Coleman says "Franken is no Obama" in fundraising solicitation....

Posted at 5:10 PM on January 20, 2009 by Tom Scheck (4 Comments)

Just hours after congratulating President Obama for becoming the 44th President of the United States, Republican Norm Coleman is now pointing out the differences between Obama and Democrat Al Franken. In a fundraising letter to supporters entitled "The difference between Obama and Franken", Coleman wrote this:

Today marks an historic occasion for each and every American, from all backgrounds, all political philosophies and all walks of life. We all wish our new President well, and we will support him when we agree with him and be the voice of the loyal opposition when we do not.

Unfortunately, the kind of change that President Barack Obama brings to Washington is worlds apart from the kind of change that Al Franken is seeking here in Minnesota.

Barack Obama won a majority of our nation's votes fair and square.
Al Franken had to change the rules of the game to overturn our victory.

Barack Obama was elected based on the principle of one person - one vote.
Al Franken's lead exists because some votes were counted twice, while others weren't counted at all.

Franken's coordinated attempt to silence voices must not stand. But it might, unless I hear from you soon.

Meanwhile, Franken's campaign issued a statement congratulating Obama:

Today, President Obama made clear what we all know: the challenges we face are significant, and change won't happen overnight. But today, we are one nation united and ready to get to work, with a President ready to lead us. Like so many others, I have been inspired by our new President to look towards the future with optimism, and with the knowledge that there is nothing we can't accomplish together. The next few years will call for bold action and courage on the part of our leaders and our citizens. And I know that, with all of us working together, we will meet that call.

For those living under a rock, Minnesota's long-running U.S. Senate race is still being sorted out in the courts. Oh, and there were a bunch of court filings today.

Update: The Political Animal is reporting that Franken is also raising money off of the inauguration.

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Comments (4)

Norm Colman is ridiculous. The day after the election he claimed victory and said he would concede if he were franken. According to state law, a recount has to be done automatically when the election is decided by only .5%. Both contestants were only seperated by 200 votes the day after the election so a recount was mandatory. After the votes were recounted under video surveillance it proved that several Al Franken voters were disenfranchised at the polls, Franken votes had been destroyed by an unidentified source, and several ballots were not even read by the machines. Colman just except that after we counted each vote by hand, and got rid of machine error, we finally got it right. Now do the honorable thing and concede right now. Do what our beloved former gov. Arnie Carlson already asked you to do. The election is over and the people of Minnesota have spoken. Please step down now.

Posted by Bryan Carlson | January 20, 2009 11:08 PM

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Totally agree Bryan. Coleman can't do what he asks of others. Sounds like armchair quarterbacking to me. If Coleman cares about Minnesota then he will accept the open process his campaign was subjected to, approved by Minnesotan law, and be glad he was once a Senator. Be like Gore and step aside gracefully. Why be so greedy?

Posted by Nikolaus | January 21, 2009 9:49 AM

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As a dis-interested third party (I don't live in MN), I must say that the fundamental problem seems to be that the law was stretched and bent during the recount, and it seems that Norm Coleman wants the law returned to it's original place, while Al Franken wants his hard-earned exceptions to remain. In the end, when we have these election "adventures" the problem is several levels of state gov't all trying to "correct" the process, each pusing it in a different direction, resulting in a serpentine process with no clear winner.

The process should have been defined prior to the election, if not then, then at least before the recount process started, since it was not (they defined it DURING the recount), we have confusion.

Posted by Ken Hansen | January 21, 2009 11:56 AM

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Well, Ken, the State Canvassing Board wasn't something Mark Ritchie just made up, it's provided for in state statute. So are the guidelines for disqualifying an absentee ballot. The improperly rejected absentees were identified by local county election officials, some Democrats, some Republicans. I still haven't heard any good reason why absentees that local elections officials admit were wrongly rejected shouldn't be counted. The voters who submitted them didn't do anything wrong.

It seems to me that the biggest stretch of the whole process was the Supreme Court's order that the campaigns could veto any absentee ballot they didn't like. I don't know anyone, R or D, who thought that was a good decision. But that decision only occurred because Norm Coleman chose to sue to stop the wrongly rejected absentees from being counted. In my opinion, the Justices didn't want to look "biased" for one campaign or the other, so they handed down a "split-the-baby" decision. I'd also note that after the SC decision, Coleman suddenly found 654 absentees (all in heavily GOP precincts) that county election officials had identified as properly rejected, that Coleman now demanded by included in the recount. So, I'm not seeing a lot of devotion to following the strict letter of the law among the Coleman camp that you see.

As for the decisions on how to count challenged ballots (like the infamous "Lizard People" over-vote, on which the Board ruled in Coleman's favor) made by the Canvassing Board, you had one Democrat, two Republican judges, and two politically ambiguous judges sitting on the Board; disputed ballots were shown on camera, decisions were made on camera, in the presence of lawyers for both campaigns who had an opportunity to argue their case on each individual ballot, and the Board's votes on how to count each ballot were either 5-0 or 4-1. If Coleman's campaign had some brilliant or obvious arguments as to why Franken's challenges were bogus and their own were correct, they had the opportunity to make them.

Posted by Chris | January 21, 2009 3:06 PM

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