| It still burns the Republicans that they lost to Barack Obama in a landslide in 2008. It really hurts that this was the second repudiation of what they stand for -- they lost heavily in the 2006 elections as well. It also still chafes horribly that Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in the MN Senate race.
It simply does not fit that a black man would usurp the party destined by God to rule. It couldn't be the disastrous 8 years under George Bush to blame and the horrible campaign of Palin/McCain McCain/Palin. So their racist side comes out. They've called him a Fascist, a Marxist, a Muslim and a Kenyan among many, many things.
And Al Franken just couldn't have won the MN Senate race fair and square in their view. So they've been smearing Al. Here's the latest: |
This is some extremely shoddy journalism from Mickey Kaus. The Slate blogger asks if "ACORN chicanery" elected Sen. Al Franken, who won a razor-thin 2008 race for the U.S. Senate after eight months of legal challenges. Kaus links a "tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune story" to argue that fraudulent votes might have stolen the election for Franken.
- ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process ... that's 480 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken.
Let's look at this.
First, the story Kaus links to is actually a column by the conservative Katherine Kersten, whom the paper refers to as "a Twin Cities writer and speaker," and who limns the column with attacks on the "liberal agenda." Kersten has no proof that any illegitimate votes were cast, only that "Minnesota's laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose."
Second, "surviving the recount process" in Minnesota was more difficult than it sounds now. Ballots were counted once and recounted twice, and challenged ballots were counted in a hearing that was streamed live. Republicans had a lot of time, and a lot of incentive, to make the cause that thousands of ballots were illegitimate. They made their case. They narrowly lost.
(Minnesota Independent)
The mechanics of a Republican smear are straightforward and repeated on a regular basis.
First, a Republican makes some baseless claims. Next, a Republican blogger picks up the story and amplifies it. Thirdly, other bloggers repeat the lie. Fourth, the propaganda arms of the Republican Party (Fox News, Lou Dobbs at CNN, Wall Street Journal) repeat these claims as if they were true or, at least, talk about how everyone is talking about these baseless lies.
So Mickey Kaus is repeating a lie that Katherine Kersten made up. This is just the variation on the lie that recount was rigged so that Al Franken would win. It's just that ACORN is the evil villian du jour on whom the Republicans blame absolutely everything wrong in American.
ACORN stole the MN election for Al? Really? |
