Franken narrowly trails in Minnesota counting.

BenBurch

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BenBurch
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This isn't a recount yet, just counting of the provisional, absentee and undervotes, but the race has narrowed to 209 votes.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wa...senate_recount_heats.html?hpid=news-col-blogs

But a hand recount is coming as this is an extraordinarily narrow margin!

No way at all of telling which way it will fall once votes are examined by eye rather than the notoriously-unreliable optical scanners.
 
I really hope Franken wins. I love his books. He's such an intelligent person. "Lies and the lieing liars that tell them" was my favorite.
 
Oh, pestilence and bother.

Not Franken... I just can't wait to see the first bill he writes. Maybe he'll get Tina Fay to help write it.

He needs to cite his, um, experience for this post, methinks.
 
jj said:
Not Franken... I just can't wait to see the first bill he writes. Maybe he'll get Tina Fay to help write it.
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I can't wait to see the first (substantive) bill any senator writes. I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime, however.
 
jj said:
Not Franken... I just can't wait to see the first bill he writes.
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I can't wait to see his contributions to Senatorial debate.

Maybe he'll get Tina Fay to help write it.
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Or maybe not. Do they have a relationship going or something?

He needs to cite his, um, experience for this post, methinks.
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No, he doesn't. Anybody can run for office however inexperienced they are. As long as they're old enough and satisfy residency requirements, of course.
 
I'm not sure how Al Franken would do as a senator but he did a fantastic job playing the baggage handler in the movie "Trading Places".
 
Brendy said:
I really hope Franken wins. I love his books. He's such an intelligent person. "Lies and the lieing liars that tell them" was my favorite.
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I've been re-reading "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot". I really like books that can make me laugh out loud.

CapelDodger: I can see him adding entertainment value to the floor of the House.
 
I'm a fan of Franken's also.

He was easily my favorite radio host. I genuinely looked forward to his show.

I donated $20 to his campaign and I was disappointed to see that he'd lost but happy to see that he might not have.

The donation thing was a mixed deal for me. I got a form letter signed by his wife thanking me as a fellow progressive. I found that slightly annoying. I'm a life long Republican and I'm not a progressive by most definitions I suspect. I am not a fan of the current crop of Republicans and I am a fan of her husband but I think leftyseargent and I could find plenty to disagree about.

Secondly, it was against my interest in the sense that if he's a senator he probably won't start his old radio show up again and as noted above I really enjoyed his radio shows.

Thirdly, I have been barraged by requests for campaign donations from the Franken campaign. I've gotten three pitches even after the election trying to gather up funds to hire the lawyers to fight over the recount. OK, I'm a California boy, let the Minnesotans pay for their own damn lawyers to fight over the recounts. Sorry Al, on that one.

But go Al, go Al. The country needs you to help Obama bail out Detroit after the Democrats have destroyed Detroit with their special interest Union legislation and their ideas about employer funded health care. I feel like bailing out unions, executives, and car dealerships that have failed to make critical changes for years now is an excellent use of my tax dollars. It's so much better to see the country's money squandered on Democratic cronyism instead of being squandered on Republican cronyism.

ETA: Franken was my second biggest election disappointment. My biggest by far was the passage of prop 8 in CA, the anti-gay marriage initiative. Besides that I was disappointed that as usual that my fellow CA voters approved almost every bond measure. Where the hell do the people think the money is going to come from to pay for all that stuff? CA is broke and my fellow citizens just voted to make it more broke.
 
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davefoc said:
Where the hell do the people think the money is going to come from to pay for all that stuff? CA is broke and my fellow citizens just voted to make it more broke.
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Levying fines on all the married homosexuals of course.
 
Pantaz said:
I'm really sick of celebrities jumping into politics.
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In terms of celebs actually holding office, isn't this mostly the domain of the republicans? Not an exclusive list or anything, but when I think of celebrities in politics, I think of

Reagan - republican
Fred Grandy - republican
Sonny Bono - republican
Arnold - republican
Clint Eastwood - republican, right? (granted, only a mayor but big celeb)
Steve Largent (Seattle wide receiver) - republican

Who are the democratic celebrities holding office?
 
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pgwenthold said:
In terms of celebs actually holding office, isn't this mostly the domain of the republicans? Not an exclusive list or anything, but when I think of celebrities in politics, I think of

Reagan - republican
Fred Grandy - republican
Sonny Bono - republican
Arnold - republican
Clint Eastwood - republican, right? (granted, only a mayor but big celeb)
Steve Largent (Seattle wide receiver) - republican
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Actor-politicians (Thanks to Wikipedia):

Alan Autry (Mayor of Fresno, California)
Raj Bhakta (Republican) (unsuccessful candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, Pennsylvania)
Sonny Bono (Republican) (U.S. Representative, 44th District of California)
Shirley Temple Black (Republican) (U.S. diplomat; Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, Chief of Protocol of the United States)
Clint Eastwood (Republican, but describes himself as Libertarian) (Mayor of Carmel, California)
Al Franken (Democrat) (Running for Senate in Minnesota)
Helen Gahagan (Democrat) (U.S. Representative, 14th District of California)
John Gavin (Republican) (U.S. diplomat; Ambassador to Mexico)
Fred Grandy (Republican) (U.S. Representative, Iowa)
Ben Jones (Democrat) (U.S. Congressman, 4th District of Georgia)
Sheila Kuehl (Democrat) (California State Senator)
Nancy Kulp (Democrat) (unsuccessful nominee for U.S. House of Representatives, Pennsylvania)
Robert Montgomery
George Murphy (Republican) (U.S. Senator, California)
Stephen Peace (Democrat) (California State Senator)
Ronald Reagan (Republican) (Governor of California, President of the United States)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican) (Governor of California)
Jerry Springer (Democrat)(Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio)
Fred Thompson (Republican) (U.S. Senator, Tennessee and unsuccessful presidential nominee))
Jesse Ventura (formerly Reform; currently Independence Party of Minnesota) (Governor of Minnesota)
Ralph Waite (Democrat) (unsuccessful nominee for U.S. House of Representatives)
Frank Britton Wenzel (Mayor of Malverne, New york

About the same number of Democrats and Republicans, but the Republican actors get elected more often.

I couldn't find a list of sports figures in politics, but I think they may outnumber actors ....

-- Roger
 
jadebox said:
About the same number of Democrats and Republicans, but the Republican actors get elected more often.
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And the Republicans are far, far more "celebrity." Nancy Kulp? OK, that's the democrat version of Fred Grandy.

And Jerry Springer was mayor BEFORE he was celebrity.

Ben Jones I probably know in some way, but it's too generic to say how. The rest of them? They aren't running on their celebrity status, that's for sure. Raj Bahkta? Stephen Peace? Not quite on the A list...or B list...or D list (that's Kathy Griffin, right?)
 
If you count Atheletes, Kevin Johnson, NBA Star, was elected Mayor of Sacramento last week.
 
If elected, Al Franken won' t get as good a cameo as Senator Leahy got in "The Dark Knight".
 
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