And there were different standards in different areas. That is a problem. And the fact that Coleman wants to count the votes in a standard manner and Franken wants it just like it is tells you which side didn’t get their votes counted.

And even if she does get kicked out of the Republican Caucus, I have *zero* doubt of her ability to run for re-election and *win* as an independent. Not a Pseudo-independent like Joe Lieberman, but with a capital I next to her name. Two of the last five Governors of Maine have won as Independents. And Maine is not *that* expensive a state in which to run an election in for a well known incumbent.

BTW, I’d suggest getting the last Republican Governor of Maine (John R. McKernan, Jr.) to run against her in the Republican Primary, but he’s Snowe’s Husband. The other option would be Collins’ predecessor as the other Senator, but I think Bill Cohen after serving in the Clinton cabinet would not be all that palatable to those who want to primary Snowe.

As a result, probably the only one who’d be susceptible to such a deal is Specter – but he’d have to get a deal in writing that the Democrats would clear the primary field for him if he switched parties and ran as a (D). I don’t think the Dems can pull off such a deal.

And, yeah – if Snowe did that, she would certainly get primaried, and she’d be a candidate for losing a Primary if she did that. Even more likely is that she’d get kicked out of the Republican caucus.

The only place that doing that would hurt Snowe would be if she got challenged in a the Republican Primary and frankly *that* isn’t going to happen.

Might I add, as well, that Coleman was trying to stop them from rechecking the ballots when he was ahead. Not saying that it makes it right for Franken to do that now, but they already went through the process once, and I don’t see how Coleman expects doing the same thing over and over will come out with a different result.

If the Democrats move forward on trying to seat Franken before the whole process winds down, they will be, in essence, short-circuiting the judgement of the court with “yes” answers to all these questions. Ultimately, the fundamental question that Democratic Senators will be voting that votes don’t have to be treated the same everywhere.

Yup. And so what? The dems will do whatever it takes to win and the rep’s already know the game is rigged against them.

Perhaps if we point out the hypocrisy of such notable scumballs as schumer, leahy, durbin, franken etc, people will become angered at them. Or maybe we should highlight the double standard promulgated in the media between dem and rep candidates, people will finally see the light.

Sen Stevens was (allegedly) railroaded by a criminally (allegedly) prosecutor. Just before his election. He lost by a small margin. Now what? They won and we lost. They went for the jugular and we went the squishy middle.

If we don’t take it to the leftists in the same manner as we get, we will continue to lose. There ain’t no principles in hand to hand combat other than to win. Either we admit that and act accordingly or quit whining about the outcomes. The Left views Conservatives as enemies to be destroyed, not as opponents to be beaten. They’ve got shumer and we’ve got specter.

Even Specter & Snowe will get this: fewer Republicans = less pull = less ability to insert pork into bills for their homes states = greater chance of losing reelection.

The number one thing to remember about politicians – they will always do what’s in their narrow interest of being *reelected* **first**.

There’s no way all Republicans won’t vote in favor of filibustering the seating of Franken.

The primary question here is whether or not the Supreme Court of Minnesota will issue a “Writ of Mandamus” on this which will essentially require the Governor to issue the Certificate or go to jail. I don’t think the Governor will be willing to go to jail to fight this and once Franken gets the Certificate, I think he’ll probably be seated. I’m not sure if seating Franken is something that can be filibustered, and even if it is, I think they’ll be at least two Republican Senators who won’t support the filibuster.

I have said it before and I will say it again, if a Repbulican wins a close election, it HAS to be outside the margin of litigation, or else it will get taken from them in a recount/court battle. Bush won Florida by about 3k votes in 2000, which proved to be about 500 votes outside of the margin of litigation. (that is how close the Dems were able to wittle it down to before the clock ran out.)

I really hate hand recounts myself, because as flawed as machines can be, at least they aren’t biased, and any mistakes they make should balance out in the grand scheme of things.