Senate

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar gets more plaudits in today’s New York Times for soldiering on as Minnesota’s sole senator. And she’s staying popular as she stays busy — though that isn’t quite good enough for one University of Minnesota political-science blog.

The danger of paper cuts was greater than the chance that Al Franken would lose his 225-vote lead to Norm Coleman today as Minnesota officials ripped open 351 more ballots from last year’s U.S. senate race in front of the state’s election-contest court. Franken increased his lead by 87 votes. “I think we are done,” said Franken attorney Marc Elias afterward.

Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann says he has no regrets about voting for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley over Al Franken. But his ticket-splitting raises the question of what role DFL voters played in setting the stage for Minnesota’s recount drama. Political observers say Democrats who didn’t vote for Franken don’t have to take the blame. As one observer put it, “party loyalty isn’t what it used to be.”

Senate Republicans advise Norm Coleman to make a federal case out of his election contest, if that’s what he wants to do. But one legal expert says he’d only be wasting his time.

Norm Coleman made his umpteenth recent press appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” today, pressing his case in the media in advance of an imminent appeal to the state Supreme Court. The show’s trio of co-hosts and the former senator were like four legs of a very shaky table when it came to presenting [...]

Here’s a 16-minute video recap of Minnesota’s five-month slog (so far) to elect a new U.S. senator. It’s the work of those stalwart Franken-Coleman multimedia chroniclers at The UpTake.

The Federal Election Commission didn’t tell Al Franken what he wanted to hear about setting up his own fund to cover election-contest legal costs. Franken’s legal rhetoric about “no end in sight” didn’t hurt his case, a commissioner tells MnIndy, but the specter of future recounts did.

Joe Friedberg, the star attorney who gave the closing arguments for Norm Coleman last week in Minnesota’s Senate trial, predicts his client won’t prevail in the election contest without appealing to the state Supreme Court.

The last day of the Minnesota Senate trial played out like the closing minutes of a Final Two basketball game. With the courtroom’s wooden bleachers packed with fans and reporters, Al Franken and Norm Coleman each gave the ball to the man on their legal team who they figured had the best shot making closing arguments.

Norm Coleman told donors who are worried about the leak of personal and financial data from his campaign Web site to cancel their credit cards and call him with questions. A Coleman contributor in Atlanta who did just that — shelling out $16 for an expedited replacement card — tells the Minnesota Independent that no one answers the phone at the number Coleman gave.