV spots "took hold." Despite this smarmy series of campaign lies about his record and his ethics, Senator Coleman should have won in a cakewalk in a more fully informed-by-the-facts, due-diligence world.
If Minnesota's electorate had been smart enough, and indeed — good enough– the result would have been 60-30%, at least, in favor of first-termer Coleman. Instead, enough of party-faithful and otherwise blind Minnesota voters were duped, being taken in by preposterous anti-Coleman rhetoric and Crazy Al's pond-scum politics.
Voters made this election a scene out of a surreal theater of the political absurd. They handed a U.S. Senate seat to comic writer-actor Franken by a razor-thin .001 (one one-thousandth!) of a percentage point. That's my nightmare prediction because, as this is written, the recount goes on still, with Coleman holding a slim lead.
Besides the stream of artful lies, Franken's off-beat campaign benefited mightily from votes of the no-littles, of the dummkopt, and those added late to voter rolls — legally, or illegally — under the state's loose-y-goose-y registration-day law which naïve Minnesota election officials swear by. Illegally-cast votes alone, to say nothing of bused-in crowds' directed votes, likely tipped the election Franken's way.
Later the charade of the on-going Potemkin Village recount make it appear the results were legitimate. What a ship of fools are Minnesota election officials, led in this exercise by the partisan (Democrat) Minnesota Secretary of State, himself an ACORN devotee and longtime party guy.
The laughable result (if it's as I predict) will be that Franken, anger-driven self-described satirist and onetime pornographer (for Playboy) goes to Washington as the junior senator from Minnesota. In doing so he will — not may, he will – bring gaffes and laughs, perhaps making Minnesota a laughingstock of the nation. By his temperament — angry, crass, rude, sexist, intolerant of others' views — ye shall know him.
The lunacy of all this tragic comedy outstrips even the weird election of the boa-bedecked pro wrestler Jesse Ventura as Minnesota governor. "We shocked the world," Jesse proclaimed. Franken's win will shock the universe, thanks to still another round of absurd political theater played out wherein the unexpected, the surreal, the impossible, prevails over logic and, yes, common sense.
Just when you think you've seen everything dopey in politics, along comes middle-fingered-wielding Franken. He wins. Yikes! Who but an absurdist playwright would believe such a bizarre election, as if some avante garde existentialist play? It defies sensible imagination. DaDa prevails. Words, meaningless. Bring in the clowns. (Curtain)
On election night Coleman won by 750 votes out of 2.9 million. Then "lost" votes and bad arithmetic (plus 39 absentee ballots discovered AFTER the election, all going to Franken) whittled Coleman's lead to, at this writing, less than 150 votes. Eventually, the Franken Camp, diving absurdly into contested ballots and litigating, litigating, litigating, will turn it into a slim lead. And the whole kit and caboodle winds up in the courts. Media will rejoice.
Think Florida in 2000. Like Al Gore's "newly found votes" and "undervotes" in his lawyerly-selected counties, Franken's turnabout will come mainly from "newfound" votes in Democratic "strongholds." In such places, it is said, voting evidently is a chore, such as reading and filling in ballots correctly. Well, no one said imposed voting was easy, especially when the marks have to be instructed by voters' handlers. ("Fill in the Franken circle, Martha.")
In a re-tally reflecting statistical realities, at least a proportionate number of "new votes," even in so-called "strongholds" — such an apt, and mindless term! — would go to the other guy. No way they all go 100% to one Al Franken. Simple, applied logic here, not rocket science.
Liberal Minnesota judges help pave the way for a Franken win. They (1) gingerly toss out Coleman's defamation lawsuit against Franken in the waning days of the campaign; (2) validate the post-election add-on of 39 "found" absentee ballots, miraculously all for Franken; and (3) bow to a Franken plea to deliver "challenged" (machine rejected) ballots to his lawyers. Thus do local judges run interference for an after-the-fact bid to take an election?
Don't look now, but a stolen election is very much in prospect. This would be a flash point for generations to come, bringing disfavor to a Land of Illegal and Contested Ballots. Will the Franken camp go a-knocking on doors of folks whose ballots were "challenged"? ("Lady, how did you really truly INTEND to vote?") The court said Frankenties said they would not do this. But the Frankenites lied. Now they contact contested ballot-makers. Whatever happened to the privacy of the voting booth? And honesty to the court?)
Absurd drama bends logic. It is a poke in the eye of Real Life, as if an idiot's tale, full of savage, surreal twists. One might expect it to be a scene straight out of Eugene Ionesco's stampeding "Rhinoceros," or Samuel Beckett's tramps "Waiting for Godot." Such is the foolishness now on center stage in Minnesota.
Baseline problem? As for those van-loads of sheep being herded to polling places, and told how to vote, consider this: "The American electorate," writes Professor Somin, "fails to meet even minimum criteria for voter knowledge." Verily, verily, this might be many a politician's fondest wish — an ignorant electorate. Far easier to sway than a savvy one.
Lost in the post-election endgame, a recount watched by lawyers from both sides, will be what happened BEFORE the votes got counted, now recounted in that Potemkin Village of clean politics. But the crime, the deciding factor, illegal votes, coupled with a lie-laced campaign, has already happened. No recount can erase that sheer madness.
Said-to-be noble "get-out-to-vote" drives by "well-organized activists" would embrace the clueless to put their guy over the top, so to speak. What a skit for Franken's Saturday Night Live. Life imitates comedy. Endless stream of gags for Leno and Letterman – a virtual bonanza of one-liners. Ah, that's what Minnesota Nice is, supplying comedy material.
Any way you slice it, 42% voted for the comic-fool, evidently believing his raging, tear-apart demagoguery, his cleverly-worded lies. Coleman didn't "blow it." Minnesotans did, at least 42% of them, not being critical to obvious falsehoods. My home state, now the butt of political jokes? Tell me ain't so. A nightmare, right? A senseless, Kafkaesque, existential play? A scene out of the theater of the absurd? Yeah. That's it. Gotta be a nightmare.
Afternote: In Coleman campaign headquarters, his staff posted on the wall 52 Franken-challenged ballots from Meeker Country. All are clearly marked for Coleman with X's in the ovals. They label these "Franken's Frivolous Follies." Somehow it fits.
Americans are in crisis–a crisis of unintelligent cow-like stupidity. It was proved on a national level by the illuminati election, and now on a state level with poster child Minnesota, which proves that on the local level, people will believe anything they're told as long as it's coming from the TV. The art of critical thinking has fallen by the wayside.
"Liberal Minnesota judges help pave the way for a Franken win."
So when Supreme Court Justices (by a margin of 1 vote) halted a recount and handed the presidency to George Bush in 2000, that was all fair, but now a few "liberal" judges have decided that some votes really ought to be looked at, and that constitutes "stealing an election."
Thank you for yet again upholding that famous conservative double standard so cherished by the community here.
DrK,
The Supreme Court stopped the hand recounts in four specific counties targeting by Gore lawyers, where grown men sat with magnifying glasses straining to see if ballots cast for George W. Bush may have dimples in the paper on the "Gore" side, because they decided it was unconstitutional. Two statewide recounts did indeed give the popular vote there to George W. Bush. That all, of course, leaving aside the fact that the popular vote is a pointless formality that electors do not even necessarily have to adhere to. That's an entirely different matter than state courts allowing questionable, illegal, "found" and mystery ballots to be counted in order to benefit one candidate.
Anybody surprised by the handling of the Minnesota election clearly didn't follow the gubernatorial election in my home state of Washington in 2004 – the one where the Democrat defeated the Republican by 129 votes only after the third recount, during which an entire box of "found" ballots from Democrat-leaning King County were allowed to be counted. Although the first two counts placed the Republican ahead by a far wider margin than the 129 votes in the third count, state officials refused to certify the election after the first two counts. It was immediately certified, unchallenged, after the third count.
Another drive-by comment from Dr. K.
He makes a stupid statement about the Vietnam war. Bob Stapler spanks him, and he runs away.
He makes a stupid statement about Bush outing Plame. I spank him, and he runs away.
Now he makes a stupid statement about counting ballots. Patrick spanks him, and he runs away.
People like DK aren't interested in, or capable of, legitimate debate and discussion. The best they can do is offer a platitude or two, draw some line of moral equivalency, then run away when confronted because they can't actually sustain an intelligent conversation.
The only time DK actually backed away from a stupid remark he made was when he thought the remark was being construed as politically incorrect. He didn't want to be tagged with being a bad liberal, so he apologized for having said something that could be construed as insensitive and offensive. After that it was back to his inane non sequiturs.
The only mystery is why anyone takes him seriously instead of simply ignoring him.
Question:
If an election's results are subjected to multiple counts, we have will have multiple data points, one for each count: the first count, the second count, etc. Every [re-]count is different. Why is the last one any more accurate than the others?
#5
Only the recount that has Franken the victor will be considered accurate. Once they get one of those, there will be no more recounts.
GL, I regret that this will likely be so. Those people have no shame, no morals or ethics. Their simple mantra is "win by any means."
Wow! You guys really want to go down the stolen election route. You've got some gall. First of, how dare you suggest that we Minnesotans are as shady as the rest of the country. We hold ourselves to higher standards and take pride in it. Secondly, there are a ton of missing ballots. The recount totals did not add up to the original vote totals. I'd be willing to bet the farm the missing ballots are Democratic. The fact is that Republicans are the worlds biggest hypocrites. You stole Ohio in 04. You stole Florida in 2000. George Bush should not have ever been President, let alone for two terms. Norm Coleman and all other Republicans have never done anything for Minnesota. NOTHING!!!! It's the Republicans fault the bridge went down. Thanks, Tim Pawlenty! Jackass. Republicans stand for only two things:arrogance and greed. Wait, better make that three: throw in murderous war mongering while we're at it. If anyone is going to steal this election it will be the Republicans. I guarantee it.
One more thing: to suggest that those of us who would vote for a Harvard grad who grew up here in MN, who knows everything about everyone in this state who is struggling and has been trampled by fat Republicans rather than some Brooklyn carpetbagger who doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself and his fat-cat friends in the oil companies are ignorant is criminal. Not only would the total ever come to anything even close to 66-33, we don't even have that many rednecks to give Coleman that kind of total. So, you're argument is moot. Coleman is an embarrassment to everyone. I hate his face. It represents greed. Franken will end up Senator from MN, and Coleman will end up dying alone in prison where he belongs. He's a fraud and a thief. Even if Coleman comes out on top, there's no way he'll even finish a couple of weeks without getting frog-marched out of his fancy, free mansion in shackles. I hate his guts and would love to slap the face of anyone who is dumb enough to support him.
Angry Man,
No shame, no morals, no ethics…."win by any means"…..sounds familiar…..so familiar that I think we have seen that before….maybe in the previous two presidential elections? Actually, it sounds more like the way all politicians run for office….on the left…on the right….in the middle…..you rarely see anyone run a strictly issue based campaign…..one reason why we are in such a state as we are now. Noone wants to work together to do the right thing for everyone….they just concentrate on winning and losing.
> so familiar that I think we have seen that before….maybe in the previous two presidential elections.
Certainly with Gore in trying to steal Florida, but Kerry didn't contest Ohio, so I'd cut him some slack. However Obama is in a category by himself with his scam to accept foreign money and the ACORN vote-fraud support he encouraged.
That is, of course, what you were referring to.
>Noone wants to work together to do the right thing for everyone …
Another platitude. "Doing the right thing" involves a subjective evaluation, as the War in Iraq clearly demonstrates. A strictly issues-based campaign is impossible in a vibrant political system, because elections are always about more than "issues". They are about intangible factors as well (political/economic philosophy, leadership, confidence, etc.).
You can't excuse bad behavior by saying that everyone does it. It is moral relativism at its worst. Stealing a dollar from a rich man and stealing a million dollars from a company pension plan are both theft. The latter is not excused or explained away by the former.
omgucbs: Yes, this is true; politics is a dirty business, all around. We can get into who is more dirty than whom another day.
Phil: Moral Relativism will be the death of us all.
The other day, an envelope was slipped under my apartment door by error. It contained a $100 repayment of a debt by a neighbor, intended for another tenant (he got the apartment number wrong). I sought out the correct recipient and made certain they received it. I was thanked profusely, but I need not have been.
That's how ethical people operate, or so I perceive it. Your word is your bond. Unfortunately, many of our countrymen would consider me to be a sap for having done so. Screw them. I have to live with myself.
LAM: As corny as it seems, I live by the same code. Treat people honestly and ethically — even when no one is looking. Have a good Thanksgiving. Phil
Phil:
*Especially* when no one is looking.
Hope your Thanksgiving went well.
LAM
So far no one has come up with any serious evidence of foul play. All there's been so far is the routine correction of routine mistakes. That's what Republican Governor Pawlenty says, anyway. People shouldn't talk about a stolen election until they have evidence.
The gap between the candidate is about 200 votes, and there are still more than 6,000 votes not counted. The recount is automatic, routine, and required by law. No one has won. People should wait until the votes have all been counted before they shoot off their mouths.
So far Franken has done exactly the same thing that Coleman would do if Coleman were in Franken's position. He's completely right to stay in the race. Nobody knows how this will turn out.
John Emerson:
Re: "People should wait until the votes have all been counted before they shoot off their mouths."
And how could anyone know the count is correct? See my question in #5. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot to what GriffithLea says in #6.