Hopefully, comedian Al Franken will be the next senator from Minnesota. The recount currently favors him, but extremely narrowly. However, it appears that a Franken victory will be accompanied by six-year long conspiracy theory that he stole the seat.
In an “urgent message” to supporters, the Republican National Lawyer Association accuses Franken and his “liberal allies” of “working feverishingly [sic] to steal the Minnesota Senate election.”
“As you may know, the precinct recount phase of the Minnesota Senate race was won by Sen. Norm Coleman on Election Day,” reads the petition, signed by the group’s executive director, Michael Thielen. “But Al Franken still won’t concede. Instead, Franken raised millions of dollars from liberals in New York and Hollywood to fight a “legal” battle to undo the will of the voters. He even got the Minnesota Supreme Court to order canvassing boards to consider about 1600 previously rejected and questionable ballots. Now, Republican Norm Coleman has until December 31st to fight against Franken’s liberal legal team to keep his Senate seat. RNLA and Norm Coleman are fighting for every vote — literally!”
From there, the RNLA asks readers to donate money so that it can uphold the sanctity of the Minnesota election and prevent Franken from “stealing” the Senate seat.
As you may know, the RNLA is painting a wholly inaccurate picture of the facts. They’re literally lying to their supporters in order to gin up outrage and raise money. Regardless of who ultimately wins, it is a gross injustice to tar Al Franken and feed the tinfoil hat crowd.
Lies. The all-purpose tool of the Repubs.
TPM: Minnesota Supremes Shoot Down Crucial Coleman Lawsuit, Making A Franken Win Nearly Certain
Coleman: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
What did you expect? This is all they got.
You will see more and more of this, but Franken will sit in the Senate.
Ever since AuH2O proved positively that conservatives can’t win on the issues they’ve engaged in nothing but fear-mongering, race-bating and obfuscation – it’s how they get down. It should surprise no one that when conservatives’ backs are to the wall they use what they’re good at – it’s all they know, it’s who they are.
Seriously, most attorneys are just a bit more sophisticated than this.
In a word these Minnesotan Republican lawyers are
Despicable!
when Gregoire won the governor’s race by 133 votes after two entirely legal recounts, and for four years the Republicans spread the meme about how Democrats had “stolen” the election.
Of course this is just another example of Republican projection, as the Democrats followed the legal process to the letter, and the Republicans lost their challenge in front of a hand-picked judge, in a hand-picked venue, with the best evidence they had (which is to say, none, really). Not only did they lose, the judge found that four people had voted illegally for Dino Rossi. Talk about fail.
The backlash didn’t work, of course; Gregoire won re-election last month. And if he serves the people of Minnesota honorably and well (and I have little doubt he will do so), Franken will be able to get past any Republican whisper campaign about how he “stole” the election.