Al Franken could become the 60th Democratic Senator

by: The Big E

Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 15:48:07 PM CST

President Obama has approached Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) about becoming commerce secretary, "a step that could open the way to significant shift in the balance of power in Congress" as New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, would most likely to pick a Democrat to replace Gregg. Though Gregg refused to comment on the discussions, his office confirmed that he had been approached.
(Think Progress)

This explains the Republicans desperation to role the dice, to string out the election contest case as long as possible.  

Now, let's take a look at the calculated risk they also took.

The Coleman team stated this afternoon that they're not objecting to an intervention brought by over 60 rejected absentee voters, who are believed to be almost entirely Franken-backers, and will support counting those votes.

"We think all these votes should be counted," said Coleman lawyer James Langdon, "and we think all the rejected absentee ballots throughout the state that are just like these should be counted as well."

Now remember: Coleman is currently trying to get his own stack of rejected envelopes, numbering 4,500 to 5,000 out of the total 11,000 outstanding ballots, put in the count.

In short, the Coleman camp is wagering that if they make a gesture of good faith by letting in this batch of Franken votes, they can leverage it and use it as a precedent for their own cherry-picked ballots, and potentially pull ahead against Franken's other selected voters.
(TPM Election Central)

If Franken's 225 becomes 285, they can only be hoping that they can miraculously find votes among the 11,000 rejected absentee votes.  Keep in mind that the vast majority, 90%+, were properly rejected.  Remember that the fifth pile, the possibly erroneously rejected pile, only held 1350 or so ballots.  The Coleman legal team is hoping to prove to the 3 judges that the election officials got it wrong a lot more than that.  Also remember that these ballots (11K) have been reviewed 4 or 5 times.

If the Coleman legal team push analyzing for duplicate ballots, they will not be able to do so in just DFL-leaning precincts.  They analysis will also have to occur where Norm would lose votes.  I don't see any way that they can decrease Franken's lead through this method.

If they cannot miraculously find some votes, suppress some Franken votes or conjure a Bush v. Gore ruling out of thin air, the Republicans will be completely bereft of any power in Washington.

Considering all they plan on doing is blocking anything Obama and the Democrats want to do, this is awesome news.  Also recall that FDR was able to do all the great things he did with overwhelming Democratic majorities in both Houses.