UPDATED after the jump with more new newspaper editorials.

The Times’ editorial today is a shade less emphatic than the one that ushered former Sen. Tom Daschle out of consideration as President Obama’s secretary of health and human services. Former Sen. Coleman is unlikely to do what Daschle did when faced with “Daschle ought to step aside” and heed the Times’ advice with same-day service.

But the Times’ headline, “‘It’s Over, Norm. O.K.?,’” says it all with a phrase that’s direct and succinct, if borrowed (from former U.S. Rep. and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough). It’s almost worthy of a tabloid rival like the New York Daily News, which set the standard in the 1970s with the famous “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

Compare it to the Star Tribune’s editorial headline on Wednesday, “Expedite appeal in election contest,” which said nothing.

The Las Vegas Sun also lays it on the line today in an editorial under the heading “Time to step aside: Republican Coleman should cede Minnesota Senate race to Democrat Franken.” Its kicker: “The longer (Coleman) persists in his charade, the more he hurts his own state.”

The Jamestown (S.D.) Sun today reprints an editorial (“Coleman’s time has run out”) that ran last week in the Albert Lea Tribune — one of the earliest in the recent crop of Minnesota newspaper advice for Coleman. 

Also new today are in-state editorials from the St. Paul Pioneer Press (“we make the case for a state high court review”), the St. Cloud Times (“time to stop fight”), and the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Daily (“Certify Franken”). (Hat tip: Braublog)

Related: 
Give up, Coleman: Quotes from the election-contest courthouse and beyond
More free advice for Coleman from media, punditry
The conservative case for why Coleman should drop out
As world awaits order in senate trial, sideshows and catcalls continue
Drumbeat grows louder for Coleman to concede soon

Yesterday Daschle explained the tax issue surrounding his newer un-jalopy-like wheels and more than $350,000 in unreported income and improper deductions related to it: “My failure to recognize that the use of a car was income and not a gift from a good friend was a mistake. It was completely inadvertent. But that’s no excuse, and I deeply apologize to President Obama, to my colleagues and to the American people.”

Update 12:08: Daschle has withdrawn his nomination as HHS head.

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Rep. Jim Ramstad Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke

GOP Congressman Jim Ramstad has asked President-elect Barack Obama’s advisors to consider naming him to lead the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — and he’s enlisted top Democrats to help with his bid.

Ramstad, a Republican who is retiring this year after nine terms in Congress, approached Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) before Thanksgiving to discuss an appointment in the Obama administration. He would need support from Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, if Obama were to choose Ramstad to lead the $3.3 billion agency.

“Sen. Kennedy thinks very highly of Congressman Ramstad and feels that he is uniquely qualified to serve the country in this position,” a Kennedy spokesman said.

But Ramstad has also gotten support from allies in the House: Kennedy’s son, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) have encouraged Obama’s senior advisers to make the appointment.

A Rhode Island Democrat, Kennedy has had two conversations about Ramstad with Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Obama’s incoming chief of staff, and John Podesta, who is leading the transition team, a Congressional Democratic official familiar with the conversation said.

At an event last month at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Kennedy introduced Ramstad to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who Obama likely will appoint to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy jokingly introduced Ramstad to Daschle as the “next SAMHSA administrator,” a Congressional Democratic official said.

Although Ramstad’s name has been floated as the next “drug czar,” or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ramstad’s congressional allies believe that SAMHSA is a better fit and a more realistic possibility for the nine-term congressman.

The Kennedys and Ramstad have developed a close bond during the past few years borne from their experiences with addiction (Ramstad is Rep. Kennedy’s AA sponsor) and their work on legislation requiring insurance companies to provide the same coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical illnesses. Ramstad and Kennedy  are chairmen of the House’s bipartisan Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus.

In October, Congress approved Ramstad and Kennedy’s so-called mental health parity bill, which Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) initially championed before his untimely death in 2002. The bill was used as the vehicle to pass the $700 billion financial rescue package.

Ramstad may see less opposition as SAMHSA head than he would if named “drug czar.” While several interest groups oppose Ramstad as “drug czar,” sending a letter to Obama criticizing his opposition to needle exchange programs and medical marijuana, mental health and addiction advocates praised him.

“Appointing Jim Ramstad as SAMHSA director would raise the profile of addiction disorders within the agency,” Lizbet Boroughs, the deputy director of governmental relations at the American Psychiatric Association, said. “The past two administrators have been more mental health experts than addiction disorders.”

SAMHSA had not been decimated by budget cuts during the past decade or politicized. The biggest challenge is coordinating federal policy at the local level, Boroughs said.

Andrew Sperling, the director of legislative affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said Ramstad would be a “fantastic addition” to the agency.

Other advocates, however, had a more tepid reaction.

“It’s a mixed bag at best,” Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “On the one hand, heading SAMHSA would put him in a good position within the Administration to champion the cause of implementing ‘parity’ fully. And he would no doubt fight for higher overall levels of drug treatment spending and be able to build Republican support in Congress.”

“But at the end of the day the most important issue isn’t funding for treatment per se, but funding for quality treatment. For years Rep. Ramstad’s parity bills excluded methadone and other Opioid treatments proven by decades of research to be the most effective treatment for heroin addiction,” Nadelmann said. “This was a subject of dispute between him and Senator [Paul] Wellstone (who was the lead sponsor of the Senate version).”

Despite the buzz over Ramstad, his supporters acknowledged there are other candidates and that Obama is getting advice from other sources, including Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, an early supporter of Obama’s. Patrick has worked to increase spending on programs to help children coping with mental illness.

“Ultimately people have this is the president’s pick, at the end of the day,” the Congressional source said. “A lot of people are advising Barack and he will take a lot of suggestions from a lot of people and make up his own mind.”

A spokesman for Ramstad did not return phone calls for comment.

Related: Up in smoke: Will Ramstad’s faith-based earmark hurt his chances to win drug czar post?

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.