Recount’s running total has Franken in front — a first

This morning, for the first time in Minnesota’s drawn-out election for Senate, major media outlets began to report a lead for Democrat Al Franken over Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman. The news came soon after the State Canvassing Board began its fourth and perhaps final day of evaluating ballots the campaigns had challenged during the statewide hand recount of the Nov. 4 vote. As with the two- and three-digit leads that Coleman has held over the course of weeks of recalculating and recounting since Election Day, Franken’s lead is merely a snapshot of a still-changing running total — a turn of the tide that could stay turned or could turn back again