Matt Yglesias

Franken Wins Again

From the Star Tribune:

After a trial spanning nearly three months, Norm Coleman’s attempt to reverse Al Franken’s lead in the recount of the U.S. Senate election was soundly rejected today by a three-judge panel that dismissed the Republican’s lawsuit.

The judges swept away Coleman’s argument that the election and its aftermath were fraught with systemic errors that made the results invalid.

Apparently Coleman has more fruitless appeals to make, so the seating of Al Franken can continue to be delayed.

It’s worth remarking a bit on the incredible solidarity the Minnesota GOP is showing with their colleagues’ broader interest in obstructing the inevitable here. Representatives John Kline, Erik Paulsen, and Michele Bachmann, along with Governor Tim Pawlenty, are all seeing their quest to get Minnesota’s fair share of pork and other parochial interests undermined by the fact that their state only has one Senator. Normally, I would expect politicians in that kind of situation to put the interests of themselves and their state ahead of the interests of their political party. In general, the level of party discipline that the Republicans have been able to muster in 2009 (thus far) is really impressive and goes against a lot of conventional wisdom about how the American political system operates. I hope some smart political scientists are doing some thinking about this.

Burris Changes His Tune on Blago Contacts

It seems to me that Roland Burris never should have accepted Ron Blagojevic’s offer to have him become a pawn in the corrupt governor’s insane gambits. And he certainly shouldn’t have done this:

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

The good news, though, is that Blago is on his way out one way or another. But meanwhile the equally corrupt Norm Coleman, despite having been beaten at the ballot box, is getting solid support from Republicans across the country in his effort to mount endless legal challenges and keep Al Franken out of the Senate.

Making Frankenaid

Apparently the right-wing is secretly really psyched that Al Franken won, because now they can criticize him! Or something. As Dave Weigel observes, there’s a certain lack of logic here. It’s worth considering that Franken had a lot of obstacles during this campaign that won’t be a problem as he runs for re-election. A lot of folks had trouble taking a comedian seriously as a potential Senator. By 2014, everyone will be used to the idea. And time has a way of making “carpetbagger” concerns go away.

Beyond that, I’m fairly certain that people are going to come to see that like him or not, Franken is deadly serious about progressive politics. His career transition really didn’t happen all that suddenly, and certainly wasn’t the most obvious or easy thing for him to do with his life. But he did it because he thought it was important. His past career gave his opponents a certain amount of fodder for criticism, but going forward you’re not going to see anything like that. No seat is ever safe in Minnesota, which is both pretty closely divided and has a habit of sometimes electing real liberals, but the toughest race for someone with an unusual background is the first one.