Republicans Have Been Very Successful In Minnesota Senate Contest

Oh, there was never any chance they would be able to re-seat Norm Coleman; he did, after all, lose the election and get fewer votes than Al Franken. But that wasn't really the GOP objective. Half the people who vote for John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell may be part of what Charles Pierce refers to in his new book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, but neither of the two congressmen, malevolent as they are, is stupid. They funded a series of frivolous, pesky lawsuits for Coleman, not to get him into the Senate, only to keep Franken out for as long as they could. And it's worked for nearly half a year.

Since January, when the Coleman strategy of keeping Franken from taking his seat emerged-- and Harry Supermouse Reid's boast that he would be seated by the first of April turned into an April Fool's joke-- Franken hasn't been able to vote on any of the crucial issues in the change agenda that Minnesotans were pumpin' for when they cast their ballots for him and for Obama. Worse yet, the Democratic caucus has been at the mercy of a couple of right-wing Democrats who conspire daily with the GOP to water down every reform Obama attempts. Without Franken joining the family-friendly Senate Democrats, the caucus has been stuck catering to the corporate-friendly shitheads like Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and, now, Arlen Specter.

This morning Michael Falcone writes at Politico that the GOP game plan has finally run its course. Law experts all agree that Coleman has no chance of prevailing and that Franken will be ordered seated by the state Supreme Court, which was astounded that Coleman came before them with his spurious assertions and, after almost 8 months, no evidence whatsoever-- none.

“Each of the five justices asked some questions that seemed to home in on the absence of evidence," said [Peter] Knapp, an expert on the Minnesota Supreme Court who has kept a close eye on the case. "And when each of the five are asking those questions, that’s significant.”

...At one point on Monday, Associate Justice Christopher Dietzen, who was appointed to the court last year by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, complained to Friedberg that he was offering “no concrete evidence” to back up his theories.

Pawlenty has all but declared that he'll be spending the next three and a half years running for the Republican presidential nomination. He's giving up the Minnesota governor's mansion-- likely to a Democrat-- and will concentrate on burnishing his image as someone who can appeal to Pierce's Idiot America, the only path to the GOP nomination now (which is probably also a path to sure defeat in a general election). Pawlenty wants to get the Franken thing out of the way as soon as possible now; he's already announced that if the Supreme Court tells him to sign the election certification that will allow Franken to take his seta, he'll do so. That isn't something that will go over well with the base and Pawlenty is working overtime to make sure the Republican Party opinion leaders-- Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, the Cheney family, Savage, Coulter-- realize he's one of them. In a speech to the College Republican National Committee Friday night, Pawlenty was playing the "socialism" card and characterizing the Obama administration as a “tyranny” responsible for “nationalizing” the mortgage, banking and automobile industries. And then he coughed up the ultimate offering to the GOP Hate-Talkers:

“The only thing growing faster than the federal government’s deficit is Chris Matthews’ man-crush on Barack Obama."