MN Sen Recount (UPDATE: Stuart Smalley certified winner, lawsuit forthcoming)

[Lunar]

Stop depressing me, Lunar.

As a Democrat, I didn't want him to win either.  But you were the one calling the race for Franken on this thread long before the facts came in.  Might as well get used to it.

Having 59 seats is bad for Dems for another reason - every single race in 2010 will become a referendum on 60.

I understand, it's just that it's so difficult for me to understand why anyone would vote for such a clown to represent their state.  Obviously, I'm bitter, and deservedly so.

Not the first time a clown has been elected.

Meh, at least this clown helps your broader cause in multiple ways

The Democrats have... one "vulnerable" seat in 2010 in Reid's seat?  I suppose the hopeful people might look at CO, IL, NY, HI, CT, and WI?  2010 is largely the year of Republican defense.

I mean, the ratio of Democratic seats to Republican seats in 2010 compared to other years (due to coincidence) is staggering, although slightly less so thanks to CO-DE-IL-NY which recently became open. 

I agree here.  If Democrats have a bad year, they could still end up with no net loss in the Senate.  This is basically what happened in 1982.  Republicans actually picked up a seat that year because Democrats had so many seats to defend.  

  Yeah, just mentioning that the "keep it below 60" argument should apply in the vast majority of competitive races in 2010.

If I had a Republican investor friend asking me for honest advice, I can't say I'd suggest investing it in any GOP challenger at this point.

[Lunar]

Stop depressing me, Lunar.

As a Democrat, I didn't want him to win either. 

Yeah, you're some Democrat.

Ah, I'm a pit more forward looking than some other Democrats.

I think it's better for our party to be at 58 than 59 senators, and I think Franken is unappealing to a lot of people we're trying to reach out to.

Maybe I'm a bit of a pragmatist, but worthy of snarky comments?  Fssssh

[Lunar]

Talking about preventing total Democratic dominance of the Senate should play really well in a midterm year.  Midterm voters aren't geniuses, but they're much smarter about politics than your average 2008 voter.

Talk about filibusters will be all over Fox News and the usual GOP outlets, so one would imagine that Republicans will understand the stakes.  Take a look at an internal poll sometime—these kinds of arguements work surprisingly well with politically interested Indy voters. 

It's important to remember that these arguments, especially if they get boggled down in explanations of cloture votes, have limited effectiveness.  But they *do* reach a limited but undeniably[ish] significant amount of people who are undecided between the two candidates personally but do not like Nanci Pelosi or possibly Barack Obama (forget Reid, no one knows who he is).

For example, Sebelius, who would be far more effective of a senator than Franken, even if I can't name any policy disagreements between the two, will be quite hampered if she goes for Brownback's open seat.  I think she's a bit more favored than some other forumites here, but it'll be a steeper climb that it would otherwise have been if Franken had lost.


And, of course, like I've said a million times, the ideal scenario was for Coleman to "steal" the election, thus pissing off activists to work four times as hard in 2010.

[Lunar]

Having 59 seats is bad for Dems for another reason - every single race in 2010 will become a referendum on 60.

Does that really matter, though? Either the Democratic government will be popular, in which case this argument will go over like a lead balloon, or it will be unpopular, in which case they don't need this detailed an argument for voting out Democrats.

Well, if Obama is unpopular in that state, then yes, it's a more explicit way to link the challenger to supporting Obama, no matter how conservative the Democrat's credentials may be.

Even if he is popular, they can still make the "blank check" argument and win SOME converts.  The [whorish] media is totally willing to argue it for the GOP too despite the fact that 60 seats means nothing.

[Lunar]

The Democrats could just get the 60th seat from an Obama state (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire all come to mind.)

Regardless, not all voters in these states, especially Independents who favor Obama, necessarily want Obama to have a "blank check"

[Lunar]

Won't matter if the GOP manages to seriously botch a seat, like they've done every election since 2004. Imagine for example if Voinovich retires and the GOP nominates Ken Blackwell to replace him.

What are you talking about?  I'm not talking about the Dems making it to 60 or not (they probably will), but rather that 59/60 threshold existing coming into 2010 making it tougher for the Democrats overall.  It's sort of a paradox that it might be easier to go from 60 to 61 or 58 to 71 than to go from 59 to 60/61.

That "blank check" argument might scare Sebelius and Henry from running.

[Lunar]

Well, I guess we disagree.  Like I've said, I've read his books and I  think I understand a bit of how he thinks.

But he's an unappealing figurehead of Democrats and someone prone to general embarrassment or outbursts or other silliness that could catch onto news cycles.

But whatevsky, we'll probably disagree on his effectiveness towards accomplishing a national Democratic agenda, but could we at leasts agree that if Coleman appeared to have "stolen" this election - it would have helped Democrat activism for 2010 and onwards?

[Lunar]

If Franken wins I'm going to become a Republican because he may or may not have groped my aunt in the New York subway 3 decades ago.

It's not like there's any difference between a Republican-voting independent and a Republican.  It's merely a superficial & aesthetic change, I don't see why not.  I also suspect Sam has other, less personal reasons, for his move as well.

[Lunar]

He NEVER predicted a Jim Martin victory, on election night or otherwise, WTF?

[Lunar]

He NEVER predicted a Jim Martin victory, on election night or otherwise, WTF?

Correct. As I recall he thought it would be close with Obama turnout and said he wouldn't be surprised if Martin won. That's not predicting a Martin victory.

In general he seems extremely skeptical of Martin's chances late in the game

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/georgia

I have no idea what VanderBlubb is smoking since he never predicted any result.

[Lunar]

He NEVER predicted a Jim Martin victory, on election night or otherwise, WTF?

He had Martin at around  10% win, what a hack!!

And that was on election night, when he only lost by 3% or so.

[Lunar]

Wow, attack the savior and you get six responses in five minutes.

Nate Silver is a hack.  2008 was a Democrat year.  The next time that there's a level playing field, Silver will be off so much that people will wonder why we ever listened to him.  His predictions may be 'accurate' but his analysis is always terrible, filled with liberal cheerleading.  If you can't see that, then you're stupid.  Next.

Of course his analysis is a Democratic hack, but if you're going to post stupid-ass, obviously false claims that make you look stupid and uninformed, you're going to be quickly rejected.   Next.

[Lunar]

My opinion on what Coleman is doing:

1) Helping his future career: no matter what he does (visiting professor, lobbyist, future candidate), he'll be better off the more artificial controversy injected into his loss.  Of course, the national and state GOP definitely wants as little legitimacy inserted into Franken's victory as possible.

2) He has nothing to lose. 

[Lunar]

We'll see.  I mean, he obviously should not cross the line and whine too much.  I think contesting this election -to a point- could make him a stronger candidate to challenge Franken in 6 years should Franken have a weak 1st term.

Meh, doesn't matter, I doubt he has a future electoral political career

[Lunar]

Franken and Coleman agree to count 900 ballots

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/37004419.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUec7PaP3E77K_0c::D3aDhUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU

TPM claims that 255 are from  Hennepin

[Lunar]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/03/tense-moments-as-coleman-camp-seeks-to-stop-recount/#more-34112

So Coleman's campaign agreed to count 950 ballots today, yesterday, but today they were all like nooooooooo legal stop don't count them, but then today again they changed their mind and said ok maybe count them go ahead

[Lunar]

The victory margin will end up being larger than the Gregoire-Rossie one from '04

[Lunar]

mmm, well I hope Franken does a good job

While not official, Al Franken will almost certainly be the next senator from Minnesota. 

Barring assassination or other physical impairments or a scandal bigger than Sam's to force him to resign.

There's still hope Ronnie

[Lunar]

MASS - sorry to be blunt, do you even know what you're talking about when you say the Republicans will gain "a lot" of Senate seats in 2010?

[Lunar]

MASS - the thing is, if there are 2:1 more Republican seats running, it'll be hard for the GOP to pick up more than *one* seat.  If the Republicans picked up two seats in 2010 it'd be a major upset.  Three would be a revolution

[Lunar]

If the Republicans picked up two seats in 2010 it'd be a major upset.  Three would be a revolution

Dude, come on. Wait and see how things go nationally.

Am I being unreasonable?  Outline the reasonable scenario where the Republicans gain 3+X or more and the Democrats gain less than X.

[Lunar]

If the Republicans picked up two seats in 2010 it'd be a major upset.  Three would be a revolution

Dude, come on. Wait and see how things go nationally.

Am I being unreasonable?  Outline the reasonable scenario where the Republicans gain 3+X or more and the Democrats gain less than X.

I'm not saying that you're being totally unreasonable. We don't have the "right" seats up in 2010. That being said, give Obama has bad first half of his first term and then the fact that midterms are typically bad for the party in power, we may see the GOP get quite a few seats. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't rule it out. You guys are getting way too cocky. Look at Iosif's post above mine. He's already saying that Obama will have coattails in 2012.

I have no comment on 2012, don't change the subject to be "you guys" and talk about something I didn't say in order to prove your point -- that extremely intellectually dishonest.  I do think that the GOP gaining 2 seats in 2010 would be a major  upset and gaining 3 seats would be indicative of something larger (I called it a "revolution" - but perhaps a more accurate term could be supplies - "A MAJOR SHIFT?")

I'm talking about 2010 and I have no reason to think that the GOP gaining 2 seats then wouldn't be an upset.  2012 the GOP should be favored to gain seats given the ratio of Dem to Rep seats up for grabs.  But this isn't about 2012

[Lunar]

I'm interested to see what Franken can pull off as a U.S. Senator. The likely answer to my question is "not much" but we'll see. It'll be pretty entertaining whether he's successful or not.

That "not much" probably will be because Reid & Durbin & Kerry won't take Franken seriously unless he's the defining vote for something (unlikely).

I'll be interested to see if Reid will be forced to promise Arkansas a lot of pork in exchange for Lincoln's vote on the Union bill

[Lunar]

It's official kids:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50405S20090105

Franken's to be certified the winner

[Lunar]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-05/al-franken-is-a-big-fat-target/