Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

A SurveyUSA/KSTP poll released Wednesday evening found that a slim majority of Minnesotans would vote for a ballot initiative that would place a ban on gay marriage in the Minnesota Constitution. According to the poll, 51 percent of registered voters surveyed said they would vote in favor of the amendment, while 40 percent say they’d vote against it. Eight percent said they would not vote either way. The poll differs greatly from two other polls conducted on the issue so far this year.

SurveyUSA polled 552 registered voters on Monday and Tuesday in a survey that has a margin of error of 4.3 percent. The poll is a huge shift from a similar poll last spring that showed 63 percent of Minnesotans would vote for a constitutional ban on gay marriage and 33 percent who would not.

Two other polls have been released so far in 2011 related to the anti-gay marriage amendment. In January, the Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage — two groups that lobbied for the amendment — commissioned a poll by Lawrence Research, whose owner assisted with the campaign to ban gay marriage in California. It found that 57 percent of respondents would vote for the amendment compared to 41 percent who would vote against it. In contrast, a Star Tribune poll last week found that 55 percent oppose the amendment while 39 percent favor it.

The Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, released on Friday, shows that 55 percent of Minnesotans oppose inserting a ban on same-sex marriage in the Minnesota Constitution. Only 39 percent favor such a ban, it found. The poll stands in stark contrast to a survey conducted by anti-gay marriage pollster Lawrence Research and paid for by the National Organization for Marriage, two groups that oppose rights for same-sex couples. A bill to propose such an amendment passed the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday.

The Minnesota Poll asked 806 Minnesotans, “Please tell me if you would favor or oppose amending the Minnesota constitution to ban same-sex marriage.”

Republicans favored a constitutional ban on gay marriage by a margin of 65 percent to 30 percent, while wealthier Minnesotans, those making $75,000 or more, also supported the amendment 50 percent to 46 percent. A plurality of Greater Minnesota respondents opposed the amendment at 49 percent to 42 percent.

Democrats and independents opposed the amendment with 71 percent and 57 percent respectively. And residents of the seven-county metro opposed it 59 percent to 36 percent.

The poll has a margin of error of 4.7 percent.

A poll cite by Republican legislators offered findings that were essentially reversed: 56 percent of Minnesotans said only heterosexual marriages should be recognized in Minnesota and 42 percent said they supported same-sex marriage. The poll, by the National Organization for Marriage, Minnesota Family Council and Lawrence Research, also says that 74 percent of Minnesotans want to vote on the marriage amendment. The poll’s authors have refused to release the questions and other poll data.

Maple Grove Republican Sen. Warren Limmer, the chief sponsor of the bill, has touted that poll’s findings. In a fact-check piece Thursday, MPR’s PoliGraph looked into Limmer’s statement that 78 percent of Minnesotans want to vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“Limmer’s claim is rooted in a survey commissioned by two groups that have a stake in the debate over same-sex marriages,” MPR’s Catharine Richert wrote. “Because there are no other current polls to compare Limmer’s numbers to, this PoliGraph test rates an inconclusive.”

Newspapers throughout the state have come out against a Republican bill that proposes a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage in Minnesota. The geographic breadth of opposition to the amendment, from the larger Winona, Duluth and Minneapolis to the southern Minnesota farming communities of Albert Lea, New Ulm, Fairmont and tiny Grant County in Western Minnesota suggests it may be a liability for Republicans instead of the turnout machine of years past. On op-ed pages, editors have called the amendment “unnecessary,” “malicious” and a “waste of time” — with one paper even called out several GOP lawmakers as “chickens.” So far, no editorial boards at Minnesota newspaper have come out in support of the amendment.

“Don’t put bigotry up for a vote” the Star Tribune urged in its weekend editorial: “In reality, enshrining this form of bigotry in the state’s premier governing document would be a step backward. Rather than reinforce an already discriminatory law, core values of equity and fairness should compel Minnesotans to repeal DOMA and extend marriage equity to all.”

In “Lawmakers answering a question no one is asking,” the Winona Daily News had strong words for area legislators, calling them “spineless” for supporting the anti-gay marriage amendment:

Chicken. It’s not nice to call names, but what other word is there that describes it? Spineless? Pandering? Mean? Are those any better? Reps. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa and Greg Davids, R-Preston, as well as Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, are chickens. They’ve ducked any responsibility for terrible legislation and tried pinning it on the voters of Minnesota. The issue: Writing an amendment into the Minnesota Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

It’s the second editorial the Winona paper has penned on the amendment. The first, “GOP definition of marriage is hateful,” didn’t mince words:

The message the GOP is sending gays and lesbians could not be clearer. We like you (or are at least forced to say that for the cameras) — just not as much as straight people. This new movement isn’t just legislation to define marriage. It’s legislation to prove we’re bigoted. This isn’t Minnesota nice — it’s Minnesota malicious.

The Albert Lea Tribune, too, had sharp words for Republicans. From its piece entitled “Amendment is just a red herring“:

Bringing up the proposal for amendment about same-sex marriage at this point in the legislative session is like someone pointing and saying, “Hey, look! Is that an airplane?” while they sneak your french fries.” You might have heard of such moves before. In high school and college classes for critical thinking and in political science, instructors define such distractive arguments as a “red herring tactic.”

The New Ulm Journal was a bit less critical, but warned the GOP about legislating through referendum in its editorial, “Beware of casting political ideas in stone.”

“As we said earlier, constitutional amendments are serious business that should be used rarely. It shouldn’t be used to squash the political process and institutionalize one party’s political ideas,” the paper wrote.

In “Gay marriage issue is about clashing cultures,” the Fairmont Sentinel came out against putting a marriage amendment on the ballot:

What interest does the state of Minnesota — or any state — have in the commitments that consenting adults make to one another? The simple answer is: None. But things are a little more complicated than that, of course.

We raise this issue because Minnesota lawmakers are considering putting a gay marriage ban in front of voters in 2012. The ultimate question is: Should gays have their unions recognized by the state and be entitled to all the rights and privileges this implies? As of today, they are not.

The complicating aspect is state involvement. By democratizing the issue, we allow the traditions and beliefs of some citizens to deny state sanction to the hopes and desires of others.

The Iron Range’s Mesabi Daily News chastised the GOP for offering the amendment, but also hit the DFL for some bills the paper saw as a waste of time in its piece, “Both parties should get down to work on budget.” The editorial board wrote:

DFL state Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook is fed up with Republicans for their attempt to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2012 election ballot that would define marriage in Minnesota as only between a man and woman. He said it is a waste of valuable legislative time with four weeks left until the constitutionally-required end of the session on May 23. He correctly points out that work should be focused on how to bridge a $5 billion deficit for the next biennium that begins on July 1.

We couldn’t agree more.

But what Bakk does not include in his criticism of the GOP amendment proposal is that one of his own DFL Range colleagues, Sen. David Tomassoni of Chisholm, has also dived in to the constitutional amendment pool — or cesspool, pick your choice of words.

The Grant County Herald, a paper serving the county’s 6,000 residents near the South Dakota border, wrote, “The GOP is wasting time on marriage amendment” and called the measure divisive.

“Even though state law already defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, that is apparently not good enough for Republicans — not when they sense a golden opportunity to drive a wedge between Minnesotans with a divisive issue that will guarantee a huge conservative voter turnout in 2012,” the paper wrote. “A huge conservative voter turnout will, of course, help elect even more Republicans, who then, at last, will get to work on the other big problems facing Minnesota. Or so they promise.”

Another county newspaper, the Mille Lacs County Times serving the north central part of the state, said that “Republicans are on a rampage.”

“Now that they are in the majority, Republicans are hell-bent on passing legislation they never campaigned on. How often we hear that if I had known they were going to pass the ban on gay marriage, I wouldn’t have voted for them… And here we thought this was going to be a session about jobs and fixing the economy.”

The neighboring Mille Lacs Messenger suspects that efforts to amend the Minnesota Constitution to ban gay marriage may backfire. The paper’s editor Brett Larson wrote, “Betting on bigotry may backfire this time.”

“I know how I’ll be voting if the amendment makes it to the ballot, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Senator [David] Brown is shocked by the number of those who agree with me. In fact, Republicans may already be getting cold feet, as they’ve softened the language to potentially allow for civil unions,” wrote Larson. “I suppose Sen. Brown bases his opposition to gay marriage on the Bible, which says all kinds of things are wrong that we now accept (divorce, eating pork, calling your brother a fool) and right that we don’t (slavery, sexism, forced circumcision). If we really want to base law on the Bible, we’re gonna need a whole bunch of new amendments.”

The Duluth News Tribune, in “Let’s please get back to what’s important,” found the amendment to be a distraction:

Few precious days are left in Minnesota’s legislative session, with a budget gap still unfilled and still totaling in the billions of dollars. Yet some lawmakers in St. Paul are focusing on — gay marriage?

It’s not like any Minnesotan should have been surprised by an effort this year to put the gay-marriage issue in front of voters. Such efforts have failed in the past when Democrats had control of at least one of the legislative chambers. Republicans control both now, for the first time in 38 years, so expect the following question on your fall 2012 ballot: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?”

So let’s give these matters the blip of attention they deserve. But then let’s please get back to fixing the financial health of our state, to ending wars, to curbing out-of-control spending and to other truly serious matters.

The University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Daily wrote, “GOP agenda needs amending,” arguing that a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is bad for business.

“For a party that claims to have businesses’ backs, Republicans are presenting a potentially detrimental move,” the editors wrote. “While this was passed 8-4 on party lines by a Senate committee and is one step closer to showing up on the ballot in 2012, GOP lawmakers whose names will also be on the ballot should remember that oppressive and unfair actions like this will not be forgotten.”

The McLeod County Chronicle , southwest of the Twin Cities, said it supports the ban on same-sex marriages that currently exists, but they opposed putting that ban in the Minnesota Constitution in their editorial titled, “Use constitutional amendment process only when necessary.”

Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant may have stated it best last Sunday. “… statutes and rulings are whiteboards that can be erased. Constitutions are granite.”

First of all, we happen to agree with the Republicans’ intent. Gay marriage should not be on equal status with traditional marriage. We can live with statutes for same-sex arrangements to protect their legal rights, but we do not support stepping over that line.

We already have a same-sex marriage ban on the books. Republicans argue that “activist judges” have overturned state statutes on same-sex marriages in other states, and only a state constitutional amendment can stop such rulings.

While that may be true, there needs to be a lot more debate before the voters of this state go to the polls to make informed, not emotional, decisions. Let us do the debate first and see if the public actually wants that constitutional vote etched into granite.

Rep. Keith Ellison got some cheers and some jeers in editorial pages this week, as pundits put their spin on politics at the end of the year. The Nation called him the “most valuable representative,” while the Star Tribune’s Jon Tevlin told him to pack his bags and move to New York. Tevlin gave Reps. Michele Bachmann and James Oberstar their marching orders as well.

In the Nation’s Progressive Honor Role, Ellison scored big points for his work on peace issues:

Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, a former civil rights lawyer and state legislator, is still identified as “the first Muslim elected to Congress.” But the Congressman is making a name for himself as a progressive leader with global reach. Frequently called into action by the State Department (not just by Hillary Clinton but also by Condoleezza Rice), Ellison has a higher international profile than all but a few House members; he uses it to remind the global community—and Americans—that “religious tolerance has a much longer pedigree in America than some of the intolerance we’ve seen lately.” His unprecedented visit to Gaza was followed this year by a call on President Obama to do more to ease the blockade of the Palestinian territory. Evenhanded and diplomatic in his approach, Ellison argued that “fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals.”

But he drew jeers from the Star Tribune’s Tevlin for not voting to censure Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York. Tevlin’s column offered “free metaphorical bus tickets out of Minnesota to people I found objectionable, immoral or just plain un-Minnesotan in 2010″:

Rep. Keith Ellison. He didn’t vote to censure Rep. Charlie Rangel, found guilty of 11 counts of unethical behavior. Representative, what don’t you understand about tax trouble? Oh, right, there’s that. Despite knowing about Rangel’s problems, the good people of New York voted him back in a landslide. Hop on the bus to the Big Apple, Ellison, where you will no doubt thrive.

Tevlin also dinged Bachmann: “You have to give the Republicans credit for their sense of humor in naming her to the Intelligence Committee” and Oberstar: “It is only fitting that a transportation czar get a ticket on Greyhound, which started in his district.”

With a week before the election, major daily newspapers and high-profile officials are making their picks for Nov. 2. Democratic state Sen. Tarryl Clark and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz both grabbed endorsements from the state’s largest newspaper on Sunday, and Independence Party candidate for governor Tom Horner gained the support of the Pioneer Press. Walz also got the nod from Republican former Gov. Arne Carlson over the weekend, while GOP candidate Chip Cravaack picked up the endorsement of the Duluth paper.

The Star Tribune’s endorsement listed a good number of Clark’s accomplishments — but it took three paragraphs of complaints about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s performance in Congress before it got to them.

“Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has appeared at least eight times since January on Fox News’ Sean Hannity Show,” the paper said. “How many mayors or county commissioners in Bachmann’s Sixth District swath of central Minnesota have had an equal number of conversations with her this year?”

Walz got the nod from the Strib this weekend as well.

“Walz has been a stellar advocate for veterans, responsive to his region’s key employers and consistently earned high marks from local officials for his assistance on matters small and large, particularly the weather-related disasters that have hit this district,” wrote the paper’s editorial board. “He’s more than earned the right to represent this swath of southern Minnesota for another two years.”

Likewise, Walz got the support of former Gov. Carlson, who calls the Democratic incumbent “the clear choice” in the First Congressional District race.

“I’m continually impressed with Tim’s leadership and his ability to bring people together in southern Minnesota communities,” Carlson said. “It is clear that people identify with Tim’s experience as a teacher, veteran and football coach and I think that helps them lay aside partisan predispositions and join with Tim to solve problems.”

Carlson has already thrown his weight behind IP candidate Horner, who continued racking up endorsements. The Pioneer Press joined the Star Tribune, Forum Communications paper and ECM Publishers in backing his gubernatorial run.

Walz also got the endorsement of the Rochester Post-Bulletin and the Albert Lea Tribune last week.

Republican Chip Cravaack also scored an upset endorsement from the Duluth News Tribune, a paper that traditionally backs Rep. James Oberstar.

Oberstar cried foul on the paper, which skipped face-to-face meetings this year in exchange for a raucous debate. TheUpTake caught up with him this weekend:

The Duluth News Tribune, however, disputed Oberstar’s criticisms:

Tom Horner

Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner got a double dose of good news over the weekend. The Star Tribune’s editorial board wrote a glowing opinion of Horner’s candidacy, and though it stopped short of endorsing him, the paper left little to the imagination as to who the paper will pick for Nov. 2. Then, this morning, former Gov. Arne Carlson endorsed Horner’s candidacy.

“Independence Party candidate Tom Horner ranks as a serious contender, and he deserves full consideration by Minnesotans who in more ordinary times might not look at a third-party candidate,” the Strib’s editorial board wrote. “That’s especially true of those who value a more centrist, pragmatic approach to governing than has so far been offered up by the GOP and DFL candidates.”

The paper says that the GOP’s Tom Emmer is too far to the right and the DFL’s Mark Dayton is too far to the left.

On the paper’s news side, reporter Baird Helgeson notes that some business leaders who would have backed a GOP candidate in the past are lining up behind Horner. As Helgeson notes, many who would have ordinarily backed Emmer — and who backed Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s two runs for the office — are finding Emmer too extreme or are concerned about his lack of details in addressing Minnesota’s massive budget deficit.

“For the first time in my life, I have not blindly supported the Republican candidate for governor,” said Tom Merickel, a vice president with Taylor Corp. told the Star Tribune. “There’s nothing wrong with electing the most qualified person to be governor. If it means stepping away, momentarily, from the Republican Party, then so be it.”

MinnPost’s Doug Grow notes that the paper didn’t know until the last minute that both pieces would appear in the paper at the same time because of the separation between news and opinion parts of the paper.

Monday morning brought news that Carlson, who governed as a Republican, is throwing his weight behind Horner. The duo will travel to St. Cloud, Rochester and St. Paul today to spread the announcement Carlson first made on KARE-11 Sunrise. He believes Horner is the best candidate to help the state out of its economic woes and said the state’s deficit is the result of years of bad fiscal mismanagement in Minnesota government.

“If you believe, as I do, that our problems are too large and the other candidates too extreme to be trusted with the future of the state, this election demands we take another path,” Carlson said in a statement.

Bachmann’s campaign manager, Gina Countryman, told the Strib that she “has absolutely no reason to question the president’s citizenship, as much as her detractors wish was the case. She’s attending so she can share her passion for our nation’s founding and belief in fiscally responsible, limited government with those in attendance.”

Farah said the newspaper unfairly tarnished Bachmann for her appearance in a “Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger,” a documentary created by Coral Ridge Ministries which has come under fire from a Jewish group, the Anti-Defamation League, for its statements about the Holocaust.

Farah wrote, “Rep. Michele Bachmann is a target of the local and national media for one very good reason – because she’s an extremely effective advocate of the uniquely American-style of liberty, justice and morality.”

He continued, “Bachmann, who will be a speaker at WND’s ‘Taking America Back’ conference this fall, is the real deal – guts, convictions, the ability to articulate the vision, fearless, uncompromising. We need to support incumbents like her when we take the Congress back in November.”

Former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer. Photo: Paul Schmelzer, Minnesota Independent

Updated: Shortly after the Star Tribune reported that the faith-based Riverview Community Bank had been shut down by the state, we — like others — noticed that the paper’s online report deleted a reference to Mary Kiffmeyer, the sometimes controversial former Secretary of State and current state representative who has close ties to the bank. And, according to Lexis-Nexis, the Pioneer Press’ online story was also modified since publication Friday to remove mention of the Big Lake Republican. Why?

Strib business reporter Chris Serres says it’s a “relevant question” that has a “mundane answer.”

“We had very tight space in Saturday’s paper and had to cut information on the story that ran online, so I cut out Kiffmeyer,” he told the Minnesota Independent, adding that it was his choice, rather than an editor’s, what got cut. “The online version was updated to match the latest print version of the story.”

But the deleted line appears to have saved only 18 words (here’s a pasted-in version of the piece at a Google Group; the story doesn’t appear in Lexis-Nexis), and the first version of the story, which ran at 419 words, is actually much shorter than the 554-word piece that’s available at StarTribune.com.

To that, Serres said he wanted to focus more on the “God stuff,” instead of Kiffmeyer’s ties to the bank, which he feels fewer people know about. A Federal Reserve Bank agreement, signed by Kiffmeyer on Oct. 9, lists her as president and director of American Eagle Financial Corporation, which owns and controls Riverview Community Bank.

“I thought that stuff was more interesting than Mary Kiffmeyer,” he said.  Then, noting the dozen or so complaints he got, he added, “given the number of phone calls and emails, there’s a pretty good argument it could’ve been in the story. Relevance is often in the eyes of the beholder.”

However, as I prepared this post, I noticed that the Pioneer Press has also removed mention of Kiffmeyer from its story. According to Lexis-Nexis, this innocuous-seeming line was removed from the online story: “Mary Kiffmeyer, former Minnesota secretary of state, was on the bank’s board of directors, according to the Minnesota Bankers Association’s bank directory.” (In one instance, the line does appear in an AP-syndicated version of the story.)

PiPress reporter Nicole Garrison-Sprenger has not yet responded to my email and voicemail queries on the topic. I did call Serres of the Star Tribune back to ask if Kiffmeyer or her representative called him to request modifications to the story.

“No. Absolutely not,” he told me. “I never got a call from anyone at the bank, a board member, anyone, period.”

But he seemed less certain when I again asked him if he — not an editor — removed the mention of Kiffmeyer.  He twice replied, “I think I took it out.” Finally, he replied, “I had to cut stuff out of the story to make it fit. Yeah, it was my call.”

Update: Garrison-Sprenger emails that the Pioneer Press currently has two versions of the story online. The first one, which didn’t include Kiffmeyer’s name, was published before she’d looked into the bank’s ownership and board members; the newer one, which ran in the print edition, includes mention of Kiffmeyer.

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.