The campaign to trash Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie — and to malign the state’s canvassing process in the Franken-Coleman U.S. Senate election — successfully breached the liberal ramparts at National Public Radio today. NPR’s political editor, Ken Rudin, made comments remarkably in line with GOP talking points during his appearance on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” program:

The biggest one, the biggest story has turned out to be Minnesota, because as Katherine Harris was for the Democrats — secretary of state of Florida during that tortured recount in 2000, the presidential race – the Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, has been accused of doing everything he can to make Al Franken the next senator from Minnesota against Norm Coleman. They say that there’s a bunch of votes are suddenly appearing out of nowhere and they’re all for Al Franken. And so all the suspicions that the Democrats had about Katherine Harris are now being done by Republicans — Ritchie. But again it’s about a 206-vote difference with Norm Coleman leading. The recount is probably still going to go into December.

Audio is here (starts at 3:00 mark)

A Franken win would blot Rudin’s record as a professional political prognosticator. From his post-election Political Junkie blog:

A good night in Senate picks: Compared with 2004 and 2006, when I made two incorrect Senate picks each time, I’m poifect thus far. But if Ted Stevens (R) wins in Alaska, that will be a blot on the record. And if Republican incumbents lose in either Minnesota or Georgia, that will further lower my percentage.

If Rachel Maddow brings up the phony ballots-in-car scandal when Ritchie appears on her MSNBC show tonight, then we’ll know someone’s been sending Neiman Marcus gift cards to the entire left-leaning media conspiracy.