Minnesota media mostly keep those two straight, but even locals find the profusion of Scandinavian surnames in the various recount venues vexing. Typical is KARE-11′s recent confusion of Roger Magnuson, an attorney who makes Coleman’s recount arguments before the state Supreme Court, with Eric Magnuson, the Supreme Court’s chief justice who doesn’t hear such cases due to his current service on the State Canvassing Board. (To make matters worse, there’s also a U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson in Minnesota.)

And don’t even get started with another name that’s so common and so golden in Minnesota politics that it’s inspired a term –”The Anderson Effect” — to describe the often ill-informed preference voters give to candidates who bear it.

You can look in any political direction in Minnesota and find an Anderson. The last major recount in Minnesota 46 years ago involved Gov. Elmer L. Andersen (slight spelling variant there). The last non-Jewish major-party candidate (as it happens) for the U.S. Senate seat that’s now under recount was Joan Anderson Growe in 1984 (the others, all Jews, being senators Rudy Boschwitz, the late Paul Wellstone and Coleman). And this year an unknown Independence Party candidate named Bob Anderson drew a whopping 10 percent of the vote, possibly helping an embattled incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann win re-election in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

And sure enough, there’s a pair of Andersons on the Minnesota Supreme Court: Paul and G. Barry. The latter has recused himself from the courtroom for recount matters while he serves in the recount effort as an appointed member of the State Canvassing Board, just like his colleague Eric Magnuson — who was himself appointed this year to be chief justice after the retirement of a man who spent more than a quarter century on the state’s highest bench … a man by the name of (you guessed it) Anderson.

On a day like today when both the state Supreme Court and the State Canvassing Board are in action, and Scandinavian names are flying through rarefied air in the halls of power like so many potato pancakes, Minnesota needs to consult its most time-honored pair of experts in the Abbott and Costello vein: Sven and Ole.

SVEN: Oy, Ole, this recount is taking longer than lutefisk. Who’s deciding this here thing then?

OLE: Minnesota State Canvassing Board, they say.

SVEN: Who’s on that?

OLE: Well, there’s Magnuson and Anderson…

SVEN: OK, Magnuson and Anderson are canvassers.

OLE: No, Magnuson and Anderson are justices on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

SVEN: You said Magnuson and Anderson are on the State Canvassing Board!

OLE: Yah, for the recount they are but then they go back to being on the Supreme Court.

SVEN: So who’s on the Supreme Court while Magnuson and Anderson are doing the recount?

OLE: Well, there’s Anderson …

SVEN: But you said Anderson’s on the canvassing board!

OLE: That’s the other Anderson.

SVEN: So there’s still an Anderson on the Supreme Court?

OLE: Yah, he told Norm Coleman’s attorney, “This is not Florida.”

SVEN: “This is not Florida?” Well, who said it was?

OLE: Was what?

SVEN: Florida!

OLE: Magnuson said it was.

SVEN: Magnuson at the canvassing board said this is Florida?

OLE: No, Magnuson at the Supreme Court.

SVEN: There’s another Magnuson at the Supreme Court?

OLE: Roger.