Over a Candle

It looks like the 2008 Election is finally over. Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the election panel’s finding that Al Franken won, by the narrowest of margins – 312 votes, over incumbent Norm Coleman.

There was some concern Coleman might proceed to contest the election in the Federal Courts, but he said today he wouldn’t do that. And Minnesota Governor (lame-duck, probably running for President in 2012) Tim Pawlenty has said he will sign the election certificate.

I’m glad to see this election over. And I’m glad Coleman was defeated. He was too cozy with the Bush administration. And he needed to be tossed.

Will Franken make a good Senator? I don’t know. We now have six years to find out, I guess. I wish him well. And I feel confident that he can’t be any worse than his predecessor.

I must admit to being a bit nervous that the Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate (counting the two independents that usually vote with them and the two Senators who have been ill and absent). Assuming that count holds up, I’m not terribly comfortable with the Democrats having that much power. I have long been a fan of divided government (though lately I think there’s been a bit too much division). And this concentration of power gives me pause. However, I take some comfort in knowing that the Democrats have a penchant for being unable to stick together.

Now that that’s finally over, what shall we do next for our political entertainment?

Yes, that’s right; I’m tagging a post for the 2008 election. You know, the election that ended five and a half months ago.

Well, that election hasn’t ended up here in Minnesota. It’s still going on. And today another small step was taken to end it:

Al Franken wins round in Minnesota Senate race

Despite this victory from a three-judge panel, Norm Coleman has vowed to appeal the decision to the state supreme court. And several Republicans are encouraging him to take it all the way to the Federal Supreme Court.

I think I speak for many Minnesotans when I say, “We don’t care anymore. Just give us a second senator so that we can have two people fighting for us in Washington.”

But really, I don’t even care about that. If Franken and Coleman want to keep arguing about this in court, so be it. I just wish someone would stop the various groups sending me emails soliciting donations to continue the fight. I don’t want to hear about it anymore; I’ve donated all I’m going to to an election that should have been over months ago.

Maybe we’ll have a senator in time to know who to call incumbent on the ballot in 2014.

Yesterday, Harry Reid indicated that Al Franken may be seated in the U.S. Senate before the resolution of the court challenge being pursued by Norm Coleman. He seems to be backing off that claim a bit now, saying that they may not try to seat Franken for a few weeks.

They shouldn’t be trying to seat Franken at all. Not because Franken lost the election. Not because, as some would have it, the election was stolen. Rather, they shouldn’t do it because there is still an outstanding legal challenge.

Whether or not we think Coleman’s challenge has any merit, whether we think any of the proposals Coleman’s attorneys are making to the court are reasonable, there is a process in place. That process should be followed. We need to see this through to the end in order to preserve the integrity of the election process.

I don’t want Coleman back in the Senate. I don’t think that comes as any surprise. I think he’s been a lousy senator, and I’d like to see him out of office. But I don’t think the Senate ought to try to subvert or circumvent the legal process that is playing out in Minnesota. And I hope Franken is smart enough to wait.

Well, the 2008 Minnesota Senate election is over. I mean, in the way that the 2000 Presidential election was over, just before the case went to the Supreme Court.

Al Franken is up by 225 votes after the official recount has been finished.

The next step? Probably the contesting of the election by Norm Coleman. He will make arguments to have various things changed or even restart the recount. It could be weeks or months before the court makes any ruling.

I do find it ironic that Coleman originally didn’t want any rejected absentee ballots counted. Now, he’s arguing that not enough of the rejected ballots were included in the recount.

It was completely predictable that, no matter what the outcome of the recount, this election would wind up in the courts. So I’m not surprised that that’s where we find ourselves at the end of the recount. I’m just glad that the drama in Illinois makes our process, even with all the name-calling and finger-pointing, seem rather civilized by comparison.

With the closeness of the Minnesota Senate race, there has been more talk of third-party spoilers. Dean Barkley, of the Independence Party (the party that got Jesse “the Body” Ventura elected governor of Minnesota), ran in the Senate race, and received around 15 percent of the vote.

While I suspect few people would deny that he has the legal right to run, many people seem to think that he was wrong to do so. Depending on who you supported, you may believe he made it harder for your candidate to attract the needed votes for a decisive victory. Thus the argument about Ralph Nader (from 2000) resurfaces.

But I’m less interested in talking about whether third party candidates should run than about the people who vote for them. (I think it’s obvious they should run, if they choose. I do think, however, that at this point, Nader is just running because of his ego. I don’t know that that was true in 2000.)

I heard, more than once this election cycle, the old argument that a vote for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote.

Hogwash.

Why should I vote for a candidate I don’t believe in if there is a candidate running who I can, in good conscience, support?

Take the Barkley case. I did a good bit of research on the three Senate candidates. Not surprising, I agreed with Coleman on none of the issues. I agreed with Franken on a number of issues, and disagreed with him on some others. Likewise with Barkley. Indeed, I agreed with Barkley about a few more things than I did with Franken.

I decided, based on the issues, I could support Franken, and I thought he had a better chance than Barkley. But that doesn’t mean that I think those who voted for Barkley wasted their vote.

Had I decided that I couldn’t vote for Franken (for whatever reason), what should I have done?

If a vote for Barkley was a wasted vote, then I should have either voted for Coleman or not at all? I suppose Franken supporters would have said that I should vote for their candidate. But on the assumption that I could not, in good conscience, support him, that wouldn’t be an option. I wouldn’t have voted for Coleman. So should I stay home? Isn’t a vote for Barkley better than remaining silent?

I suppose some would have it that I should pick the lesser of two evils between the two main party candidates. But that undermines the right of conscience of the voter. I have, at times, been unable to vote for either major party candidate. At those times, I have sometimes stayed home. (In my more anarchical moments, that seemed the best choice.) But if there is a candidate that I can support, even if it is not a major party candidate, why shouldn’t I vote for him or her?

Only those who believe that the Democrats and Republicans exhaust the reasonable spaces along the political spectrum could imagine that everyone should be able to vote for one of those candidates.

I understand that partisans want to get everyone out to vote for their candidate. But voters ought to vote for those who they believe will best support their ideals. Voters can make mistakes. But I will not reward a major party candidate for being the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Voting for what you believe in is never a waste.

All those getting ready to head to Florida for the winter might want to reconsider their reservations. It seems Minnesota is getting ready to be Florida this year.

Today, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that Norm Coleman’s margin of victory is 239 votes over his challenger, Al Franken.

That’s 239 votes. Out of 2.9 million.

Another 100 votes were found for Franken just today because of a reporting error from one precinct. Who knows what the next week or two will uncover?

And yet, when the margin was a few hundred votes higher on Wednesday, Coleman came out and suggested that Franken should concede, thus preventing a mandatory recount: “I recognize that because of my margin of victory, Mr. Franken has a right to pursue an official review of the election results. It is up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct.”

Coleman accomplishes two things with this comment. The first is that he makes it sound as though Franken would need to request the recount, that Franken would have to mistrust the vote totals. Of course, this is false. Franken doesn’t have a right to pursue an official review, at least, he doesn’t merely have such a right. The people of Minnesota have a right to such a review and the Secretary of State’s office has an obligation to conduct such a review. It’s mandatory under state law. What Franken could do is concede, and thus preempt this obligation. But Franken needs to do absolutely nothing in order for such a recount to take place. A recount doesn’t rest on Franken’s shoulders. It is demanded by state law. Coleman’s suggestion that Franken circumvent the normal procedure in this case is disingenuous at best.

The second thing Coleman accomplishes is to suggest that Franken allowing the normal procedures to continue will cost the taxpayers money. It is true that the taxpayers will have to pay for a recount. But such a recount guarantees that our wishes are made known. Franken hasn’t cost us this money. Coleman hasn’t cost us this money. The closely divided electorate, the taxpayers themselves, who are so evenly split between these candidates have brought this about. And we want to know the answer.

If Coleman believes that he won a convincing reelection, he has failed to learn anything from this campaign. (Likewise, if Franken winds up the victor, he must recognize the closeness of the results and not take it as a mandate for his positions.) The people of Minnesota were not won over by either of these candidates. Thus the incredibly close results. The next six years should mean, for the victor, that they need to rebuild our trust in their leadership.

Coleman’s attempt to suppress the lawful process of deciding this election are simply one more ugly moment in what has already been a very ugly campaign in Minnesota. Let’s allow the recount procedure move forward. We’ll have our answer in the next month or so.

Today, eight days before the election, Al Franken visited my campus.

He was on message and energetic (not easy, I imagine, since he’s been flying all over the state to campaign nonstop).

It was a little poignant for me. I saw him speak in the Ballroom at the student union. It was the same place I was, six years ago, when we heard the news that Paul Wellstone had died in a plane crash. The fallout of that plane crash led directly to Norm Coleman beating Walter Mondale, who reluctantly stepped into the campaign for the deceased Wellstone.

Now Franken is neck-and-neck with Coleman to try to win back the Wellstone seat for the DFL (the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, for those not in Minnesota). I’ve never thought he was a perfect candidate, and I still don’t. But his positions, as he’s outlined them during the campaign, are more compelling than Coleman’s.

Of course, I don’t agree with Coleman on any of the major issues. So almost anyone else would be an improvement. Still, having heard Franken speak twice, and hearing his interviews and debate performances, I think he will be an earnest, hard-working Senator. If I’m going to wait for someone who is perfect, I’m likely to be waiting a very long time.