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Updated: 07/08/2009 1:50 PM KSTP.com |
SATTIN: Is this a Senate race recount... or kindergarten?
Watching what goes on behind the scenes of the U.S. Senate vote recount between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is fascinating stuff. It's democracy at work. But it could easily be confused for kindergartners at play. Here's what I mean: I was hot on the story on Friday, day three of the recount. My job was to not only monitor the new ballot totals coming in, but to also get reaction from both campaigns. Early in the day, the Coleman campaign announced it was "giving the media a break" by not holding a news conference. But Franken's folks had one, to announce that Coleman's people were abusing the recount process by making silly challenges to some of the ballots being examined. In one example, according to Franken's people, Coleman's people were challenging ballots simply because someone had voted for both McCain, a Republican, and Franken, a DFLer, and surely that's not what the voter could have possibly meant to do. Thus, a challenge. Not to be outdone, Coleman's people reversed course and called a news conference to claim that Franken's people were challenging ballots simply because the "ovals" weren't completely filled in. What I find so remarkable about the "he said/he said" dueling news conferences is that they're meaningless. The votes have already been cast. The ballots are being double-checked for accuracy. Legitimate challenges will be examined; the frivolous ones will be tossed. Granted, there's a lot at stake. But why the need by either campaign to engage in now an ugly post-election public relations smear that won't change the eventual result? Why not let the system play out until a winner is declared next month? The candidates themselves will claim they're not directly involved in the day-to-day recount shenanigans of their campaigns. Good thing, because when I think of shenanigans, I'd prefer to think of a kindergartner, not a U.S. Senator. |
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