Everyone is retreating to their familiar political environs this evening on today’s announcement of the Minnesota Supreme Court decision declaring Al Franken our next U.S. Senator. Very happy! Very angry! Very indifferent! (Though, to be fair, indifferent people seldom use exclamation points).
I’m a progressive-minded writer type so I like Al and voted for him. Most of my family didn’t. Thus, I can see both sides of the equation here. In a way this long process of the recount and legal challenge has ensured one thing: Al Franken will have a lot to prove from day one. That’s good for Al and that’s good for Minnesota. No nonsense, just a strong need for results on important issues like health care reform, energy and the economy. If he screws up he’s cooked and everyone knows it. If only all politicians entered office under such circumstances! Then again, if all politicians entered office under these specific circumstances mass suicides would be a concern.
Good luck, Al! Minnesota is counting on you.
As Alfranken himself said – “If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it’d be a travesty”.
And a traversty it is. Just the kind of guy I hope my kids emulate.
I’m just glad it is over. I think they were both better men than the campaign ads showed. Well, wait a minute, they OKed those ads, didn’t they? They both shot themselves in the foot, or is it feet?
It bodes well for our state that Franken has been to Washington already to get prepared for his new role.
All that money they spent on this…could have gone a long way to help feed the hungry, build houses, pave a road, build a factory, retrofit a school. But it was spent on hot air when we already have enough global warming.
Regardless of who the court selected to be our Senator, the fact remains that our recount process is broken. It doesn’t work. What have we done to prevent such a fiasco in the future?
State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson has acknowledged that “very likely there was a double counting.”
This disenfranchises Minnesotans whose vote counted only once.