Coleman and Franken throw challenged-ballot game of chicken into reverse

Did the street racers in “Rebel Without a Cause” throw their hot rods into reverse gear and speed back to the starting line in a rear-first game of chicken?

Did Michael Phelps, inches away from a world-record finish in the 200-meter freestyle, suddenly flip over and begin to backstroke across the pool in the opposite direction?

Did Sir Edmund Hillary cry out to Tenzing Norgay, after they reached the peak of Mt. Everest, ”Race you to the bottom”?

Then why are the campaigns of Democrat Al Franken and Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman — having racked up in tit-for-tat fashion an impressive 6,655 challenges to election officials’ ballot decisions in Minnesota’s statewide Senate recount — now competing to withdraw more and more of those challenges in a manic case of one-downmanship?

The latest move in this strange game of electoral checkers — with each player trying to get elected senator by getting “un-kinged” — came Tuesday evening when Coleman’s campaign announced that it will withdraw 475 more of its ballot challenges after an initial reverse-gear gambit of 650, bringing its pledged take-back total to 1,125. That tops the Franken campaign’s two withdrawals of 633 and 425 that together make a suddenly measly-seeming 1,058.

It’s all an inevitable dose of realpolitik after a heady few weeks of willy-nilly ballot challenging during the recount. Dec. 16 is fast approaching — the day the State Canvassing Board is due to begin digging into however many ballot challenges the campaigns decide by then they’re sticking by.