Norm Coleman
gregladen | June 29, 2010Coleman Steps Aside: Franken is Senator
Let us not forget, Coleman was an absolute jerk during the whole process. And,he was a sucky senator. Subsequent to Franken's establishment in office, he has proven himself equal to the best. Indeed, his lack of experience in elected office in general and the senate in particular is rather hard to detect.
gregladen | July 21, 2009In any event, more people seem to like Al Franken than who voted for him ... if we compare the 42% of the vote he got with the 49% approval rating he now has. (details)
This is partly a function of increased favorablity following the nasty recount process, but is also reminds us of something else: There was a third candidate in this race. If Dean Barkley was not in this race, would the outcome have been so close? And, who would have won?
The common knowledge on the street at the time of the election is that about two thirds of Barkley's votes would have been for Franken had Barkley not…
gregladen | July 7, 2009Here is Al Franken being sworn in to the U. S. Senate:
Do you remember The Ad? The ad that made everyone in Minnesota who kinda didn't like Norm Coleman go over the line and realize that Norm Coleman is the scum of the earth? You can read about that here but I'll summarize it for you briefly and tell you why I even bring it up.
When Al Franken was running for the Senate, he would often tell a particular story about Paul Wellstone. In this story, Senator Wellstone is running along side his son, who is, in turn, running second or third in a cross country race as part of his high school…
gregladen | June 29, 2009Time Pawlenty has become famous for his ability to be extraordinarily vague. Now we are seeing this in relation to the expected Minnesota State Supreme Court decision on the Franken-Coleman Senate election contest.
For the most part, Pawlenty has signaled that he will only sign the election certificate if he is instructed to do so by the court. He has implied, therefore that he will not sign it if he is not instructed even if the court has made a decision.
He has not explicitly stated which court he is referring to, but it seems that he is expecting that the state court may instruct him to…
gregladen | June 18, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court spokesperson Lissa "No-that-is-not-a-typo" Finne has told Greg Sargent's Blog that the other blogs suggesting that the court would issue a decision today are incorrect. Finne indicates that sometimes the court tells the involved parties on Monday about a decision on Thursday, other times they come out with notification only minutes before the decision is announced.
So, this means ... who knows. Don't be holdin' yer breath is all.
gregladen | June 18, 2009According to various sources which can not be named but that are being reported by the Capitol Report, the Minnesota Supreme Court is likely to make a decision today, Thursday, June 18th. If the decision is anything other than to support (uphold) the decision of the three judge panel which previously ruled in Franken's favor, several legal experts in the state and across the country are going to drop dead on the spot of shock and chagrin.
It is not know if Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty is going to be ordered by the court to produce an election certificate, but it is generally thought…
gregladen | June 17, 2009Minnesota Post reports from the Minnesota Independent a Twitter Report from Matt HIll indicating that Al Franken and Norm Coleman were on the same flight to Washington DC yesterday.
The outgoing Senator, Coleman was in First Class. Franken was in Coach.
Just thought you'd like to know....
gregladen | June 8, 2009... Entire state breaths collective sigh of relief ...
Speculation was mounting in St. Paul and elsewhere that Gov. Tim Pawlenty's decision not to seek a third term in 2010 -- perhaps to seek the 2012 Republican U.S. presidential nomination -- means Coleman is planning to end his legal battle with Democrat Al Franken to overturn his recount loss in November's Senate race and instead run to replace Pawlenty.
But unnamed Coleman sources say that's not the case, the Washington publication Politico reported Monday.
"Not at all," said the source. "He ran for U.S. senator, wants to continue being…
gregladen | June 4, 2009Legal experts are largely undivided in the opinion that Norm Coleman's Minnesota Supreme Court bid to overturn a lower judicial panel's decisions regarding the vote count in the Minnesota Senate race is senseless and has no chance whatsoever of winning.
This opinion was widely held prior to the presentation of arguments by Coleman, but now, with some real face time in the high court behind us, in which we see the arguments for real, and see the reaction by the judges, it is confirmed and certain that Coleman's fate is sealed.
But what is not known at this time is the fate of Governor Pawlenty…
gregladen | May 12, 2009Attorneys for Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) have asked the Federal Election Commission for permission to use campaign funds to pay his legal bills stemming from allegations that a Coleman confidante funneled improper payments to the lawmaker via his wife.
Coleman and his wife have denied any wrongdoing, but the former CEO of Deep Marine Technology, a Houston, Texas, company, filed a lawsuit claiming that Nassar Kazeminy, a DMT investor, "coerced DMT to make improper payments of $75,000 to Laurie Coleman through her employer, for the ultimate benefit of her husband."
A similar lawsuit was also…
gregladen | May 12, 2009I always liked Jesse. I didn't agree with about half of his policies, but I did not have the automated lefty knee jerk reaction against him that almost everyone I know had. Hey, he did after all, beat Norm Coleman in that governor's race!
Of course, he also beat my candidate, Humphrey. But in so doing Ventura demonstrated what happens when we Democratic Farm Laborers in Minnesota get together to put up a candidate for governor: We screw it up. Humphrey was not the candidate for that election. So we got Ventura. Hatch was not the candidate for the last election. So we got Pawlenty.
I…
gregladen | April 26, 2009Only 28 percent of Minnesotans think Coleman's current appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court is appropriate. Sixty four percent think he should give up now. Seventy three percent feel that he should not go beyond the State Supreme Court if he loses there. The will of the people has been heard in both the voting booth and the polls.
This will not affect former Senator Norm Coleman's strategies, because the will of the people is of no concern to him. Coleman will continue with the State Supreme Court appeal, and when he loses there (and he will) he will continue on to the US supreme court.…
gregladen | April 22, 2009Norm Coleman has requested a more "leisurely" (as the Star Tribune calls it) schedule for his recount appeal. What is more leisurely? The Coleman team would like oral arguments to begin no sooner than mid-May, and easily later than that.
source
Clearly, the hypothesis that Norm Coleman is simply playing a delaying game stands, still, unrejected.
gregladen | April 21, 2009The Star Tribune reports that Norm Coleman has filed an appeal with the Minnesota Supreme Court. He did so late Monday. I believe this is nine days after the lower judicial panel's decision, which places this appeal just under the deadline. Clearly, Coleman has a strategy in mind that has little to do with the advancement of Democracy or the representation of Minnesotans. He should be ashamed of himself. But he appears to lack that emotion. Perhaps he was knocked on the head as a kid or something.
gregladen | April 20, 2009A joint project by Democrats has flipped traditional fund-raising on its head, by starting a campaign aimed at collecting $1 a day from supporters "to make Norm Coleman go away."
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a new group working to get like-minded candidates elected, has teamed up with Howard Dean's Democracy for America to tap the wallets of Democrats who are disgruntled by the five-month-old ballot contest in Minnesota between Mr. Coleman, the former Republican senator, and Al Franken, the Democrat.
source
gregladen | April 18, 2009Eric Black of MinnPost Dot Com has made an interesting observation. Last week the three judge panel charged with hearing Norm Coleman's "Election Contest" (that's a thing ... an election contest is a kind of suit claiming that an election did not go properly) finished their job. They ruled against some of Coleman's claims, but they did count extra ballots as Colman had insisted. That addition of new ballots -- all absentee ballots -- resulted in Franken's lead growing.
From that ruling, the plaintiff has ten days to file an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The appeal itself is a…
gregladen | April 13, 2009The judicial panel hearing Coleman's challenge against Franken in the Minnesota Senate Race has made its decision: Franken is the the winner of the election and should be certified. The procedure is this: A ten day period occurs after which the Governor certifies the election. Unless there is a challenge in the State Supreme Court.
Colman has been ordered to pay Franken's legal costs.
Coleman is expected to continue to obstruct democracy. About half the people of this state knew he was a bastard before this started. That number has grown.
GIVE IT UP, NORM!!!!!!
gregladen | April 7, 2009According to news reports, the Minnesota Election Contest Judicial Panel finished their review of votes, counting just under 400 absentee ballots that were previous excluded. These votes were included as the result of Former Senator Norm Coleman's legal challenge to the election. With Senator Al Franken's lead over Former Senator Norm Coleman rising from 225 at the start of the process to 312 as of a few moments ago, it would appear that Coleman's challenge has backfired.
The judicial panel still has a few more issues to rule on.
One of the issues os the ca 130 votes that were lost in a…
gregladen | April 6, 2009The three judge panel convened for the purpose of addressing the Coleman challenge of the Minnesota Senate Election won by Al Franken (after a detailed recount) will meet today to examine ballots they had asked brought to the court. The panel had asked for four hundred ballots, but a small number of these (just over a dozen) had already been included in the recount and thus will not be examined.
The panel will examine the 387 or so ballots today, and decide which should be counted. Tomorrow, in a two step process the ballots will be opened by the judged (step one) and counted by court…
gregladen | March 31, 2009The judicial panel that has been off somewhere deciding what to do about the Coleman election challenge has ordered 400 additional ballots opened and counted on April 7th.
If (and we do not know this for a fact) these are THE remaining ballots to count, them Coleman would have to get a statistically unlikely majority to overtake Franken's lead of 225 votes. I suppose this is possible. So I suppose we'll be sitting on the edges of our respective seats for the next week.
There does not seem to be any systematic meaningful bias in which candidate is likely to come out ahead in this group.…