Comments on: John Bolton’s Best Friend in Senate Will be Declared Loser to Al Franken

By: Mar

Mar — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:50:06 +0000

From C.P. Snow:

“Comment is free but facts are sacred.”

By: speaktruth

speaktruth — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:05:14 +0000

Franken was never for Obama. Neither was he for the Iraq War.
Quite the opposite on both counts.

But your remarks about Israel and about the great Paul
Wellstone, show the ugly place you’re coming from.

By: rickrickrick

rickrickrick — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:27:37 +0000

With all due respect:
My opinion is worth something to me.

Rather than state information that is not relevant (North Carolina) look at the Minnesota general election numbers (fact):

Barack Obama won 54% of the votes to John McCain’s 43% (fact).
Most voters vote along party lines and with this simple math Al Franken* should have won by a margin not to be contested. That did not happen (fact). Coleman initially won, and the recount went to Franken* by 225 votes (fact).

That is why I believe the recount was stolen by the democrats for Franken*(opinion)

How does the saying go

“Your welcome to your own opinion, but not your own facts”

Own it

By: JozefAL

JozefAL — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:22:45 +0000

Just to contrast the lack of any real “Obama factor”, my own state–Alabama–saw Obama receive 813,479 votes while Democrat Vivian Figures (an African-American woman) only received 752,391 votes. Just under 40,000 more people voted in the Presidential contest than in the Senate race, but Figures received 61,000 fewer votes than Obama–even if all those who didn’t vote in the Senate race HAD voted, and voted for Figures and we add in the 2400+ write-in votes for the Senate race, she would have still received 19,000 fewer votes than Obama. Where did all those Obama votes go? (GOP incumbent Sen Jeff Sessions beat McCain’s vote total by more than 39,000 votes, but there were also nearly 20,000 write-in votes cast for President. Could some of those “liberal” Obama-for-Prez voters have voted for the conservative Sessions? That’s the only thing I can think of because it’s the only thing that makes any sense after looking at the numbers. Of course, this state also showed that a good number of Democrats opposed same-sex marriage, or any state-approved equivalent, since more people voted for an amendment to ban same-sex marriage than voted for the GOP governor. GOP Bob Riley got less than 60% of the total vote; the same-sex marriage ban passed with 80% of the total vote.)

By: candymarl

candymarl — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:05:36 +0000

That’s okay. Obama will get the Senator he wants. He’s gotten everything else.

But it’s odd. No one, even if this guy Burris is a jerk, is crying racism now. I wonder why?

By: JozefAL

JozefAL — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:57:28 +0000

Well, you know that your opinion is worth zero, right?
Going by your “theory”, take a look at North Carolina. The people of that state dumped GOPer Elizabeth Dole for Dem Kay Hagan by a very healthy margin (more than 8 percentage points; a Libertarian candidate took 3% of the vote). By whole numbers, Hagan beat Dole by more than 360,000 votes, out of more than 4,270,000 votes cast. Looking at the Presidential contest, Obama beat McCain by less than one-third of a percent of the total vote, and Bob Barr and write-in votes amounted to less than 1 percent of the total vote. Looking at the whole numbers, Obama got 2,142,651 votes compared to McCain’s 2,128,474 (Barr and the write-ins received a grand total of 39,664 votes). Perhaps you see where this is going. There were 38,819 fewer votes cast in the Senate race, but even if Dole had won all of those votes plus the votes that went to the Libertarian candidate, she would have still been dumped from the Senate and her opponent would still have achieved an outright majority (by more than 187,000 votes!), yet Obama would still have just squeaked by with a plurality of 0.32%.
Did Obama help Hagan? Perhaps, but I really don’t think so. It’s possible, of course, but Hagan, in her Senate race, won MORE votes than Obama did (107,000+ more), while fewer people voted in the Senate race (38,819 fewer). I think that the Dems would’ve won the NC Senate seat regardless of who was at the top of the Democratic ticket (OTOH, if all the Barr voters had voted for McCain, McCain would’ve won the state–even 3/5 of the Barr voters going for McCain would’ve flipped the state’s electoral votes in McCain’s favor).

By: Wisewoman

Wisewoman — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:39:40 +0000

Well if your point of view were the norm and taken to its logical conclusion, then any 30 year old who hiked across the country and did odd jobs during the process should become senator or president.

By: FembotsForObama

FembotsForObama — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:34:07 +0000

I like Al Franken. He is a very intelligent reasoned man, who actually studied to be an actuary. He’s a genius with numbers. Unfortunately, my support for him died when he supported the Obama.

I agree about the experience issue though. Part of the way you get things done is knowing how government works. Usually as a freshman you get that crash course your first year and hence are beholden to mentors and others who are more experienced (lifers), and more easily out maneuvered/used. This is one way that lack of experience is a huge detriment to an incoming senator.

But its very interesting to me how 2 people with no experience in government whatsoever can be considered valid senators and 1 because of controversy that he is tangentially related is not.

By: deke

deke — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:31:12 +0000

As a resident of a state who voted in Jesse Ventura for governor and Norm Coleman a refugee of NY and Woodstock how can you complain about Franken. He is obliviously intelligent, an early supporter of Hillary, a true liberal in the FDR sense, a political commentator and author and much more qualified for office than either Obama or Carolyn Kennedy. Franken traveled to Iraq every Christmas to entertain and support the troops. He has been antiwar since before Kerry ran for president. Your criticism of him is far off target.

By: tek

tek — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:20:20 +0000

Colorado’s appointed senator who will take Salazar’s seat had never run for or held any public office. It’s the new Democrats.

By: tek

tek — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:18:21 +0000

Too bad all the votes didn’t get counted down there in FL in 2000 when the candidates were only divided by a few hundred votes. Bush got away with that because of the dishonest Republicans who certified an illegitimate vote count and handed down a political opinion in Bush v. Gore.

This is the precedent Dubya set for the country. Not a pretty thing when the shoe is on the other foot.

By: tek

tek — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:15:00 +0000

WEll, I’m sorry to see Al Franken win this seat I don’t think he’s senator material, the guy is a comic for Pete sake. But if Norm Coleman is John Bolton’s best friend, I don’t think the people of MN need that either.

By: NomNomNom

NomNomNom — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:11:30 +0000

I detest Franken, but when the alternative is Norm Coleman, I’ll take him.
Also, as re- vote theft, check this out: (this is a link from Cannonfire.blogspot.com, mid-November) http://www.opednews.com/articles/Evidence-of-Republican-Fra-by-E-Nelson-081110-788.html

By: nancy sabet

nancy sabet — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:57:23 +0000

now we a comedian in the senate, wonderful! al-frankin bought his seat by millions sent to him after the electio was over. With the help of many lawyers he bought, he counted, re-counted, and recounted again and again till he got the result he wanted. If the elctio was today, he would loose with big margin.

By: nancy sabet

nancy sabet — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:56:55 +0000