Meanwhile In Minnesota….

November 28, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Obama administration, Republican Party 

….the recount in the contest between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken for the former’s Senate seat continues.  As of 8 pm last night, with a shade over 86% of the ballots counted, Coleman led the former Saturday Night Live cast member by little more than 4000 votes.  Some days ago Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, who caused a sensation on Election Day when it turned out that his arcane figuring had produced a forecast of Obama’s electoral victory with state-by-state precision, offered his prediction about the results of the recount; he forecasts that Franken will prevail in it by all of twenty-seven votes, a margin that would make Lyndon Johnson’s 87-vote spread against Coke Stevenson in the 1948 Democratic primary for the Senate seat from Texas look like a downright landslide.  (Silver buttresses his argument with calculations that only your neighborhood graduate-school math professor could decipher.)

As spectacularly narrow as that margin would be, it already has been beat a few times during this election season, albeit in local races.  For instance, in a borough council election in New Jersey, Republican Jerry Stevenson defeated his Democratic opponent Dan Dunham by eight votes, out of about 6700 cast.  A recount was requested.  This time, Stevenson won again – by a single vote, thus going a long way – as will the results in Minnesota - to support the old saw that “every vote counts.” 

And should Franken prevail in the land of a thousand lakes, then even if Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss wins the recount in Georgia, Obama could still obtain a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the upper chamber by naming either of Maine’s two GOP senators, Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, to the Cabinet, thus enabling the state’s Democratic governor to name a replacement.  It will be an eventful five weeks before the new Congress convenes on January 3.

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