End of The Line For Ex-Senator Coleman?

Don't let the door hit you on your way out-- and best of luck in your next endeavors

Everyone is wondering if it isn't too late for ex-Senator Norm Coleman to swoop in and claim the RNC Chair in the midst of a vicious, raucous bloodletting between beleaguered conservatives and surging neo-Nazis. Earlier today, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected Coleman's desperate bid to overturn the Minnesota senate election.

The ruling this morning appears to clear the way for the State Canvassing Board this afternoon to certify results of the Senate election recount, presumably with Democrat Al Franken on top. Franken holds an unofficial 225-vote lead.

According to this afternoon's Fix in the Washington Post, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page wrote that Coleman's attempt to include 654 rejected absentees from GOP strongholds "did not meet the criteria for counting ballots laid out in a previous ruling, specifically that both sides had to agree for any additional ballots to be counted."

Coleman's options are dwindling. With today's Court ruling, the incumbent must now put all of his hopes on an election challenge.

That challenge is likely to have three main prongs: that the 654 absentee ballots have been wrongly excluded, that roughly 150 ballots have been double-counted, and that 130 ballots that disappeared from a church between election night Nov. 4 and the manual recount should not be included in the final tally.

Democrats insist that even if all three of those challenges are resolved in Coleman's favor, he still does not have the votes to make up his current deficit.

"The state canvassing board is set to certify Al Franken the Senator-Elect from Minnesota, and it's time for the Republican Party to face the facts: Al Franken won this election," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee communications director Matt Miller.

Coleman has been threatening to file a lawsuit-- Republicans hate lawsuits except for themselves-- if the board certifies Franken, which it did at 2:36 pm. An election certificate could not be issued for Franken's victory until the legal action was resolved. It's ironic that when Coleman declared victory in November he put on his best straight face and asked that we all join hands and working on a much needed "healing process," suggesting that Franken be a mensch and just accept his loss like a man. "If I were trailing, I would step back," said the hypocritical Coleman. He has no realistic chance of being seated himself but he will make sure that Minnesota doesn't have a second senator for as long as he can.

Schumer gets it right: