Bob CollinsAl Franken was on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition this morning.
Rene Montagne asked an odd first question. “Can it get much narrower?” But Franken, who has avoided the “funny guy” thing during the entire campaign, showed remarkable self-restraint by not pointing out the obvious: that it could get 206 votes closer.
She said voters got past “your past as a liberal.” Must be the water.
“Minnesota’s a very clean state, I’m not anticipating that,” when asked if he’d “take it further” than the recount. Keep that quote in mind. But on the whole, little new ground was broken.
Montagne said NPR has invited Coleman to appear on the program, too.
In the meantime, Minnesota is in the international spotlight. The Globe and Mail of Canada featured the recount in its issue today.
Nationally, the Wall St. Journal joined in the innuendo (note the headline: “Mischief In Minnesota?,” which corresponds to Katherine Kersten’s “Katherine Kersten: Could Senate recount referee’s résumé color the result?” Both violate the journalistic rule that if you can’t answer the question in the story, don’t put the question in the headline) that the DFL dominated election officials are stealing the election, citing as proof:
In Two Harbors, a liberal outpost near Duluth, Franken picked up an additional 246 votes, while none of the other contests in that precinct recorded any changes in their vote total.
The Journal didn’t point out that in the liberal outpost, Franken didn’t come within 15 percentage of points of the DFL candidate’s totals in the previous Senate election in Minnesota.
