Grumpy Middle-Aged Politicians: The Ongoing Saga of Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman

MINNEAPOLIS-St. PAUL - The front page of the online version of the St. Paul Pioneer Press tells the story, ”MN Senate Race Vote: Coleman leads by 292, percentage of votes counted: 86.0%, number of challenged ballots: 4,740”. It asks us to check back at 8:00. At the moment it is 7:57 by my watch … it is a good watch, one of those Seiko Kinetic timepieces … it winds itself, so as long as I am not trapped in a cave somewhere in a mine deep underground this watch should continue to function … in fact even if I were buried in rubble all I would have to do is dislodge my wrist just enough to move it a few inches back and forth to keep my watch ticking. It is made of titanium … I like this watch … I would recommend it, particularly for individuals like myself whose pores seem to exude an aura charged with our 2nd law of thermodynamics, something called “entropy” — sweaters, socks, knit caps, boxer shorts, watches, all seem to slowly disintegrate by sheer proximity to my corporeal essence. It is now 8:03 … the numbers have not changed, I feel cheated … hoodwinked, bamboozled … suddenly being buried in a pile of rubble doesn’t seem so bad. The words on my screen clearly say “check back DAILY at 8 p.m.” It’s 8:05 people … and these numbers have not changed … wait … refresh … lets see what happens if I hit the wonderful refresh button … hmmm … nothing, Coleman still leads my 292. It is now 8:12 and I hit refresh one more time … and … voila!! Coleman now leads by 344, with 91.1% of votes counted and with 5,943 challenged ballots.

If only my watch had a built in refresh button … you’d think it would for what I paid for it … I could hit refresh after, say, a particularly noxious election season, flushing away all the attack ads and all the scare tactics and the insults like so much burger grease. Presently I switch over to the Star Tribune online page .. they also are keeping count. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Norm Coleman leads Al Franken by 340 votes.  Apparently St. Paul must somehow be privy to four additional votes for Norm.  The Star Trib is a little flashier and has a few more bells and whistles than our St. Paul counterpart. There is a tab that invites you to “Take the Ballot Challenge”, if you have the patience to complete something called a “log in” you can actually see a sampling of some of the contested ballots and judge for yourself which candidate these ballots should count for. Of course this count is meaningless, but don’t tell all the “log in” people this, they believe they are actually performing a service.

I would not want to be one of the “official judges” counting these ballots. Apparently there are representatives from both parties and both campaigns sitting in some proximity to these counters watching their movements popping tic-tacs and checking to see whether the judges are performing their duties appropriately … worst of all some of these representatives promise to be Lawyers equipped with notepads and blackberries.  Many of these judges have to travel to far off places in Minnesota … places like the town of Buhl … where they forgot to call in their votes on Nov. 4 … that’s right, their excuse was they simply forgot. Other election officials have ended up finding ballots under seat cushions and in the trunks of cars … because you see, being entrusted with a vital role in facilitating our democratic process means its ok to toss a stack of ballots in the back of your Buick while you hit the local bar and simply forget that they’re there until a week later when you recover from your hangover. The real purpose of this recount however, if I understand the nature of these shenanigans, is to count all of the 2.9 million votes a second time. You see, in Minnesota, which is famous for wild rice soup, hot dish, and a brand of cold that can freeze motor oil in your engine block, there are laws for precisely this sort of thing. State law mandates a hand recount whenever the margin of victory in an election is less than one-half of 1 percent of ballots cast … for which this election more than qualifies as the two candidates were separated by some 725 votes.  The recount promises to be meticulously executed with a scientific precision befitting our modern electoral apparatus … these counters have devised a complex and ingenious system to tackle this daunting job … they call it the “piles” system … what they intend to do is create four of these “piles” in each site, one for Coleman ballots, one for Franken ballots, one for contested ballots, and one for invalidated ballots … the system is mind boggling in its brilliance. These counters have until Dec. 16th to complete this task. At that time, like globs of sludge washing ashore from a chemical spill, the proof will be in the pudding and we will have a Senator from Minnesota … land of 10,000 lakes. Our Senator will almost certainly be either Norm Coleman or Al Franken … which is disturbing as neither of these fellows are what you might deem “native Minnesotans”. Norm, he of the gorgeous wife and blinding teeth … grew up in a far away land called Brooklyn, NY where it was said he was picked on for wanting to grow up to be a politician. Norm has a nice firm handshake and he makes sure to look people in the eye and he has a habit of filing lawsuits against his opponents in the days leading up to elections. On the other hand, Al Franken, he of the recovering alcoholic wife and sagging jowls … was born in Minnesota, but he left at a tender age and made a name for himself as a comedian on both coasts, returning to his “home state” only after he’d exhausted his particular brand of comedy. The thing about Al Franken that strikes me even as I’ve watched him perform his little radio show at the MN state fair … is that he really is no longer funny … apparently, politics is now a refuge for broken down comedians. The alarming thing, however, is that both of these individuals are really New Yorkers at heart … which makes me wonder, are there no Minnesotans qualified to run for Senate? I’d propose an experiment to investigate this phenomenon … I would kidnap a squirrel from New York’s Central Park, tag him, and set him lose somewhere in downtown St. Paul … I’d wager this furry fellow will be wearing an Italian suit and running for congress within a year … unless of course he finds work as a stand up comedian.

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