The Grand Forks Herald editorializes today that if Coleman is “pursuing his appeal only (or even mainly) to keep the Senate seat vacant, then he should withdraw.”

It was only Tuesday morning that The Politico’s Ben Pershing offered this prediction:

My guess is that most of the media — editorial boards, etc. — will hold off on calling for Coleman to concede at least until after the Minnesota Supreme Court looks at the case.

But that was before (or during, actually) the election-contest court’s counting of 351 more ballots, extending Democrat Al Franken’s lead from 225 to 312 votes.

As noted here Tuesday, an editorial in the Albert Lea Tribune  – which like the Grand Forks Herald, endorsed Coleman last fall – quickly advised Coleman to “throw in the towel,” and the National Review Online said it’s time he “give up this fight.”

With a new editorial headlined “Norm Coleman – Go Away!,” City Pages maintains its stance (from January) that Coleman should concede.

MSNBC’s First Read blog says, “The question for many is no longer whether Coleman is going to lose; rather, it’s when he’s going to lose.”

Brian Lambert writes in his “Lambert to the Slaughter” blog that Coleman and GOP leaders ”have effectively won their case in that they have successfully deprived the people of Minnesota and the Democratic Senate a vote for four critical months.” He concludes:

So, having achieved “mission (pretty much) accomplished,” someone claiming to practice journalism for the greater public good should then summon the courage to tell Coleman that having won, the time is now right to concede.

Indeed, the outlier appears to be the Star Tribune editorial page. The writers there come close but don’t actually call for Coleman to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. They do, however, go out on a limb and urge the justices to take his case:

Coleman appears intent on giving the high court that opportunity (to review election issues); if he does, we hope they seize it.

And while it’s not explicitly advice, National Review Online readers got another dose of discouraging news about Coleman today. This time it’s from Power Line’s Scott Johnson, who gives his exceptional criticism of Coleman’s post-election performance this twist:

The erosion of Senator Coleman’s approximately 215-vote lead over Franken after the election canvass, and the emergence of Al Franken with a 225-vote lead over Coleman on January 5 after the recount, have given rise to the implication that Franken stole the election. …

For a while, I thought so, too. If I had observed the events through the media outside Minnesota, I would still think so. As a Minnesotan with a closer view, with friends lodged in every corner of the post-election proceedings, I have a different perspective on the chain of events that has brought Coleman to his imminent loss to Franken. …

I can’t find a single good thing to say about (Franken) except that he didn’t steal the election.

Pat Kessler, WCCO’s political reporter, says he’s been approached countless times by the Franken crew over the months of the campaign with hot angles regarding some supposedly untoward Coleman activity or another, (that’s SOP, of course), but got nothing from Team Franken on this one. “Not a thing. I think they were surprised by it,” says Kessler.

And given the general clumsiness of the Franken campaign to date does Kessler think they are capable of playing something with this kind of Ted Stevens-style payola with a championship poker face? “Uh, no, I don’t.”

He emphasizes that any bombshell that drops in the final days of a campaign has [to] be viewed “with extreme skepticism”, which is not at all the same thing as dismissing it. If not a byzantine move by the DNC, someone, for example, could be using the glare and pressure of the final hours of the campaign to squeeze Coleman’s pals for a quick settlement on a wholly bogus claim.