THE POLITICAL ANIMAL

Well, ladies and germs, the 2008 Minnesota Senate Race between Republican incumbent Norm “The Weasel” Coleman and former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Al “The Joke” Franken is nearly two months old. By the time it’s over, Barack Obama will have already finished his second term as president.

According to Brian Bakst of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Attention in Minnesota’s Senate recount shifted back to the local level Tuesday as the campaigns and election officials began determining which unopened absentee ballots should be included in a race Democrat Al Franken now leads by 50 votes.”

The state board supervising this three-ring circus hopes to declare a winner by this time next week.

This Senate contest could go in the books as the closest in American history. You’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about this someday, if you don’t already have some. Won’t that be fun?

Bakst also reports that “Franken’s current lead is two one-thousandths of a percent. Put another way, that’s one vote for every 58,395 cast.”

If the state board can’t determine a winner by the time the new Congress convenes, Coleman and Franken should mud wrestle for the prize. After all, if the taxpayers have to foot the bill for a long and contentious recount, shouldn’t they get some entertainment for their money and trouble?

2008 has been a weird year for the world’s most deliberative body. In one state, you have a never-ending contest with two candidates who were apparently so lackluster that neither could manage to get a discernible majority on Election Night. In another state, you have a governor who actually tried to sell a vacant seat to the highest bidder and still believes he can make an appointment even after being caught red-handed. Then there’s that state where a candidate for a vacant seat has confused the U.S. Senate with the British House of Lords. What will 2009 bring?

Happy New Year!

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