Franken's Dubious "Win": A Gloomy Postmortem

Gag writer, off-beat comedian, a parody of himself, is declared winner of a Senate race. Minnesotans ought to hang their heads in shame. The fault lies not in the stars, but in themselves.  And mud-slinging pays off for the Saturday Night Live star.

Whoever thought the election of Jesse ("The Body") Ventura was a bizarre event, not likely to be repeated in their lifetimes, did not foresee the lunacy of an unemployed, second-rate comedian, Alan Stuart Franken, being elected Senator from Minnesota. It is a nightmarish, scary thing, straight from the Theater of the Absurd.

It is so far beyond the pale as to be, well, incredible. Pinch yourself. It's true. Minnesota's Supreme Court unanimously tossed out a rather clear case of vote-tabulating irregularities that marked Senator Norm Coleman's (R-MN) shocking loss. Some absentee ballots became "more equal," you see, than others. (Orwell lives!) What did Stalin say? He who controls the ballot boxes, controls elections? Absolutely.

The Wall Street Journal opined (on July 1): "And so they [Supreme Court] refused to reopen what had become a forbidding tangle of irregularities. Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact."  BINGO!

In this land of 10,000 lakes (actually 11,842), anything now goes in what used to be known as a squeaky clean state, politically. No longer. That's history. Run native son author Garrison Keillor for President?  Pop singer Prince for Governor? (Would his term be a Purple Reign?)

Here's how I speculated how "Crazy Al" would achieve his goal, back in February, in my "How Franken Won…If He Did (Part 2)."

Whether out of naivety based on ignorance, or apathy, and/or the lack of sound judgment, more than 1.2 million Minnesotans, incredibly — that number [actually 1,212,410] — voted for hate-filled ex-pornographer, the potty-mouthed Al Franken. It did not matter, evidently, that Coleman's record was misrepresented, his character besmirched, in Franken's mud-tossing.

Holy cow! One of the dirtiest, most malicious campaigns ever waged, jam-packed with libel and slander, right here in "clean" Minnesota. Senator Coleman had up to a 10-point bulge in polls only a couple of weeks before the election when Franken's excrement hit the fan – er, the airwaves. His TV spots got downright nasty.

Truth be told, news media here snoozed. Given facts to check, they didn't; bogus allegations to explore, not a word.  Shhh was the operative word.  (Wonder why MSM are dying?) Franken got the free pass here.  Senator Coleman tried an 11th hour defamation suit against his slime-ball tossing opponent, to no avail. Predictably, a local judge tossed it out.  Franken went on his loony tunes way, slinging slimy stuff at Coleman, misstating his record, misportraying his personal life.  Much of the dung flung on the wall apparently stuck with clueless Minnesotans.   

Naively, we Coleman fans had faith in the collective intelligence of voters. Surely they'd see all the crap going on, and dismiss it as nonsense. After all, our guy was up 10 points!  Whatever could go wrong, go wrong, go wrong?  It was Coleman in a cakewalk, no sweat, perhaps by a landslide.  He'd get 60%, easy. 

Our blind spot: We wrongly figured Franken's lies and misstatements were so obvious as to be dismissed by John Q. Public as gutter-style rhetoric. What above-average Minnesotans would be so gullible, so stupid, as to swallow the ridiculous smears?

When the dust cleared, 1,214,410 Minnesotans had it terribly wrong. They voted for the smear artist, the liar, the unemployed comedian with a fierce temper. It was as if Minnesota voters suddenly suffered "a lack of critical facilities." My take back in February:

[Electing Franken] could not be from Minnesotans' lack of formal education. Yes, this state's professorial class, same as elsewhere, is virtually 100% liberal, by educational inbreeding and the natural selection of professors . . . The number of college grads over age 25 in Minnesota exceeds the national average by nearly 8 % – 32.8% vs. 25%. So it couldn't be lack of formal education, indicating instead a lack of critical facilities [to fall for Franken's] rancid demagoguery.

Election post-postmortems point out that Coleman's campaign staff, mostly Washington, D.C.-based, not native Minnesotans, failed to address the avalanche of falsehoods unleashed in a flurry by Franken, unchallenged by sleeping news media. Perhaps they, too, thought them so outlandish, as not be believed. But not responding in some way to the sleaze gave rise to the odd-ball conclusion that Franken's ads had some element of credibility.

For politicians, fooling people is an art form. Machiavellian Franken was accomplished at that, although not a politician, but a stand-up comedian, well versed in the art of illusion. Enough of the Minnesota electorate swallowed his libel about Coleman (e.g., he was "corrupt," and a tool of "Big" special interests) to put him over the top by a mere 300 counted votes, out of over 3 million cast.  That is, IF the votes had been counted accurately.

They were not.  Simply put, absentee ballots in "R"-rich counties were held to higher standards, thus tossed out, than in "D"-leaning counties, where they were counted.   Just as in Florida 2000, trolling for votes in Democrat-rich counties, was the sole aim. What's right didn't matter.  No other votes counted, or mattered, except those for the Democrat.  It was a clear instance, again, of "win at any cost," and let truth be damned. It was a game plan laid out by the late left-wing activist (Chicago "community organizer") Saul Alinksy's credo, that "all politics is personal." That was also his student Hillary Rodham's mantle, now made manifest in Franken's stolen election.   Honor, it seems, lies only in winning at any cost.

Besides the post-election hijinx, tomfoolery before cinched it for Al Franken. Massive voter registration drives among selected segments (i.e. those inclined to vote "D," no matter what, ACORN style) aided, abetted the "win."  Same-day registration, magnet for fraud, put more votes into his column. Illegals voted. Felons, too. Some folks, twice. At least one urban precinct (D-dominated) admitted to that, doubling up on Franken's lead there. Who needs to stuff a ballot box when some are counted twice?

Quiet, self-effacing Coleman did not have name recognition despite six years in the Senate.  Meanwhile the Saturday Night Live guy, maker of crude jokes (including, Letterman-style, about rape – really funny stuff) had both the name and image recognition. Who could forget Stuart ("I'm good enough, doggone it") Smiley? All that fame boosted his candidacy among the less-than-intelligent, the stupid, the star struck. Celebrity works.  

In the end, the State Canvassing Board trolling for votes in "D"-rich counties, turned the trick, so to speak, for Franken. Adjusting the rules after the election, just as the "Florida Supremes" tried but failed in 2000, sealed the victory for the unemployed comic expatriate Minnesotan who, like other Democrats, did not pay his taxes either. Are they all birds of a feather?

Franken was declared victor by the Minnesota Supremes based on what they called, not at all tongue in cheek, "legally-cast ballots."  Only that is pure fiction. Forget the tossed-out absentee ballots in Republican-rich precincts?  Sure.  Any wonder the public has such little faith nowadays in courts and in judicial processes?

I spanked Minnesota voters in February, anticipating the final goofy result of this flawed election:

All the factors – voter ignorance, folks falling for wild-eyed claims and distortions [by Franken] of Coleman's record – reflect badly on Minnesotans . . . The fault lies not in the stars, then, but in themselves.

Funny business, politics. Often the worst, the most vile candidate, full of passionate intensity, emerges victorious.  Fooling voters is a science, informed now by psychologists and cagey strategists, making honorable candidates no match for the mud-slingers, untouched by a feckless news media.  What honorable person would want to run against THAT?  Call it a pattern in the sky saying, Don't Run!     

Expect a bellyfull of laughs from the junior senator from Minnesota. Maybe even fisticuffs in Senate chambers, Taiwan-style, in years to come.  (Franken has seen fit to duke it out with people he disagrees with. Really!) Put nothing beyond him. Beware of what he says. Words are only building blocks to winning, not for truth-telling, to this odious, filth-spewing comic with an acid tongue, and the weird, intolerant liberal mind-set.    

All this gives new impetus to the significance of radio talk show host and author Hugh Hewitt's book title: "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats In Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It" (Thomas Nelson, 2004). Along with this sage advice: Never, ever trust the native intelligence, or common sense, of the public, to do what's right, no matter what their educational level.  P.T. Barnum got it down right, and Minnesotans proved it on Election Day, November 4, 2008.