The Never-Ending Story
Posted by Sam Gillmer on 06.10.2009
Norm Coleman hasn't heard about the mercy rule...
Norm Coleman has become as big of a joke in Minnesota as his former Saturday Night Live writing opponent Al Franken. Seriously, the man has exhausted more courts than there are lakes in the state, and thus far it has not gotten him his job back.
For those of you who don't know, back in November during the Presidential Election, Coleman's Minnesota Senate Seat was up for reelection as well. He lost, and Coleman has tried to get numerous courts to overturn the decision. As we speak, the Minnesota Supreme Court is looking at the case, and Minnesota is still without a Senator. The worst part is that Coleman may have cost himself a shot at the Governor's slot, because he has lost so much favor within the state by continuing to complain about his defeat. He tries to spin it, saying that "the people" want their votes counted. Well, the thing is Norm, the people did have their votes counted. Numerous times. You still lost. I can't blame him though, the last time somebody fought so hard and went to a Supreme Court over elections it ended up winning him a Nobel Peace Prize, a young man you may have heard of, Al Gore?
I do understand why somebody would want to hold onto their job, but come on. You lost, fair and square. Everybody says you lost. In fact, you probably know you lost. I realize that politics is just that, politics, but this is the kind of thing that really turns people off to being active in democracy. When we vote we expect to know how it turns out fairly soon, the same goes for laws being put into place, referendums, etc. If people didn't want to know what was going on with current topics, they would go down into a fallout shelter with Brendan Fraser, only to come up and have a love affair with Alicia Silverstone....oh wait. The point is, politics need to stop being so bogged down and dragged out. I'm not saying that things need to be rushed, but there is definitely a happy medium between deliberating issues and being swift with decisions. If democracy is for the people, than the people should be able to follow it all the way through, without getting bored. Even though we live in a society that doesn't bode well for patience, it should be suited enough for people to follow. Or maybe, we just need to have more interesting and charismatic politicians than "Stormin" Norman Coleman.
ok how could u be serious, more people voted for obama, then franken, and it seemed awfully fishy that all these extra votes came in for franken and none for coleman
Posted By: coby preimesberger (Guest) on June 10, 2009 at 01:52 AM
@Coby: There were votes added for Franken AND Coleman. However, there were more net votes received for Franken, so his lead increased. No conspiracy here (We are still talking about a very small percentage of the overall votes). The Senate race was nearly a tie, but Franken came out ahead - end of story. I'm fairly sure if Coleman had ended up ahead by a few hundred votes, the Republicans wouldn't be so in favor of court challenges.
@Sam Gillmer: Gore didn't take the battle to the US Supreme Court, Bush did. After Katherine Harris (then Secretary of State, and George Bush's Campaign Manager) stalled the state-required recount for weeks, Gore won a unanimous verdict from the Florida Supreme court, forcing recount to go forward. Bush, not Gore, challenged the US Supreme Court that this recount violated his Equal Protection rights under the constitution (I kid you not). The Supreme Court basically told Florida to come up with a new recount process in less that 3 days which wasn't possible - so Bush won by default. Later vote counts showed that a full recount of Florida by almost any standard would have won it for Gore, not to mention the 10's of thousands of mistaken Buchanan votes in Palm Beach County.
Posted By: Keith (Guest) on June 10, 2009 at 06:46 AM
Actually, it would make more sense that Franken would get those votes since Obama is a Democrat and so is Franken. There is no fishy part since the votes have been counted and he lost, get over it.
Posted By: AFan (Guest) on June 10, 2009 at 07:00 AM
If we are going to do that well more people voted for Gore than Bush..Bush won the election so your point is what?
Also Coleman DID get some votes in the re-count they didn't ALL go to Franken...might want to get your facts straight.
Its going on 6 months of this...we didn't have this long of a battle in the 2000 presidential race when the republicans where all bent out of shape that gore challenged. How quickly they seem to forget recent history.
Posted By: glen (Guest) on June 10, 2009 at 08:54 AM
it wasn't katherine harris who delayed it, everyone forgets that one florida county, instead of working through thanksgiving, took it off, while every other county in the state counted votes, and again ap and the new york times did a indepenedt accounting of the votes and guess what bush would've won florida, and as far as fishy, how about the 123 votes that suddenly popped up in one county, when ballots were in a car
Posted By: coby preimesberger (Guest) on June 11, 2009 at 01:43 AM
STAY CURRENT