Coleman shrugs: "Certainly there's uncertainty."

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was interviewed briefly by Fox 9 News Sunday night, in what seem to be his first on-camera public comments about the statewide recount in the race for his Senate seat in more than a month. On Nov. 21, Norm announced at a press conference in Monticello, Minn.: “I believe I’m a winner.” He claimed then not to be sweating bullets: “I’m not walking around, wringing my hands, worrying about the recount.” On Sunday, Coleman continued to put forward an unruffled persona, but he sounded less confident than he did a month ago (and much less confident than Al Franken’s attorney did on Saturday).

I feel fairly confident. In the end, the good Lord’s going to decide. The numbers look good to us. Certainly there’s uncertainty. I’m not worried about it. I’ve done everything I can do. I’m not really agonizing about the outcome.

See the rest of Coleman’s comments and a video link after the jump.

Life goes on, regardless of what your job is. I certainly love what I do. If I can keep doing it, I’ll be thrilled, and if not, I’m sure we’ll do something else.

Here’s the link to the Fox 9 video (hat tip: Daily Glean).

“I want this to be a referendum within the Republican party on the kind of leadership or, more pertinently, the lack of leadership that Rep. Michele Bachmann has shown,” he told Fox’s Ellen Galles.

In an email, he wrote, “It’s been hectic for a small, insurgent, one-man campaign such as mine — but nothing like what’s happening at Tinklenberg HQ, I’m sure.” (Tinklenberg has surpassed $810,000 in donations since Friday afternoon.)

On his website, Immelman writes that he’s been “inundated with messages and phone calls of support.” More importantly, donations — something he didn’t accept for the primary — started coming. “[S]tarting Friday night, small contributions began trickling in, typically in amounts of $10 and $20, but with a couple of $50 contributions mixed in,” he told me. He says he’s seen a trickle but not a flood, adding up to “four digits” of funds. Suffice it to say, “it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what Tinklenberg has received.”

Bachmann contends she was only insinuating that members of Congress might have anti-American views, not that she felt they actually hold such views.

Here is the transcript of Bachmann’s interview Monday morning with Fox 9’s Alix Kendall:

This weekend your campaign said your statement was misunderstood. So what did you mean to say exactly?

What I’m concerned about as this election is going forward is the appalling lack of curiosity that the national media has about Barack Obama’s views and about the view that we’re going to have from Congress if we have a radical liberal in the White House and liberals controlling both the House and the Senate.

Barack Obama is ranked the No. 1 most liberal senator in the United States, Nancy Pelosi is the head of the House, Harry Reid is the head of the Senate. We have never had this concentration of liberal leadership in Washington, coming up this November, if this is what the result of the election will be.”

Does being liberal mean that you are anti-American?

No. I appreciate this opportunity because I’m hoping people will look at the context of the full interview. Because I did not suggest anti-American, Chris Matthews used the word “anti-American” and asked me to respond to it.

So what I was telling Chris Matthews is that the media needs to look at Barack Obama and the media needs to look at members of Congress.

(Matthews) wanted to know if I thought that members of Congress were anti-American, and what I told him was that that’s not up for me to decide — the media should make that expose — that’s not my call.

So this has been completely misconstrued to say that I believe members of Congress are anti-American. I never said that. I said the media should look into it.

I also didn’t say that Barack Obama is anti-American. What I said is that the media should look into his views.

And that’s what they’re really upset about right now, because I’m calling on the media to take a look at what these positions are going to mean for people. I mean, after all, they haven’t been silent about what they believe.

Barack Obama is calling for socialized medicine, radical increases in taxes. That’s what Joe the Plumber was all about. Joe the Plumber asked Barack Obama about punishing tax increases and that’s really the story that’s going unreported right now.

What is being anti-American to you? Why don’t you explain that?

Well, anti-American was Chris Matthews’ comment, that wasn’t me. He was the one that brought up anti-American — I didn’t.

I was talking about views that are very concerning to the American people, such as when Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber he wants to spread the wealth around. But redistribution of wealth is a radically different concept on the economy than the current concept we have with the free market.

We want people to be able to make money, keep it, grow themselves in the middle class…that’s what Joe the Plumber was concerned about and that’s a complete difference if you look at what’s going on with are economy, if you look at redistribution of wealth.

Gen. Colin Powell is backing Barack Obama. He denounced your statements as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Both say this is going too far, and apparently your comments…

It would be if that’s what I said, but I didn’t say it. What I’m saying is that I am concerned about what his ideas are and that the media needs to investigate them. And they have a deplorable lack of curiosity.

The other two are free media: a three-minute YouTube video posted by the Paulsen campaign that features testimonials from veterans who support the state representative’s congressional bid, and a four-minute interview that Fox 9 conducted with Paulsen as part of its morning news show… which was followed minutes later by the new Madia ad. (Independence Party candidate David Dillon will appear on Fox 9 on 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and Madia will appear on 7:30 a.m. Friday).

Outside help for Paulsen in the form of new ads and ad buys from the National Republican Congressional Committee has vanished, at least for now, with NRCC-reserved time at local stations remaining only for the campaign’s final week.

Here is the fresh crop of new video in the 3rd Congressional District race, with the exception of Paulsen’s interview on Fox 9 this morning, which we’ll add if it becomes available. In the meantime, there’s an transcribed excerpt below.

Madia for Congress: “Discipline”

DCCC: “Career Politician Erik Paulsen: We Can’t Afford”

Paulsen for Congress: “Veterans Support Erik Paulsen for Congress”

Paulsen on Fox 9 (transcribed excerpt):

PAULSEN [responding to question on the national debt]: …These guys [in Congress] are literally just on a bipartisan spending spree. And we just need an approach that’s going to be live-within-your-means, what-can-we-afford. I don’t want my four daughters to be saddling this national debt. And that’s a real concern.

FOX 9: Yeah, no parent wants that, that’s for sure. Now, you don’t want to expand government health care. You want market-driven solutions. Does it trouble you that each year the marketplace leaves more and more of us uninsured?

PAULSEN: Well, we’ve done some good things in Minnesota, even on a bipartisan basis. I’ve gotten some recognition and awards for that. But I think we have to do the same thing at the federal level. We need more competition to bring down costs. I think we also have to employ health information technology for e-prescribing electronical [sic] medical records. That’s how we can get into the next century to save medical costs. And I think we have to reimburse on a different model, so you’re not just reimbursing providers and physicians on the number of procedures they do, but on the quality of the procedures they do. So we’re focusing on preventative medicine. That’s how we’re ultimately going to save money and more people will be able to be insured.

Of these three poll findings, guess which one the Star Tribune covered?

When the numbers were more favorable for Pawlenty, the paper reported it, but when they weren’t, including this week, they left it out (the February poll wasn’t covered at all by the paper). There’s a reasonable explanation, says the Strib’s head politics editor, Doug Tice, who once toiled as a conservative columnist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. So why is Strib coverage selectively citing polls that favor TP?

“It’s not as conspiratorial as all that,” Tice said. “We decided to use the elections figures and Pawlenty’s approvals — good, excellent, fair, poor — and just cut it off at that. We didn’t have a big discussion of it. It was a judgment call to leave it out this time.”

He says sometimes with polls created by external polling firms — ones where the paper doesn’t have “control or know as much about the methodology” — the Strib tries to “keep the story modest.” (As noted above, the Strib did cite this Rasmussen data-point when it skewed Pawlenty’s way last fall.)

“It’s just not so that we use the polls when they’re good for some people and not use them when they’re bad,” he concluded. “If you’re convinced it’s that way, then you won’t believe me, but it isn’t so.”