What was implicit in U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s remarks Wednesday, prominent Republican commentator Sarah Janecek made explicit Friday, first by writing that when Democrats say they want to “ensure votes properly cast are properly counted,” they’re really out to “smear our elections process.” Later she told a public television audience, “I’m pretty sickened by that.” In the meantime, Coleman’s campaign manager applied words like “dubious” and “tainted” to the current canvassing process.

In an article for her Politics in Minnesota Weekly Report, publisher Janecek wrote:

The outsider ethos that has plagued Al Franken since the inception of his candidacy two years ago now manifests itself in an even uglier fashion: casting doubt on Minnesota’s election process. … Franken and the DFL Party are not entitled to, at best, cast doubt on our process, or worse, create chaos. The PR and legal strategy appears to hang on “properly cast votes properly counted.”

Here Janecek cites Franken’s and five other DFLers’ use of the offending phrase, “ensure properly cast votes are properly counted.” She continues:

We’ve talked to a number of rank-and-file election judges (from both parties) this week and they feel insulted. These people volunteer their time year after year to do the Good Neighbor thing at the polls. To smear our elections process is to smear them, they believe.

Later Friday Janecek made one of her frequent appearances on TPT’s weekly “Almanac” show, where she said:

I really dread this entire process. Minnesota — highest voter turnout in the nation. We’re known for our clean elections. And you look at the rhetoric that’s coming from the Franken campaign about improper elections, improper votes cast, and it just — I’m sickened. I think in large part — Secretary Ritchie flagged this earlier — we have good people running our elections. So I’m pretty sickened by that.

This on a day when Coleman’s campaign manager, Cullen Sheehan, said in a press release:

Minnesota has a history of fair and clean elections, and we are committed to ensuring that this election is no different. That is why it is so troubling to us that …statistically dubious and improbable shifts … are overwhelmingly accruing to the benefit of Al Franken. And, as many of these unexplained and improbably vote swings are taking place on the Iron Range, we’re asking that local and state election officials provide us with the necessary data to reassure the public that the canvassing process has not been tainted.

If the Democrats’ phrase “ensure votes properly cast are properly counted” is enough to make Republicans ill, then the Coleman camp’s words — “troubling,” “dubious,” “unexplained,” “improbably” and “tainted” — must have pushed them way beyond Minute Clinic-sick.

The question is whether words — whatever their political stripe, emotional pang or medical impact — will distract Minnesotans and their public officials from seeing the electoral system through a professional and impartial recount process.

We’ve got one of the finest conservative congressmen in the United States, and he has been rewarded tonight with a resounding victory because he’s doing a great job representing our conservative values, standing up for real Americans, middle America, who want to make sure we have less government, lower taxes. Let’s give a rousing welcome to the just-re-elected 2nd District Congressman, Congressman John Kline!

State Sen. Geoff Michel and state Republican party chair Ron Carey took the mic after a Madia press conference.

Is the Republican Party of Minnesota unaware of current demographics in the West Metro congressional district it has held for 50 years? U.S. Census data suggests that the suburban-identity politics that Republicans advanced last week writes off a third or more of the 3rd District’s residents.

Republican officials claim the 3rd District’s demographic makeup makes their candidate — state Rep. Erik Paulsen, a married-with-children homeowner — better suited to replace retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad than DFLer Ashwin Madia, a single, childless renter.

Yet an examination of the latest demographics from the U.S. Census — released on Sept. 23, a week before the Republicans launched their demographic attacks — shows that the Republican concept of the suburban norm leaves out a significant minority of the 3rd District’s population.

Here’s what the U.S. Census says about how many people own a home or pay a mortgage in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District:

Total households: 252,410
Renter occupied: 23 percent (56,999 households)
Owner occupied: 77 percent (195,411)

Of owner-occupied housing units, those with a mortgage: 78 percent (151,571)
Of owner-occupied housing units, those without a mortgage: 22 percent (43,840)

Of total households, renters and owners without a mortgage, combined: 40 percent (100,839)

And here’s what the U.S. Census says about how many people in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District are raising children:

Family households: 70.5 percent (177,994)
Nonfamily households: 29.5 percent (74,416)

Married-couple family with own children under 18 years old: 26.8 percent (67,588)

Now married (except separated): 60.1 percent (152,151)
Never married: 30.5 percent (77,318)
Separated/Widowed/Divorced: 9.3 percent (23,745)

After Republicans made their demographics case last week — particularly state party chair Ron Carey’s statement that 3rd District voters should like Paulsen best because he’s “one of them” — reporters pressed questions about a racial or ethnic undercurrent to the argument. The topic is too hot to touch — Madia, the son of immigrants from India, said he didn’t hear it, while Paulsen’s allies denied it — but for what it’s worth, the candidates’ racial backgrounds are shared across the 3rd District’s population to starkly different extents, as reflected in U.S. Census figures:

Total population (one race and more than one race): 664,769
White: 83 percent (553,342)
Asian Indian: 1.3 percent (8,350)

Minnesota Democratic insiders have been making worried sounds about Bonoff’s performance on the stump since the start of her campaign. “She doesn’t appear to be, um, very good on her feet,” one delicately observed to the Monitor last month. That’s one way of putting it. Another is that she’s come off a total lightweight, prone to malaprop, misstatement and cheerful non sequitur. Last fall, Republican op Michael Brodkorb had a field day assembling highlights from Bonoff’s campaign launch event, which was replete with references to “countries like Asia and Europe” and her wish to be “the next Minnesota state representative.”

Brodkorb: Terri Bonoff’s kickoff press conference (:34)

Bonoff doesn’t come off much better in the YouTube clips that aren’t edited to make her look bad. Check out her closing remarks from a January forum held by the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council. Just previous to Bonoff, Ashwin Media had closed by pledging to fight for Minnesotans. 

“I think Ashwin’s right. He is a fighter, and I feel it every day, and I’m not certain that’s what we need in Washington.” [Wait. Fighting for people = good.] “I’m a fighter, too, but I fight in a different way… I saw what was missing in our state, and I thought, you know, I’ve been so fortunate, I went through a lot, but life’s turned out great for me, I’m gonna give back. And that’s why I went to the state Senate. And here I am, and I’m doin’ that again!”

That is to say: I mean well! Elect me!

If she loses the nomination to Ashwin Madia, a lot of Third District Republicans will be sorry to see Bonoff go.

There’s video of the MCLUC event below the jump.

Continued: Click “Read More” Third District forum at Mpls Central Labor Union Council, 1/31/08