Apparently, the tiny dot in Dean Barkley’s oval is more important than the completely filled-in Franken oval.

Incompetent? Yes. Difficult to figure out intent? Hardly.

Norm, when will you decide that Minnesotans’ voices need to be heard?

Related posts:

1. Why we needed a recount

Wow. A true sign that the GOP is lost in the wilderness.

On the chance that Coleman doesn’t win the recount in the MN Senate race (which is becoming more likely by the day), some think he’d be an excellent choice for chair of the Republican National Committee:

…a Republican colleague of Mr. Coleman’s on Wednesday floated his name as a potential chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“Somebody like Norm Coleman would be great,” said the senator, speaking to a small group of reporters at a Capitol Hill steakhouse on the condition of anonymity.

He’d be a “great” choice to lead the Republican party? A man who always makes the politically expedient choice, who changes his identity every year or two, and whose convictions still aren’t clear after six years in the Senate? Coleman would be one of the worst possible choices. He’d just reinforce the Republican brand of dishonesty and political gamesmanship.

But please, don’t let me stop you. I’d love to see Norm as RNC chair — especially because it would mean he’s no longer representing me.

[via MyDD]

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Here’s an example of a clear vote for Franken that was not counted by the voting machines:

Now, the number of people who don’t understand how to properly use a scantron ballot is quite small. Normally, their votes aren’t counted, and that’s fine, because the margin of victory is often tens of thousands of votes. However, in a race that could possibly be decided by 100 votes or fewer, it is crucial that these ballots be counted. Our voting system was never intended to be a referendum on our citizens’ ability to use a scantron machine.

Ballots like this — and Franken’s fain of 43 votes yesterday — are why I’m still so angry that Norm Coleman tried to stop the recount. As I said on yesterday’s podcast, he just doesn’t respect us. He doesn’t respect our votes, and he doesn’t respect our intelligence. I’ll be thrilled if it turns out that we voted to boot him out of office.

[Go check out the full MPR piece, where you can vote on what you'd do with each ballot.]

Related posts:

1. Coleman and the GOP err on the side of NOT counting your vote
2. The Coleman campaign’s ridiculous challenges
3. GOP Chair calls Coleman the winner a 3rd time, then calls Franken “presumptuous”
4. Charges that the election has been “fixed” are pure disinformation
5. Coleman supporters: Do you regret your vote after his behavior on the recount?

Yesterday, Franken gained a net 43 votes, to decrease the Coleman lead to 172. About 15 percent of the votes have been recounted. If we extrapolate — and take this with a grain of salt, because we really shouldn’t extrapolate — Franken should have enough votes to win. By my math, he’d end up leading by 63 votes.

There’s one catch, though: challenged ballots. So far, Franken has challenged 106 ballots, and Coleman has challenged 115. How these challenges are resolved will almost definitely decide the winner of the Senate race.

Related posts:

1. GOP Chair calls Coleman the winner a 3rd time, then calls Franken “presumptuous”
2. Newspaper that endorsed Coleman says he’s not “acting with class”
3. Why Franken could win the recount
4. Coleman supporters: Do you regret your vote after his behavior on the recount?
5. Why we needed a recount

• Obama transition update
• The “Big 3″ don’t deserve a bailout, but we have to give them something
• Senate update — only 2 seats still undecided!

Listen:

Download audio file (DailyLiberal20081120.mp3)

Podcast intro music by Daniele Torelli

Related posts:

1. Morning podcast: Recount rant
2. Morning podcast: Bipartisanship at last?
3. Morning podcast: November 10, 2008

The Anonymous Liberal:

That said, if you want to squint really hard, there is a potential upside to the way things played out. It’s pretty clear from the statements of various parties, including Lieberman himself, that Obama’s expressed desire to bury the hatchet was instrumental in allowing Lieberman to retain his chairmanship. Obama didn’t have to do this. Lieberman campaigned for his opponent and said a lot of unfair things about Obama during the campaign. If Obama had allowed Lieberman to be stripped of his chairmanship, no one would have blamed him.

Everyone on Capitol Hill and in the press corps knows this. So, in a very real sense, Lieberman is now beholden to Obama

Blog of the Moderate Left:

Yes, Obama will win plaudits for being bipartisan and moderate and sensible and whatnot, and the usual suspects will take the opportunity to claim the left is dead. But before you despair, think about what would have happened had Lieberman been stripped of his chairmanship and forced from the caucus. We like to say that Lieberman would then become just another Republican, but we know better: Lieberman would still have been a media darling, the Democrat Too Moderate to Stay a Democrat. Throughout the next four years, Lieberman would have been invited on Fox and CNN to gravely intone as to why his ejection from power was proof that the Democrats had gone to far. I can hear him saying, “I didn’t leave the party — the party left me” ad infinitum, and to Joe and Jane Bagadonutz, it might even sound somewhat accurate.

Far from punishing Lieberman, he would have been liberated to be the complete douchebag that we know him to be. And make no mistake — he would have been more in demand than ever.

Related posts:

1. Does the Lieberman vote mean a new direction for US politics?
2. More on Lieberman: Here’s the point

I’ve never been able to understand the logic of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” I disagree with the anti-gay marriage crowd, but I can at least understand why they feel the way they do. I don’t have the slightest idea how it could make sense, though, to throw gays out of the military. In fact, I don’t see what sexual preference has to do with serving in the military at all.

So far as I can tell, here’s what DADT really boils down to: Our soldiers are too unprofessional to do their job without regard for each other’s sexual orientation. There’s simply no other interpretation that makes sense to me; if you can better explain the point of this ridiculous policy, please do so in the comments.

So, is it true? Are our soldiers really incapable of doing their jobs properly if they know that a member of their unit has a different sexual orientation that them? The very notion is absurd and offensive — our soldiers are the best and the most professional in the world. DADT is offensive, stupid, and makes it harder to recruit soldiers. It’s time to repeal it immediately.

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With each passing hour, the Franken Campaign is irreparably harmed in its efforts to ensure that each valid vote is properly counted and to prepare for the procedures that will decide this election. By contrast, the County of Ramsey will suffer no harm from providing information that, even absent plaintiff’s request, it must organize and maintain.

The court has really gotten to the crux of the matter. This is about making sure every vote is counted. Absentee ballots that were improperly rejected should be heard.

Here is the court’s main order:

Plaintiff has the right to obtain or access all public data, according to the provisions of the MGDPA. The Court finds that the following is public data that must be produced for inspection and or copying:
i. Names of voters who have submitted an absentee ballot return envelope. Minn. Stat. 203B.12, Subd. 7.
ii. The envelopes of absentee ballots that have not been opened by an election judge.
iii. Data already compiled in written form or routinely compiled by election officials, regarding the number of absentee votes, absentee voters, etc.
iv. Existing written information regarding the reason for accepting or rejecting an absentee ballot must be produced. However, there has been no authority cited to this court that would make the unwritten reasoning process of election officials public, government data. The MGDPA applies to written data only. Accordingly, Plaintiff is not entitled to orally query election officials regarding their reasoning. However, if that reasoning has been reduced to written form it is public data and must be produced.

Expect an appeal from Coleman. This could be a while…

[Thanks to The UpTake for providing this news via Twitter]

UPDATE (1:00 PM): The Franken campaign is holding a press conference. Watch it at The UpTake.

Related posts:

1. Coleman supporters: Do you regret your vote after his behavior on the recount?

However, with the Washington Post reporting that Obama may allow Robert Gates to remain the Secretary of Defense, Obama has an increasingly fine line to walk. The Team of Rivals approach is excellent: it will contribute to a more congenial tone in Washington, and hopefully better policymaking as well. However, this is still the Obama administration, not the Clinton administration or the McCain administration. Ultimately, he needs to ensure that the administration accomplishes his goals, not his rivals’.

So far, I don’t think he’s in danger of crowding out his own voice with those of his rivals. But as he goes forward, I hope the President-elect will rememberthat he needs his own loyalists in the cabinet as well as his rivals. Judging from the way he ran his campaign, something tells me he’ll be just fine.

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The cause of their misfortunes was not management mistakes, they said, but the weak economy and the inability of consumers to obtain credit to buy cars.

You’ve got to be kidding me. The American auto industry has been fatally mismanaged. These executives refuse to admit that they have any accountability for their companies’ collapse, and they have the cojones to claim that we should give them $25 billion? By their own admission, this clearly won’t change anything, because they don’t recognize the need to change.

No related posts.