MnIndy file photo

This is some extremely shoddy journalism from Mickey Kaus. The Slate blogger asks if “ACORN chicanery” elected Sen. Al Franken, who won a razor-thin 2008 race for the U.S. Senate after eight months of legal challenges. Kaus links a “tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune story” to argue that fraudulent votes might have stolen the election for Franken.

ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process … that’s 480 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken.

Let’s look at this.

First, the story Kaus links to is actually a column by the conservative Katherine Kersten, whom the paper refers to as “a Twin Cities writer and speaker,” and who limns the column with attacks on the “liberal agenda.” Kersten has no proof that any illegitimate votes were cast, only that “Minnesota’s laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose.”

Second, “surviving the recount process” in Minnesota was more difficult than it sounds now. Ballots were counted once and recounted twice, and challenged ballots were counted in a hearing that was streamed live. Republicans had a lot of time, and a lot of incentive, to make the cause that thousands of ballots were illegitimate. They made their case. They narrowly lost.

Franken doesn’t have to face voters again until 2014, so the attempt to smear him here is just a way of draining the ACORN story for all it’s worth and casting illegitimacy on the Democrats’ Senate majority. It’s one thing for, say, Newsmax to engage in this; I am mystified as to why Kaus would do it. From arguing that the 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore by blocked recounts to arguing that ACORN maybe, kinda-sorta, might have registered an illegal voter in Minnesota. Strange.

Todd Herman, who runs new media at the RNC, heartily endorses the ACORN-Franken conspiracy.

UPDATE: Media Matters reports that, in addition to Slate, The Fox Nation and Gateway Pundit have picked up Kersten’s opinion piece to “baselessly cast doubt on Franken’s campaign victory.”

David Weigel is a politics reporter for the Washington Independent.

Franken wants the state’s highest court to affirm the ruling by a three-judge panel that he won the U.S. Senate contest by 312 votes and order that he be issued an election certificate immediately.

“For over four months, the citizens of Minnesota have been represented by only one United States Senator, and the effects of this delay are increasingly significant,” the brief reads.

The issuance of the certificate is key because it would almost certainly allow Franken to take his post in Washington, D.C., while any appeals to the federal courts play out. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has equivocated on whether he would sign an election certificate once the state-court process is completed. He told Minnesota Public Radio last month that he would scrutinize the Supreme Court’s ruling and the strength of Coleman’s case before making a decision.

Coleman’s appeal calls on the state’s highest court to remand the case back to the three-judge panel to deal with purported errors in its initial ruling. The former senator’s brief focuses primarily on varying standards utilized by local election officials in determining which absentee ballots would be counted. It argues that the disparate treatment of ballots is a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Coleman wants at least 1,359 rejected absentee ballots added to the tally. His appeal also argues that 132 ballots that were lost should not be counted and that some ballots were wrongly counted twice.

Franken’s brief concedes that some mistakes were made by local election officials in determining whether to reject an absentee ballot. “There is, however, no evidence that such errors were deliberate or intentional or that they determined the outcome of the 2008 senatorial election,” the brief reads.

The brief also emphasizes the thoroughness of the legal proceedings before the three-judge panel, noting that it heard from 142 witnesses, examined nearly 2,000 exhibits and considered roughly 20,000 pages of legal documents.

“It was their burden to show that Norm Coleman won a majority of the votes,” said Marc Elias, Franken’s lead recount attorney, on a conference call with reporters this afternoon. “He failed to meet that burden and I would say he failed to meet it by a wide margin.”

Elias expressed confidence that Franken will be seated once the state Supreme Court rules. He dismissed recent comments by Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele expressing enthusiastic support for Coleman to continue the legal fight in federal courts. “I don’t follow closely what he has to say about the law in Minnesota,” Elias said of Steele.

Oral arguments before the state Supreme Court are slated for June 1. Only five judges will hear the case. Justices Eric Magnuson and G. Barry Anderson have recused themselves because they served on the State Canvassing Board that certified Franken the victor.

(WDCpix)

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has Norm Coleman’s back. When asked by Hotline On Call recently whether he thinks Coleman should concede the U.S. Senate contest, Steele’s response was emphatic: “No, hell no.”

The RNC chairman went on to vow to take the fight to the federal courts if necessary. “Whatever the outcome, it’s going to get bumped to the next level,” he told a Hotline reporter after Saturday night’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner. “This does not end until there’s a final ruling that speaks to whether or not those votes that have not been counted should be counted. And Norm Coleman will not, will not jump out of this race before that.”

It’s merely the latest indication that the Republican leadership in Washington will do whatever it takes to keep Al Franken from being seated — and therefore give President Obama a veto-proof majority in the Senate — for as long as possible.

***UPDATE***

The Democratic National Committee issued a statement in response to Steele’s comments:

“Michael Steele’s comments this weekend regarding the Minnesota Senate election have completely erased any thought that Norm Coleman’s continued legal fight is about anything more than pure politics,” said DNC spokesman Frank Benenati. “If there was anyone left who actually believed that Norm Coleman, Tim Pawlenty, and the national Republicans actually cared about the true winner of this race rather than obstructing the seating of another Democratic Senator, Michael Steele’s comments this weekend should have disabused them of that notion.”

To his Hoosier State audience, Steele recalled predicting on Fox News, just before Sen. John McCain announced his vice presidential nominee, that McCain would choose “one of two Ps: Pawlenty or Palin.” When pressed on Fox, Steele forecasted a Palin pick.

“Now I wasn’t sure,” said Steele, adding (with evident relish), “but I sure was hoping.”

Steele made his remarks to the Vanderburgh County (Ind.) Right To Life Annual Banquet last week, where both he and Palin were invited speakers.

In his own remarks (video), Steele took what may have been in part a shot at Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (a Democrat), who oversaw the statewide hand recount that resulted in a 225-vote margin of victory for Democrat Al Franken over Republican Norm Coleman:

To Todd [Rokita, a Republican], the secretary of state: Hold down the fort, bro. You know they’re coming. That’s how they’re attacking the cause, is through the secretary of state’s office, throughout the country.

As in Palin’s speech (see video here), the bulk of Steele’s comments addressed the topic around which the event host is organized, with assertions such as “Embryonic stem cell research is just plain wrong” and “We have never had a Congress and a president so hostile to the rights of the unborn.”

Here’s a video clip of Steele’s introduction of Palin on April 16, with a transcript below:

Hello. He’s baaack. (laughter) I have the — This is going to be fun for me. I have the distinct honor of introducing your next speaker. And it is a very particular pleasure because I remember sitting, like many people were, waiting and watching and wondering.

wondering who the presidential nominee would be.

And I was on Fox that evening, the night before the big announcement. And the team I was doing the internet shot asked me, “Lt. Governor, who do you think it’s going to be?” And I said, “Well, I’ve narrowed it down to two people. It’s one of two Ps: Pawlenty or Palin.” And they said, “Really? Why?” You know, because they had all these other names. And they said, “Who do you think it’s going to be?” And I said, “I think it’s going to be Palin.”

Now I wasn’t sure — but I sure was hoping. (Applause)

And the reason had become very clear for me about eight months prior, when I had the privilege of going to her state to speak at their convention and to watch her and to spend time with her. And I had the privilege before that, as part of a cruise that I was on for some political activists (see New Yorker story here), to again see Sarah and watch Sarah do her thing. And I remember thinking to myself, as I began to understand what she had accomplished and was accomplishing as the governor of Alaska, that no one wanted to mess with this woman — that she was about her business because she believed in the honor of public service and she believed in the value of commitment to the people who entrusted her with leadership.

And so on that Saturday when she was announced as the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party, I was one proud Republican. I was one very happy Republican.

And like so many in this room, I watched this party light up. I watched activists — Democrat, Republican and independent — tune in and pay attention and listen. And I watched her take the world stage by storm.

She’s just begun to write the chapters for this country and its history book and its future. And so I’m honored to present to you the storm that is the honorable governor of the great state of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Palin’s travel to Indiana for the speech raised hackles in her home state — the same day, her attorney general nominee failed to gain confirmation, a historic first at the Alaska Legislature — which she acknowledged in her remarks:

They condemn anything that I do, but especially traveling outside the state to speak in another state at a function like this. Which is ironic, because these are the same critics who would love to see me outside the state forever, permanently, you know, outside the governor’s office anyway. But they had heartburn about me leaving.

Pawlenty’s own frequent travels raised eyebrows during the last legislative session and last summer when his pursuit of the vice presidential nomination was in high gear. Now Pawlenty’s political future still seems strong but remains uncertain in its specifics: Will he run for a third term as governor in 2010, seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, or both?

Pawlenty’s possibly dimming presidential hopes remain somewhat less publicly apparent than Palin’s, and his travel schedule — still heavy even during another contentious legislative session and a horrendous budget situation — hasn’t drawn much recent fire. (The Minnesota governor was in Los Angeles over the weekend for an education conference.)

But Pawlenty will have a chance to raise his national profile by saying something quotable (as he did last year) at the state fishing season opener on May 8.

WORD ON THE STREET: The next RNC chairman will be Norm Coleman, after he loses his recount fight and big donors see Michael Steele’s March numbers.

Of course we’ve heard this rumor before.

I proudly stand in support of Senator Norm Coleman’s pursuit to see that Minnesota’s voters are enfranchised by having their ballots counted. If voters do not have confidence in elections, then they will not have confidence in their elected leaders. That is why the judges’ review of thousands of additional ballots in Minnesota is critical to the democratic process. The Republican National Committee remains committed to Norm Coleman’s campaign and confident that when the recount contest is complete, he will be re-elected to the U.S. Senate.

And here are some excerpts from Politico’s report on Coleman’s finances:

Coleman’s efforts to make ends meet on a public servant’s salary were a persistent theme throughout his 2008 reelection campaign — and burned him politically time and again. …

Under the right circumstances, that argument might have provided Coleman with a populist edge and, indeed, during his reelection campaign last year, Coleman argued he was more in tune with working Minnesotans than his highly polarizing Democratic opponent, former comedian Al Franken. …

But the steady drip of stories about Coleman’s own finances, many of them appearing at the most inopportune times, may have had a more lasting impact on the race than the short burst of negative publicity that accompanied Franken’s admission [of failure to properly pay taxes]. …

“I’m not quite sure why, but there’s been a lot more scrutiny of Norm’s finances than any other politician I can think of in Minnesota. At least more than any other politician who hasn’t done anything wrong — or at least, we don’t think he’s done anything wrong,” said Coleman friend Vin Weber, himself a former Minnesota congressman. …

According to an analysis of members’ personal financial statements by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, at least 26 members of the Senate were less wealthy than Coleman in 2007.

It took six ballots for Steele to garner the necessary 85 votes to win, finally beating back South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson by a 91-77 margin. Current chair Mike Duncan led on the first ballot with 52 votes, but his support steadily eroded, and he dropped out after the third round. Steele got a key boost when former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell dropped out after the fourth ballot and endorsed the eventual victory.

But the likelihood of an election contest in either state or federal court has not deterred speculation on Coleman’s next move if he ultimately is defeated. The Washington Post reports today that one (unnamed) “well-connected GOP operative” said that Coleman is being mentioned as a possible chairman of the Republican National Committee.

There are currently at least six contenders for the RNC post, including current chair Robert “Mike” Duncan, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and South Carolina chairman Katon Dawson. Coleman would bring a couple of attractive attributes: an established track record as a prolific fundraiser and geographical diversity to a party increasingly dominated by the south.

According to the poll, 76 percent of respondents expressed approval of the Democrat’s handling of the transition period, with even 59 percent of Republicans sharing this view. In addition, 51 percent of those polled indicated that Obama had done enough to explain any discussions that his representatives have had with Blagojevich regarding the Senate seat, while 34 percent believed that the president elect needs to be more forthcoming about any communications.