Al Gore

Norm Coleman was compared — unfavorably, as I read it — to Richard Nixon in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Reporter Matt Bai writes that when Nixon foresaw a trouncing in 1960 he “exited quickly to begin plotting his return to office.” Not so with Coleman, whose concession holdout in the Minnesota Senate race now [...]

As Fargo-born reporter Roxana Saberi — freed last month from an Iranian jail — receives the Medill Medal for Courage from Northwestern University, a pair of American journalists now find themselves facing a long prison sentence on similar charges: Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been tried and convicted by a [...]

Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg is helping usher Norm Coleman’s equal-protection claims to a high court (Minnesota’s), just as he did with another client, George W. Bush, and another high court (the United States’) eight years ago. Indeed, Coleman’s yet-to-be submitted brief is expected to cite Bush vs. Gore, as have his earlier briefs presented (unsuccessfully) to the state Supreme Court and the election-contest court. Maybe there’s a reason for that. In 2006, Ginsberg admitted to a law school audience:

Just like, really, with the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have some fundamental philosophical difficulties with the whole notion of Equal Protection.

When the press won’t call Norm Coleman a sore loser for prolonging Minnesota’s Senate dispute, it’s not just a matter of sticks and stones, Eric Boehlert argues at Media Matters. It’s prolonging the state’s political agony by relieving pressure on Coleman and setting a partisan double standard to boot. Al Gore got tagged as a “sore [...]

Al Franken is in Washington, D.C., today. Why? To meet with Democratic Party leaders, goes the official explanation. But why now, just as the U.S. Senate recount on which his political fate rests is getting under way?
Granted, Franken’s presence now in Minnesota might not be necessary or even helpful. But his absence uncomfortably recalls Al [...]

With seven days to go, polls still looking good for Barack Obama, and early-vote returns coming in briskly for the Democratic candidate, the Obama campaign is warning against overconfidence. A new viral video asks supporters to, uh, keep pedaling — and save the celebrations for after the win. An important message — especially if we [...]