I personally hope it takes them at least another four years to realize that they have to appeal to the middle in order to compete…Palin is this liberal’s dream opponent in 2012.

The fact of the matter is the party had become so toxic, only the most vain candidate willing to run in 2008 would rise to the top. Vanity is unfortunately not characteristic with wide appeal among the body politic.

Look at the factors:

[a] notwithstanding this presidential vote outcome and its admirable farm-labor oriented political history from FDR to Water Bush, over the last generation Minnesota has been a state in a great deal of transition – thus its Republican governor
[b] moreover, a Republican governor with national ambitions
[c] in control of the state’s election process
[d] in an election involving an entrenched establishment Republican incumbent
[e] in the further context of something the traditional GOP/Rove GOTRV [get out the RIGHT vote machine loves best: a contest where the numbers are somewhere withing the margin of error,
[f] albeit the last was to a large extent a function of the presence of a third party candidate who previously had run for the Dem nomination,
[g] which third party candidate obviously had some incentive to run an expensive campaign which incentive did not reasonably involve winning, and
[h] all the above in a state in which Rovian politics had so clearly moved down to occupy a big place in the office of the US attorney.

Doesn’t all that quality as a recipe for election shenanigans?

The recount process will take a few weeks. I like Al’s chances.”

Nor am I, but I do know a great deal about the Minnesota Recount Process — at least I know most of the details between 1962-63 and the present.

In fact I moved to Minnesota in 1962, so my first election here took five months to decide, and watching the recount, and a few years later participating in the legislative process of designing the cure was one of the factors that made me fall in love with my adopted State.

For the sake of history, the critical election was Elmer Anderson (R) v. Karl Rolvaag, (DFL). After the Canvas they were less than 200 votes apart, but State Law was unclear as to the process for a recount. So after exhaustive appeals to every court they could think of, the parties finally settled down to recount the vote. Jan 1 came along when the Elmer Anderson first term ended, and they just left him in the Governor’s office and set up a second office for Rolvaag in the Capitol Basement. So we had two Governor’s for a couple of months. No Harm. They were told to consult, though they didn’t do much of that. But the counting went on and on. Finally it came down to Rolvaag being about 70 votes ahead with two classes of ballots where voter intent wasn’t totally clear — the State Supreme court gave Rolvaag the first class, denied the second, and Elmer Anderson moved out of the Governor’s office, and Karl Rolvaag moved upstairs. While no one is totally sure of the actual number, most Historians use 123 as the victory margin, after five months of ballot counting and court appealing.

The upshot was a decision in Minnesota to write a clear Recount Law — and this was done in 1965 after consultations, and it has been revised a couple of times — when we totally reworked our elections systems in the late 1980’s, and could take advantage of several court reviews.

Here is how the thing works:

This week — County Canvas Boards meet and establish their preliminary but official return numbers. These may shift between now and Friday as election boards check all their math and all. Way beyond Franken’s race there are many counts to be made. They have to account for every ballot in every precinct that was marked. These have to match exactly the number of sign in’s, plus early and absentee, and electronic ballots. (Outside the US, you can vote by E-Mail and/or fax). Before you start re-counting you need to account for every ballot issued. Our process allows for that and also finding any and all errors. The count of Franken v Coleman lost Coleman 50 votes today as that process went forward– down from 480 to 430 between morning and last afternoon. It will keep changing till Friday when it all must be justified. Voters per precinct must equal ballots. Preliminary machine votes are then sent, along with the justified number of ballots and voters to the State Canvas Board.

The Job of the State Canvas Board in all this is to observe that the margin between Franken and Coleman is less than .05, and thus a State Wide Recount is Mandated. State Canvas Board meets a week from Friday. .05 of 2.9 million ballots is something like 16 thousand, so, yep, we will have a recount, state wide, and probably all by hand.

Early morning November 5 orders went out to sequester all ballots. Counties have to post guard and all — ballots must be in secure facilities. Done.

Each county election board then sets up a recount facility. There will be massive need for Party People to volunteer to be counters, as all counters are teams of two representing opposite parties. All ballots are paper, with marked ovals — so the first step precinct by precinct (4200 roughly precincts in the state) is to sort the Senate marks into piles, Franken, Coleman, Barkley, write in, (maybe there was another third party), no mark, or questionable mark. The Volunteers then individually count each of the piles, recording their count on a talley slip, these go to the clerk, and if they agree, then a precinct is “agreed to” — unless of course one or several of the ballots in the questionable mark pile seems to indicate a voter intent — in which case the County Canvas Board rules, and that can be appealed to the State Canvas Board, and if necessary to the State Supreme Court.

The Public, and Party Representatives as well as lawyers for an interested party can observe the whole process. They cannot, however, protest anything except in writing to the supervising canvas board. Watching a recount is not exactly high drama, but the whole thing will be video taped.

Coleman is asking Franken to “give up” on the recount. Sorry Norm, the election process isn’t finished till the Secretary of State issues a certificate of election, and that won’t happen till the recount is complete, because the margin is within the Mandate Requirements. It isn’t Franken’s right to a recount — or your right to propaganda about the process — it is Minnesota Voter’s right to the finest canvas of the vote humanly possible. That story of the Anderson-Rolvaag recount should inspire you. Eventually we did discover who was the right Governor. We moved the right one out of the temp offices in the basement up to the formal suite. Yea — it took till March, but whatever.

who OTHER than Palin at this point can claim to speak for the Repod party’s future?

Haley barbour

Every county in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont went blue, and so did all but one county in Maine. The only totally red state is Oklahoma.

Finally, check out the Winger sites to see who they blame for blowing the presidential election: it looks to me like a dead heat among Acorn fraud, Obama fund-raising cheating, bad timing for the economic crisis, and a shitty top of the ticket. No one there is taking “McCain’s selection” of her as a factor; quite the opposite IMO.

They’re making some good points there. Consider if the previous four or eight years hadn’t been bad, just sorta neutral.

Divide America along the Mississippi.
Divide the East by North & South.
Divide the West by Mississippi to Nevada v. Coastal.

Here’s how they went:

Dems took the East North.
Dems took the West Coastal.
Repubs didn’t get all of the East South.
Repubs didn’t get all of the West Plains & Rocky Mtn.!

So, Dems took Dem areas and a few states in Red areas. Why?

Look at the candidates:

Dems are both East Northerners, so the NE was solid and had to be.
Somehow they also got some West Rocky Mtn/Plains states!

Repubs are both Westerners, but Palin was a East Southerner at heart.
Why did neither hold their region completely?

The Repub top of ticket was weak for his region/ideological-group!
But, Palin was out of place and didn’t hold all the East South either!

With a more neutral environment they could’ve beaten a weaker Dem ticket.
With this Dem ticket an even stronger Repub ticket would still have trouble.

I think both knew the Coastal West would go Dem. That’s a huge advantage Dems have right now. During the primary race Rudy Guiliani tried to get the California vote apportioned to make it possible to split up that Coastal vote. Without that a lot of Repubs probably figured it was hopeless since they could see some other states had become vulnerable.

Both knew the East North (Indiana being close) would go Dem and the East South (Florida being close) would go Repub.

West Virginia should be an East North Dem state, but might have some hanky panky going on.

Where the fight occurred was almost entirely on Repub territory: a few East South states (Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Virginia [is it Northern now?]) and in West Rocky Mtn/Plains states (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana and even Arizona). Obama’s advantage in money let him stretch the fight and that added to McCain-Palin’s difficulty.

Given this situation I think McCain was right that it was all uphill and they ended up doing pretty well with even their very awkward campaign. He held back the flood about as well as he & Palin could. I think they upheld their banner strongly — meanly, nastily, awfully, but strongly.

The trend out west is Arizona and Montana going Dem, so it won’t get easier for Repubs out there for some years. They’ll have to go back to their geographic base and fight for Florida and North Carolina and Missouri while trying to find more inroads to the West or other Mid-western states. I don’t see it happening quickly.

Tons of voters may be going Dem for a long time and the Repub party is sort of split up, so this might give Dems a secure advantage for some years unless they just don’t have good candidates.