January 26, 2009
At the end of 1979, Al Franken appeared on the “Weekend Update News” during Saturday Night Live to announce that the 1980s would be “The Al Franken Decade”. For those of us old enough to remember, it’s scary to realize that “The Al Franken Decade” ended almost twenty years ago. In 1999, Franken released a book entitled: Why Not Me? concerning his fictitious run for the Presidency in 2000. The cover of the book featured a photograph of Franken being sworn in as President. Although many news publications restrict their discussions of Franken’s background to the subject of his years with Saturday Night Live, they overlook the elements on his resume qualifying him to serve as a United States Senator. For one thing, he graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1973. In 1996, he wrote a book entitled: Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, wherein he dared to challenge the most outspoken pundit of conservative talk radio. The book found its way to the number one spot on the New York Times best seller list. He subsequently took on the Fox News organization with his book: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The book sported a picture of Bill O’Reilly on the cover and included a chapter criticizing O’Reilly’s on-air statements. From 2004 through 2007, Franken hosted his own talk show on Air America Radio. His program was primarily focused on political issues.
Franken’s Minnesota campaign against Norm Coleman for the United States Senate has found its way into the court system, with the trial scheduled to begin today. By the time votes had been counted (on November 18) Coleman was ahead by only 215 votes. Because the candidates were separated by less than 0.5 percent of the vote, Minnesota law required an automatic recount. On January 5, 2009, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board certified the recounted vote totals, with Franken leading by 225 votes. The next day, Coleman filed suit, contesting the recount result. The trial of this case is taking place before a three-judge panel of “trial-level” judges. As you can imagine, there will likely be an appeal from whatever result is reached in that case. In the mean time, Franken has filed a motion before the Minnesota Supreme Court to compel Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Governor Tim Pawlenty to sign the election certificate, designating Franken as the winner. That hearing is set for February 5.
A good source for understanding the court battle over this Senate seat is MinnPost.com. There, you will find Jay Weiner’s guide to the trial as a handy reference. Mr. Weiner has spelled out the issues raised by Coleman’s suit in the following manner:
Were the more than 2.9 million votes cast on Nov. 4, 2008, for Democratic challenger Al Franken and Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman counted accurately, fairly and uniformly statewide?
Were about 11,000 of the 288,000 absentee ballots cast rejected properly and with consistent measures in all 87 counties?
Were any votes counted twice? Just because a precinct registry says 20 people voted and 22 votes exist, does that mean votes were double counted? Are there other reasons such discrepancies could exist?
Should votes cast on Election Day that have since gone missing be counted?
Should votes that were found after Election Day that weren’t originally counted by included in the final tally?
Jay Weiner’s article also included his take on the ultimate outcome of this suit:
For all the talk of alleged double-counted votes or missing votes or newly found votes after Election Day, it seems unlikely that Coleman can scrounge up enough votes in those categories to net him the 226 new votes he needs.
Meanwhile, Michael O’Brien of The Hill website, has disclosed that Coleman has taken a job with the Republican Jewish Coalition while this battle continues:
In what could be seen as a sign that Coleman thinks his bid to return to the Senate may be lost, he has signed on to do consulting work for the group, which is comprised of a number GOP leaders.
“The senator needs to earn a living while the contest is going on,” said Coleman spokesman Mark Drake, who said the job does not at all affect Coleman’s bid to win reelection.
With the Democratic Party poised to capture yet another Senate seat, we can expect a lot of excitement to surround this trial. The Al Franken Decade may be long gone but, like it or not, the current decade has brought us The Al Franken Month. Beyond that, if this trial ends up the way most commentators expect, the United States Senate will experience at least one Al Franken Term. Six years may not be another decade … but it should be fun.
Painting Themselves Into A Corner
April 27, 2009
During the April 21 – 24 timeframe, ABC News and The Washington Post conducted a poll to ascertain President Obama’s approval rating. The poll revealed that 69 percent of Americans favor the job performance of our new President. Fifty percent of those polled believe that the country is on the right track (compared with 19 percent just before Obama’s inauguration). This seemed like a particularly strong showing since, just one week before this poll began, we saw the anti-taxation “tea parties” that had been promoted by Fox News.
A recent article by Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin for Politico revealed that in some states, the “tea parties” have helped energize the Republican base:
As the article by Smith and Martin pointed out, this “rebellion” is taking place at exactly the time when many Republican Party leaders are tacking to the center and looking for someone like Utah Governor Jon Huntsman as a possible Presidential candidate for 2012. Nevertheless, as the article noted, rank-and-file Republicans outside of Washington have no desire to adopt more moderate views:
Many of those comprising the Republican base appear to be motivated by antipathy toward the increasing acceptance of gay marriage, rather than by a reaction to all of the bailouts that have been taking place. In fact, I was surprised to observe, during the extensive “tea party” coverage, that none of the protesters were upset about the bank bailouts or Treasury Secretary “Turbo” Tim Geithner’s use of the Federal Reserve to manage the bank bailouts in furtherance of his attempts to avoid legislative oversight. I guess Fox News had not primed the protesters for that sort of outrage.
The Politico article by Smith and Martin reveals that “cultural issues” remain as the primary concern of the Republican base. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is trying to position himself as the next Republican standard bearer. Those touting the “sanctity of marriage” (including the Catholic Church) don’t seem particularly concerned that Newt has been married three times. Newt’s vision for the future is the same vision he was seeing almost twenty years ago: lower taxes. If others within the Republican Party have a broader vision and feel the need to expand their appeal to the voters, they can expect plenty of opposition from the party’s base — and therein lies the problem. Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman has written extensively about how the political primary system works to the benefit of political candidates with the most extreme views. This is because the only people who vote in political primaries are those with strongly held views and most of them come from the extremes. This is why wing-nuts such as Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann get nominated. In the absence of any strong moderate or centrist uprising within the Republican ranks, the GOP could be destined to find itself marginalized. It’s beginning to appear as though the only way for promising, new, centrist Republicans to get elected is to run as independents in the general elections. Once elected, they can reclaim the “high ground” within the party. In the mean time, Republican leaders are either unconcerned by or oblivious to the fact that they are painting themselves into a corner by continuing to pander to their base.