But there's method, of a sort, to the certifiable madness...
By Brad Friedman on 2/20/2009, 11:50am PT  

Two quick updates to the Coleman/Franken Election Contest/Mini-Series playing out in Minnesota, both via TPM's Eric Kleefeld, since we're on another deadline today...

1) All of a sudden yesterday, the trial began rapidly picking up pace for some reason. A record "nine and a half" officials were "sworn in, direct-examined, cross-examined, re-direct-examined and excused"

2) Coleman may be setting an all-time flip-floppery record, as he has changed positions, yet again, on originally rejected absentee ballots that he agreed should be counted during the post-election hand-count. The counting of those ballots resulted in a 176 net gain for Franken, leading to his final 225 vote lead over Coleman at the end of that hand-count. As Kleefeld, who details the back-story here, describes it: "Coleman was originally against counting them, then for it, then against it, then for it, and now against it, in that order."

While the new position seems nearly insane (both on a legal, and practical level), the method to the madness is becoming clearer and clearer: Coleman, and his top legal hatchet-man/arsonist, "Swiftboat" Ben Ginsberg, are setting up the case for an appeal to higher authorities, to argue that the election was simply too close to call, the results within the "margin of error", beset with "illegally" counted ballots, and otherwise "fatally-flawed", and the election contest trial itself "a legal quagmire". All in hopes of asking somebody, anybody, (SCOTUS please?) for a do-over election.

We discussed that gambit, and its likelihood of success in this previous article. All of Coleman's moves, of late, seem to support that same general legal strategy.

Amusingly and ironically enough, it was Franken who the nutty Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) recently described as "desperate". Go figure.

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Article Categories: Election 2008, Minnesota, U.S. Senate, Al Franken