Photos: Chris Steller, Andy Birkey/MnIndy

Photos: Chris Steller, Andy Birkey/MnIndy

What was that all about? We shook the last two 24-hour news cycles’ worth of media mumbo-jumbo on the Norm Coleman-Al Franken fracas, and this is what fell out.

Franken won by being very, very quiet: Everyone seems to agree on this point. First, Chris Cillizza at his Washington Post blog The Fix:

When the race ended in a tie, Franken did something very smart; he stayed out of the spotlight. He was rarely seen or heard and when he did pop into public view it was during an occasional visit to Washington when he was huddling with potential colleagues and getting briefed on issues by potential staffers — in short, acting like a senator. He gave Republicans nothing to use to sow doubts about whether he was ready for the office to which he was headed. While Franken’s personal discipline did little to effect the legal outcome, it played a critical part in slowly but surely securing public support behind the idea that not only had he won but that he was ready to be a senator.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman is a pal of Al’s:

One would-be advisor told him that the best way to deal with his show-biz background was to shine a light on it, play it up. ”That was 100 percent wrong!” Al told me last night.

Politico’s Mike Allen, appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, put it more bluntly (video):

He shut his mouth, and when you’re Al Franken that’s not easy to do.

What’ll that Norm do next?: Through all the rancor, outrage and mock-outrage — and then all the graciousness, which may have been harder to take — the question was always what Coleman might do next. Appeal? Appeal again? Appeal again and again? And still, that’s the question of the hour, now revolving about whether he’ll run for governor, as he teased at his backyard concession event. Eric Black at MinnPost attacks it from all angles, concluding with this memorable image:

All of which should have taught Coleman by now that when people try to tell him how his next race is a can’t-miss proposition, he should smile, tiptoe into a padded room, and scream.

It’s getting meta all the time: The Associated Press asked Franken who should play him on Saturday Night Live, the TV show he used to write for. Franken picked Fred Armisen, who currently plays President Obama on the show.

Franken himself once portrayed a Democratic senator for an SNL spoof of the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in two weeks Franken will play that role for real during hearings into Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the high court.

Last one out, wake up the Lizard People: Local talking heads, who for months told millions via a grateful news media what had just happened and what would happen next, now can seek out pillows and rest up for the next Minnesota election debacle (a word none of them would use even if they sometimes wanted to). One was Hamline University Law School Professor David Schultz, who according to Politico:

… stood outside Coleman’s St. Paul house Tuesday, where the former senator delivered his concession remarks. There, the professor bounced from reporter to reporter, from television satellite truck to satellite truck, summing it all up. In June, he had predicted that the state Supreme Court would hand down a 5-0 decision in favor of Franken and that it would come just before the July 4 weekend. Schultz has, in fact, been in fine form with his prognostications for much of the recount, making up for what he says was a string of bad calls he committed during the 2000 Florida recount. “I have to sort of say I got dumb lucky on this on one level,” Schultz told POLITICO.

Schultz made any number of other predictions that would have put the end to the fight at various points from at least April to the end of June, but who’s counting and who cares? He was willing to stick his neck out, and that counts for a lot.

Another person who stuck her neck out and crowed about it was Minnesota’s long-suffering solo senator, Amy Klobuchar. Her prediction on “The Rachel Maddow Show” for an early end to her misery (by ice-out) wasn’t half-bad, but we’re all lucky her revised prognostication (by the Fourth of July) came true or she would have been “mad” — a point she repeated when she revisited the MSNBC show this week (video).

Land of Loons: Back in Minnesota, commentators tended to be clear-headed about the affair despite the national buzz. As good a short summary as you’re likely to read appeared in the St. Cloud Times:

“I supported Coleman and thought this process raised some interesting legal questions,” said Jim Knoblach, a St. Cloud Republican, former state representative and prominent Coleman supporter. “Having said that, a lot of people were long ago ready for this to be over.”