The Minnesota Two-Step

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Let's start with some stuff that is important to understand, although not enough people do:

U.S. senators are elected to six–year terms, and the terms are arranged so that one–third of the Senate is on the ballot in any given election. In 2018 the electoral map has few Republicans facing the voters as the senators who are up for re–election won their current terms in 2012, the year Barack Obama was re–elected. That was a pretty good year for Democrats.

If those senators were re–elected in 2012, their previous election would have been in 2006, which was a big year for Democrats. That was the year they seized control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in more than a decade.

The Democrat senators who are on the ballot in 2018 had favorable winds at their backs the last two times their seats were on the ballot. Their party gained two Senate seats and eight House seats in 2012 — five Senate seats and 34 House seats in 2006.

The political terrain wasn't as favorable for Republicans in those years as it was in others, and fewer were successful. As a result, fewer Republicans hold the Class 1 seats that will be on the 2018 ballot.

Senate terms are also staggered so that no state must elect both its senators in the same election year — unless there is a midterm vacancy that needs to be filled.

Sen. Al Franken's stated intention to resign in January puts Minnesota in that comparatively rare category in 2018.

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota's senior senator, is seeking a third six–year term in her Class 1 seat. Franken's seat is a Class 2 seat that would be slated to face the voters again in 2020, but because he is leaving the Senate, his appointed successor will be on the ballot in the next election. The voters will decide who will represent them until 2020 — at which time the winner of the 2018 race will have to decide whether to seek a full term.

Such two–fer Senate elections are rare — some states have never had one — but this will be the second time for Minnesota. The first time was 40 years ago — in 1978. Then, as now, both seats were held by Democrats.

Does that 40–year–old election have any relevance to 2018?

One of the seats had belonged to Sen. Walter Mondale, who was elected vice president in 1976. Minnesota Gov. Wendell Anderson resigned so his lieutenant governor could become governor and appoint Anderson to fill the Senate vacancy for the last two years of the term.

The other seat had belonged to former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was elected to the Senate after leaving the vice presidency and then re–elected in 1976; then he died of cancer in January 1978. His widow was appointed to the seat until an election could be held later that year. The winner would hold the seat until 1982. Muriel Humphrey chose not to run, and Minnesota Democrats selected a rich trucking firm owner to be their standard bearer.

Minnesota has a reputation as a deep blue state in 2017, and it was quite blue in the '70s, too, although it did vote for Richard Nixon in 1972 and had voted for other Republicans for president in the first half of the 20th century; still it hadn't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1952.

Republicans used that to their advantage. They made the point that Minnesota's leading statewide offices were held by people who had not been elected to them — and the seats would all be on the ballot in 1978. That was the voters' big chance, the Republicans said, gleefully asserting that Minnesota's Democrats would face "something scary" in 1978 — "an election."

That wasn't entirely fair. Democrats had been elected to all those offices the last time they were on the ballot, and Democrats were appointed to fill the vacancies. It wasn't as if someone was circumventing the political will of the voters.

(The party affiliation may have been the same, but the philosophy wasn't always. That trucking firm owner who was nominated when Mrs. Humphrey decided not to run was more conservative than most Democrats were then or are now.)

In 1976 Minnesota gave the Carter–Mondale ticket nearly 55% of the vote. The voters knew that, if the ticket won the election, someone would replace Mondale in the Senate. They voted for the Democratic ticket, anyway. When Humphrey was re–elected that same year, it was no secret that he was sick; nearly three–fourths of Minnesotans voted for him, anyway.

What hurt the Democrats in 1978, though, was Anderson's blatant move to gain Mondale's seat. I suppose it hinted of entitlement to many, and the voters clearly didn't like that. Only 42% of them supported Anderson in November.

Muriel Humphrey, by her own admission, was no politician. She was a politician's wife, and she played that role graciously for decades, then dutifully kept the seat warm until the election. Would the magic of the Humphrey name have carried the day and kept the Senate seat in the Democrats' hands if she had not decided to step down?

We'll never know, but that businessman who won the party's nomination when Mrs. Humphrey declined to run only got 36% of the vote in November.

When the Senate convened in January 1979 Minnesota was represented by two Republican senators for the first time since the Truman administration.

Republicans completed the sweep by winning the governor's office as well, and the 1978 election came to be known as the "Minnesota Massacre."

Now, to an extent, voters throw tantrums in these special elections and vote contrary to their usual patterns. Like a fever, though, it passes, and voters return to their roots by the time the next election is held. We saw this in the early part of this decade when Massachusetts elected a Republican to serve the remainder of Ted Kennedy's term, then chose a Democrat when the seat was on the ballot for a full six–year term.

I suspect we will see that same phenomenon — albeit in reverse — in Alabama in 2020, when Democrat Doug Jones must decide whether to seek a full six–year term.

The dynamics were different in Minnesota 40 years ago, though. The Republican who was elected to complete Humphrey's term, David Durenberger, went on to win two full terms and then retired after 16 years in the Senate. Rudy Boschwitz, the Republican who defeated Anderson, was re–elected once.

If Minnesota threw a tantrum in 1978, it had staying power. It remains to be seen whether the voters of Minnesota will throw a similar tantrum in 2018.

Political tantrums require catalysts, and those catalysts vary from state to state. The circumstances that led to Scott Brown winning Ted Kennedy's seat in 2010 were different from the ones that propelled Doug Jones to victory in the race for Jeff Sessions' seat or led to the Minnesota Massacre.

At present there appear to be no storms on the horizon for Minnesota Democrats, but as I observed more than a year ago, in spite of voting Democratic in 10 consecutive presidential elections, deep–blue Minnesota wavered a few times and was a candidate for flipping to the other party in 2016.

It didn't, but it came close. A week after I posted that, Minnesota voted Democrat for the 11th straight time — but Hillary Clinton's share of Minnesota's vote was the smallest for a Democrat since her husband in 1992.

And Bill Clinton could point to the presence on the ballot of a credible third–party candidate who took nearly a quarter of Minnesota's vote.

Who knows which issues may emerge in 2018 to help or hurt Tina Smith, Franken's appointed successor? Smith, who was once regarded as a gubernatorial prospect, will become a senator as an indirect result of the emergence of sexual harassment as a political issue and a direct result of credible accusations that were leveled at her predecessor.

But what if not–so–credible accusations are made that cast a shadow over the issue? That could lead to voter backlash.

Are there any Tawana Brawleys lurking out there in Minnesota?

The Alternate Reality of Election 2016

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We're about a week from Election Day, and I find myself wavering between thinking we are living in an alternate reality or the End Times.

It could be both, I suppose, although I prefer to think of it as the former. As bad as that might be, it need not be final. The latter certainly would be final; you can come up with plenty of alternate–reality scenarios in which we can pull back from the precipice.

It definitely is not business as usual. That may be the real story of this election when all the votes have been counted.

Conventional wisdom used to hold that people really didn't start following presidential campaigns until after the World Series. But conventional wisdom has meant little in this election — and here we are in the middle of the World Series. People aren't starting to tune in to the campaign. If anything, they're tuning out.

Maybe they've seen enough already. If so, then they may be looking forward to the end of the campaign. But I've got news for you. It never ends. Only the current campaign ends, and one of the candidates recedes from the national stage. Unfortunately, though, we'll be stuck with one of them for the next four years.

Alternate reality could be defined as denying reality, I guess, and I certainly have known my share of folks who denied reality, even (or perhaps especially) when it was a reality that had been made possible by their own behavior. The first step in dealing with any problem, they say, is acknowledging that there is one.

But if this is an alternate reality, few are acknowledging there is a problem — at least in the sense of discussing what should be done and how it can be achieved. The situations we face call for a statesman who can bring disparate sides together, understanding that neither side can have everything it wants on issues like immigration, national security, jobs, economic growth, education, energy, etc. Despite a lot of bluster, most political observers see the Senate being closely divided and the House still in Republican hands when the dust settles on Nov. 9.

That clearly leads to the conclusion that compromises will be necessary if anything is to be done under the next president.

The thing that has increasingly alarmed me about this election is the constant decrease in the emphasis on the issues that we absolutely needed to discuss before deciding who should be our president for the next four years. Before you can choose who to follow, you have to be sure that person is going in the direction you want.

I'm not just talking about the fall campaign between the two nominees. I include in that the spring party primaries when the nominees were chosen. If issues have been mentioned at all, it has been incidental.

Instead the election is conducted in slice–and–dice terms. Demographics alone matter. Candidate X will win in State Y because there are too many/few minorities or more/fewer men than women or whatever — as if all members of any group think the same.

Of course, such a notion is idiotic — and anathema to the concepts of individualism and free thought. Nevertheless it is how many people see things these days. Sadly.

I sometimes think of the reaction many of my acquaintances with University of Texas degrees had when they learned that their alma mater had hired Charlie Strong, a black man, to be the new head football coach a few years ago. Strong had some good credentials — in the previous four years as a head coach at Louisville, he led the Cardinals to victories more than 70% of the time, and they reached bowl games every year — but I heard no talk of that or what he could bring to a program with Texas' national stature — or how the quality of the opposition at Louisville might (or might not) be comparable to the quality of the opposition at Texas, thus preparing him for the Austin Hot Seat.

What I heard Texas Exes say when Strong was hired was what a great thing it was that Texas had hired a black coach, that this would negate Texas A&M's recruiting advantage with black prospects (the Aggies hired a black coach in 2012). That was an angle that was worth exploring, but it ignored more long–term concerns — like whether the coach had demonstrated that he could build a legacy of success that would outlive his tenure.

Now, one can argue whether Kevin Sumlin (the Aggies' coach) has done that, but a few things cannot be disputed. (1) While Sumlin has only marginally more experience as a head coach than Strong, he has a winning record; (2) Sumlin is 3–1 in bowl games at Texas A&M, and midway through this season the Aggies have already won enough games to qualify for their fifth straight bowl appearance under Sumlin. Strong, on the other hand, appears unlikely to qualify for a bowl this season even if he somehow keeps his job.

That demographic mindset is essentially the same one used by Hillary Clinton's sympathizers when they speak of what they hope will happen in the Electoral College this year. James Pindell of the Boston Globe wrote recently about what might be different about the Electoral College map this year, starting with the possibility that states like Arizona, Missouri and South Carolina could be in the Democrats' column while states like Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada could vote Republican.

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Anyway, I was musing about states that could flip in this year's election in a post I wrote about two months ago, and I labeled states that gave 53% of their vote or less to the candidates who won them last time as potential flips.

Some of them seemed outrageous, I'm sure, and some of them seemed plausible, but from where I sit it looks like most of them are potentially up for grabs.

One of the states I mentioned probably seems about as farfetched as it can get — Minnesota, home of Democrat icons Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, as reliable a state as you could find in American politics, I suppose. Minnesota hasn't voted for a Republican since voting for Richard Nixon in 1972. It was the only state to resist Ronald Reagan in 1984.

But the margins in Minnesota frequently have been narrow. Barack Obama received less than 53% of Minnesota's vote when he sought re–election in 2012. That was still a difference of more than 200,000 votes (in a state in which more than 2.9 million votes were cast). Four years earlier, when Obama first sought the presidency, Minnesota gave him just over 54% of its vote. He won that time by about 300,000 votes (more than 2.9 million Minnesotans voted in that election, too).

John Kerry defeated George W. Bush in Minnesota when Bush was re–elected in 2004. Kerry got just over 51% of Minnesota's vote — a margin of about 100,000 votes in an election that drew more than 2.8 million Minnesotans to the polls. In the infamous 2000 campaign, Al Gore carried Minnesota with a plurality of just under 48% of the vote. He beat Bush there by about 60,000 votes in a campaign that drew more than 2.4 million Minnesotans to the polls. If one assumes, though, that Gore would have received most if not all of the votes Ralph Nader won in Minnesota, his share of Minnesota's vote would have been about 52% or 53%.

Bill Clinton got about 51% of Minnesota's vote when he was re–elected in 1996. With Ross Perot on the 1992 ballot, Clinton carried Minnesota with less than 44% of the vote. Michael Dukakis received just under 53% of Minnesota's vote against George H.W. Bush in 1988. Native son Mondale managed to beat Reagan in Minnesota by less than 4,000 votes in 1984. Jimmy Carter, under whom Mondale served as vice president, won Minnesota with less than 47% of the vote in 1980.

Carter began Minnesota's 40–year run of voting for Democrats when he received nearly 55% of the vote there in 1976. In the nine elections since, no Democrat has received that great a share of Minnesota's vote. I suppose it helped to have the winds of Watergate at your back.

So as you can see, Minnesota's support for Democrats has been steady but not spectacular.

What is the demographic story in Minnesota? Well, the population is nearly 83% white. Slightly more than 5% of the population is black so the kind of racial politics that is being used in other states won't work in Minnesota.

More than one–third of Minnesota's population has a high school education or less. Just under one–third of the population has had some college, but only about 22% completed college degree work, and a little over one–tenth of the population has done postgraduate work.

"Based on my 53% threshold for considering a state at risk for flipping," I wrote, "Minnesota should be on that list. But Minnesota has been consistent in its support for Democrats if not overwhelmingly so. Put an asterisk next to it. It might flip — but it probably won't."

Ah, but what if it did? What if Donald Trump, as an outsider, appeals to the same maverick undercurrent of Minnesota electoral politics that propelled a professional wrestler into the state's governor's mansion and a comedy writer into a Senate seat?

That is the kind of question that will make Minnesota worth watching on election night.

Franken Wins in Minnesota

It took eight months of tedious, meticulous counting and seemingly endless court challenges, but the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled, 5–0, in favor of Democrat Al Franken today in his Senate race against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

To his credit, Coleman appears to have accepted the decision gracefully. He conceded defeat, saying he would "abide by the results."

So, with Franken's victory and Arlen Specter's defection from the Republican Party earlier this year, Barack Obama and the Democrats appear to have a filibuster–proof majority in the Senate for the next 18 months. Whether they will be able to maintain that kind of majority for the rest of Obama's four–year term in office will depend upon what happens between now and November 2010.

It seems appropriate, although not for the reasons he wrote about, that David Brooks' column in the New York Times today focused on the Democrats' experience with their efforts to reform health care during the Clinton presidency and how that experience shaped the Democrats of today.

Referring to the passage last week of the climate change bill in the House, Brooks says Obama "will do what it takes to pass a bill," and the Democrats in Congress developed "a ruthlessly pragmatic victory machine."

Brooks calls it "Vince Lombardi politics" — which, apparently, is a reference to Lombardi's philosophy that "winning is the only thing," but I hope the Democrats learned more than that from their decade of exile from congressional power.

The Democrats have learned how to win. Now, with Franken, the Democrats have enough votes to do what they want to do, so what is important, if they want this to be more than a temporary interruption, is to show America and the world why they must win.

Winning is the only real objective in sports. But in politics, winning is not the only thing. Sure, you have to win elections before you can do anything. But, even in a marathon of an election like the Minnesota Senate race, the election is only the beginning.

The Republicans had the discipline to win. But they overlooked the why part more and more, until winning alone became the only reason for their existence.

It reminds me of an interview Ted Kennedy gave after he had announced that he was challenging President Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination. CBS' Roger Mudd asked Kennedy, "Why do you want to be president?" Kennedy gave a rambling response that never really answered the question.

Did that prevent Kennedy from winning the nomination? I don't know.

What I do know is that Obama and the Democrats must be able to explain to the voters, in simple and honest language, why health care reform and climate change and additional stimulus packages — and anything else the Democrats seek to achieve — are necessary.

Winning can't be about special interests and big contributors.

It has to be about the people.

A Lot of Alliteration

As someone who has worked more nights than I can count as a copy editor for a morning metropolitan newspaper, I have to express my admiration when an intriguing headline catches my attention.

I have just seen one such headline at the website for the Minneapolis Star–Tribune.

Let's back up just a little bit, shall we?

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced today that he will not seek a third term as governor of Minnesota next year. Speculation has been that he is going to run for the Republican presidential nomination, but he sidestepped questions about that.

So Bob Von Sternberg wrote an article for the paper summarizing what "political observers" were saying — and I guess it came as no surprise that most people think he is, indeed, positioning himself for a run for the nomination.

But there was a lot of speculation last year that John McCain would choose Pawlenty to be his running mate. That, of course, did not happen. But it could have. As I recall, Pawlenty himself pulled the plug on the idea as the Republicans prepared to convene in Minnesota.

So, since he didn't gain the national attention he could have had last year, Pawlenty may not be planning a national campaign in 2012, especially if winning that nomination means taking on a popular incumbent. Although Obama's popularity undoubtedly will fluctuate in the next three years, there is no telling (in 2009) whether it will be on the upswing or the downswing in 2012.

There's no rush. Pawlenty's only 48. He'll be in his mid–50s when 2016 gets here.

He might be planning to challenge Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a first–termer who comes up for re–election in 2012.

Anyway, the headline on the article is "Pundits ponder Pawlenty's presidential prospects."

Not bad, huh?

The Republican Dilemma

Republicans in New Jersey are going to the polls today to choose their candidate for governor.

As they do so, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg has some thoughts to share with the Republican National Committee chairman in his latest column in Roll Call.

"[RNC] Chairman Michael Steele's comments last month to RNC state chairmen calling for the party to turn the corner 'on regret, recrimination, self–pity and self–doubt' and to declare 'an end to the era of Republicans looking backward' weren't ill–advised or inappropriate," he writes. "They were just irrelevant."

Rothenberg observes that high–profile Republicans, from former Vice President Dick Cheney to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, from radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have been squabbling about what it means to be a Republican and "[t]hey are focused on what divides them from each other rather than on what unites them in their opposition to President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party."

Rothenberg is correct when he points out that this is nothing new. This is a familiar pattern for a political party that has been beaten decisively in two consecutive elections. He is also correct when he says that the bickering will continue until Republicans "find something better to do" — specifically, "focusing on a common adversary."

In New Jersey, the immediate common adversary for the winner of the GOP gubernatorial nomination and the state's Republicans is likely to be Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. He is opposed in today's Democratic primary by three candidates, but none are given much of a chance of upsetting the incumbent.

Thus, Corzine is likely to be the Democrat on the ballot in November. But even if lightning should strike and someone else carries the party's banner in the November election, that person will be the Republicans' common adversary.

New Jersey and Virginia are the remaining battlegrounds for the Republicans in this first year of the Obama era. They already lost the first showdown — in New York, where a Democrat was elected to take the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton's replacement in the Senate.

Minnesota won't elect its governor until next year, but the Republican who has held that job for two four–year terms, Tim Pawlenty, apparently will not seek a third term next year.

Pawlenty has scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. (Central) today, and he is expected to announce his plans at that time.

At one time, Pawlenty was believed to be a contender to be John McCain's running mate last year. Current speculation suggests that Pawlenty plans to focus on a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

In other political news from Minnesota, the never–ending Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken is in the hands of the state's Supreme Court.

The court must rule on Coleman's appeal of the trial court's ruling that Franken was the winner.

Counting the Votes

Political campaigns never really end in this country. As soon as one election is over, the parties start working on the next one.

Most elections are held in even–numbered years, but that is no guarantee of a respite. In some places, like Virginia, gubernatorial campaigns are held in odd–numbered years. And, when there is a vacancy to fill — because the incumbent was appointed to another post or died or whatever the reason — a special election may be held for that purpose.

Such is the case in New York's 20th Congressional District. The incumbent, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, was appointed by New York's governor to take Hillary Clinton's place as New York's junior senator so a special election was held last week to choose Gillibrand's successor. When the votes were counted, the Democrat (Scott Murphy) held a razor–thin lead over the Republican (Jim Tedisco), but officials had to allow some time for absentee ballots to arrive by mail.

Election officials are now in the process of counting those absentee ballots, and revised tabulations have Tedisco narrowly in front. More than 10,000 absentee ballots were mailed out prior to the special election, and nearly 7,000 have been returned, "including about 400 military and overseas ballots which cannot be counted until Monday," reports Thomas Dimopoulos in the Glens Falls Post–Star.

My understanding is that voters declare their party affiliations when they register to vote in New York. They can register as independents, but that means they cannot participate in party primaries. Much speculation apparently has centered on who has returned the absentee ballots, with the presumption being that those who are registered Democrats voted for Murphy and those who are registered Republicans voted for Tedisco.

Of course, people who are registered with one party have been known to vote for the candidate from the other party, so party affiliation is no guarantee. But logic suggests that a party's nominee is likely to perform well with his party's members.

The eventual outcome may hinge on which candidate does the best among the independent absentee voters, and both sides, naturally, are projecting that their candidate will emerge victorious. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the seemingly never–ending Senate campaign in Minnesota drags on, although some are saying that the writing is on the wall for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The head of Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party appears to be ready to "turn up the heat" on Coleman, and he isn't the only one.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes, at National Review Online, that Coleman "is likely to lose, unnecessarily deprive Minnesota of a second senator, end his political career seen as a sore loser, and hurt his party in a state that is eager for this fight to be over." Ponnuru concludes that "if he leaves now, he will get some points for grace. ... [T]his is ... the last moment where he can exit with some dignity."

Of course, there are Republicans who are urging Coleman to continue the fight and issue every ballot challenge he can. One of the senators from my state has threatened "World War III" if Democrat Al Franken is seated before legal challenges have been exhausted. And Coleman's legal team has vowed to appeal the final figures.

Clearly, the stakes are high. If Franken prevails, the Democrats will be only one seat away from the magical 60–seat, "filibuster–proof" majority.

And that seat could be picked up in Kentucky.

No ballots are being counted in Kentucky right now, but there is much speculation these days about the prospects for former major league baseball pitcher and current Sen. Jim Bunning, who is up for re–election next year.

A little background here — Bunning has never been a hugely popular candidate statewide in Kentucky. He was elected by less than 7,000 votes out of more than 1.1 million votes in 1998, then he was re–elected with a margin of less than 23,000 votes out of more than 1.7 million votes in 2004.

Recent polls suggest he would be vulnerable against several potential Democratic opponents, one of whom, Attorney General Jack Conway, announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination today. Conway is the second Democrat to announce his candidacy for Bunning's seat — Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who lost to Bunning in 2004, announced his candidacy in January.

That gives some ammunition to those Republicans who would like to have a different candidate carrying the GOP banner next year.

It's only April of 2009 — plenty of time for maneuvering before the voters go to the polls in Kentucky in 2010.

Burris Takes Senate Oath

Roland Burris was sworn in as Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate today.

Of course, the fact that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pick has been seated does not mean the governor is out of the woods yet. The stage is still set for his Illinois Senate trial later this month.

I guess that leaves only the Minnesota Senate seat to be accounted for.

The latest I've heard on that is that the dispute will extend well into next month if Sen. Norm Coleman's proposal for his lawsuit to be conducted in stages is accepted.

Al Franken was supposed to submit his timeline today. As of this writing, I've seen no indication that he has done so.

Dangling Senate Seats

The new Congress begins its business tomorrow, but there won't be a full house in the Senate. There are still a few vacancies to fill.

• In Minnesota, the state Canvassing Board certified comedian Al Franken as the winner of the hotly contested Senate race against incumbent Norm Coleman.
  
  But Coleman's attorneys pledged to challenge the certification in court.
  
  "Minnesota law prohibits the state from issuing a certificate of election until such a court case is resolved," report Pat Doyle and Patricia Lopez of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "which ... leaves Minnesota with a single senator."
  
  Even so, writes Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post, the window is closing on Coleman.
  
  Several actors have been candidates for office in California, and some of them have gone on to win — including, notably, a future president.
  
  But Minnesota, which elected a wrestler as its governor a decade ago and currently has a former football player serving as its chief justice, may be the champion (per capita) at electing the most nontraditional candidates to high-profile positions.
  
  Franken's margin of victory was 225 votes.


• Roland Burris, who has been chosen by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to replace Barack Obama, continues to run into problems. The governor's acting chief of staff took Burris' nomination certificate to the Senate today, but it was rejected by the secretary of the Senate.
  
  Such a certificate is supposed to be signed by Illinois' governor and its secretary of state. But the Illinois secretary of state refused to sign it, apparently because he is among the growing number of Illinois politicians who contend that Blagojevich is unfit to serve.
  
  It appears that Burris and the governor must hope that the Illinois Supreme Court will force the secretary of state to sign the document.
  
  I've advocated giving Burris an opportunity to show what he can do, but things seem to be getting out of hand.
  
  "I feel I am the solution to the problem for the people of Illinois," Burris says.
  
  According to CBS News, "[T]he Lord put his hands on the governor and said, 'This is the person that has to go to Washington,' and that appointment is legal," Burris said to supporters at a Chicago church yesterday. "That is all there is."
  
  Dear Diary ...


• In New York, where Gov. David Paterson must nominate the successor for Hillary Clinton, Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy seems to be criticized by everyone for her unfortunate, repeated use of the phrase "you know," which doesn't seem to strike many observers as dignified enough — or eloquent enough — for a Kennedy.
  
  The latest to contribute his two cents' worth is Ben McGrath of the New Yorker. He offers something of a defense for Kennedy and some suggestions for turning the situation to her advantage.
  
  You know?

The Last Two Senate Races

It's nearly 9 p.m. in Georgia, and we're getting an idea of the mountain Democrats must climb if they're going to achieve the much lauded "filibuster-proof" majority in the Senate.

They've counted about 52% of the ballots in Georgia's runoff between incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin.

Turnout was "light," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

But it looks like the Republicans did a better job of getting their voters to the polls than the Democrats did.

No winner has been projected yet. Earlier in the evening, Chambliss had 65% of the vote, but his advantage has dropped to about 59% — which, at this stage, still means a lead of more than 210,000 votes.

And the news also looks good for Republicans in Minnesota — where the other unresolved Senate race is trying to wind up its state law-mandated recount.

In Minnesota, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman now leads challenger Al Franken by 301 votes with about 93% of the ballots counted. As slim as that margin is, it's wider than the one Coleman held after the initial count on Election Day.

The Homestretch

At long last, it looks like we're nearing the end — the absolute end — of the 2008 political season.

In Georgia, the runoff will be held on Tuesday. And the recount in the bitterly contested Senate race in Minnesota appears, at this writing, to be nearly 90% complete.

The latest from Minnesota is that incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman's lead over Democrat Al Franken seems to have grown to a margin of 282 votes. That's still a drop in the bucket, compared to what is left to be recounted.

But Franken's campaign took it on the chin this week when Minnesota's Canvassing Board refused its request to include in the recount absentee ballots that previously had been rejected.

The Minnesota recount isn't likely to be finished before Tuesday so the focus will be on Georgia in the days ahead.

In Georgia today, much of the state's attention is on the annual football grudge match between Georgia and Georgia Tech. The game has no meaning in the battle for the national championship, and only Georgia Tech has a chance to play for its conference title next week.

But when the game is over, the people in Georgia will need to turn their attention back to politics for a few days, at least.

The runoff is certainly drawing national interest to the state, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss has been the beneficiary of visits from John McCain, who carried the state in the general election, and former presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

On Monday, former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will be in Georgia to campaign for him.

Former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore have been to the state to campaign for Democratic challenger Jim Martin.

President-elect Barack Obama has been invited but hasn't confirmed that he will come to the state before the runoff.

Another Senate Pick-up for Democrats

Oregon's Sen. Gordon Smith has conceded to his Democratic challenger, Jeff Merkley, who has built a lead of about 50,000 votes with more than 90% of the ballots counted.

Counting independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have caucused with the Democrats for the last two years, the Democrats have a 57-40 advantage with the outcomes in three Senate races still undetermined.

Here's how things stand at the moment in those three races:

• Alaska — Incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who was convicted in his corruption trial a week before the election, leads his Democratic challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, by less than 5,000 votes.
  
  That's with 99% of the precincts reporting.
  
  However, the Anchorage Daily News reports that "[s]till to be counted are roughly 40,000 absentee ballots, with more expected to arrive in the mail, as well as 9,000 uncounted early votes and thousands of questioned ballots."
  
  Clearly, a 4,000-vote lead might not hold up if about 50,000 ballots haven't been counted yet.


• Georgia — Incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss leads with nearly 50% of the vote, but state law says he has to receive 50% plus one vote. With 99% of the precincts in Georgia reporting, Chambliss is less than 8,400 votes from his objective.
  
  The fly in the ointment for Chambliss was an independent candidate who received about 3% of the vote. That translates to more than 125,000 votes. Chambliss led his opponent head to head by just under 120,000 votes.
  
  So, even though Chambliss leads Democratic challenger Jim Martin, he's apparently going to have to win a Dec. 2 runoff to retain his seat.
  
  It is likely that some of the independent's supporters will not vote in the runoff. It is also possible that some of the people who supported Chambliss or Martin the first time won't participate the second time.
  
  However, because Chambliss came so close to the votes he needed the first time — and I presume a voter will only be eligible to vote in the runoff if he/she voted in the general election — I think Martin will have to persuade some of Chambliss' original supporters to switch to him if he is going to have a chance of victory.
  
  Perhaps Martin can accomplish that by arguing that, with the Democrats in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Georgia needs to elect a Democrat to the Senate in order to have any real voice in the federal government.
  
  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution anticipates that both John McCain and Sarah Palin — who carried the state on Tuesday — will come to Georgia to campaign for the senator during the runoff. I expect the Democrats to make a similar effort on Martin's behalf.


• Minnesota — Incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman leads comedian Al Franken by 221 votes out of nearly 2.9 million counted. An independent candidate drew 15% of the vote.
  
  Coleman's margin was so small that it will apparently trigger a state law that requires a recount. "Recounts are required in races with a winning margin of less than one-half of 1%," reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
  
  Less than one-half of 1% would be about 14,000 votes — which means that Coleman's lead clearly is narrow enough to trigger a recount.

So there you have it.

Three Senate races in which Republican incumbents lead narrowly — and in which circumstances exist that could hand victory to their Democratic challengers.

When the final results are known, a decision apparently will need to be made by the Democrats about what is to be done with Joe Lieberman.

Ryan Grim writes at Politico.com that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell — who narrowly survived in his own bid for re-election on Tuesday — has been trying to get Lieberman to join the Republican conference.

Lieberman apparently has been bargaining with the Democratic leadership over his future as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Chairmanship assignments will still be the domain of the Democrats, whether they win those three remaining seats or not.

Lieberman, of course, was once a Democrat and, although he supported John McCain in the presidential election, he did so almost exclusively because he supports the Iraq war and he is a close personal friend of the Arizona senator.

On most issues, however, Lieberman agrees with the Democrats, so he has continued to caucus with them, even after switching to independent status when he was rejected for re-election by the Democrats in his state two years ago.

Grim warns that Democrats may hold a secret vote on Lieberman's future in their caucus. Such a vote, I'm sure, won't occur until we know more about the Senate races in Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota.

Following the 2006 elections, Democrats needed Lieberman and Sanders in order to establish a majority in the Senate. Will they still need him — to achieve greater control over that legislative body?

With a sweep of those last three races, the Democrats could achieve the "filibuster-proof" three-fifths majority they've been coveting — but they can only do so if Lieberman and Sanders continue to caucus with them.

But if even one of the Senate seats remains in Republican hands, the Democrats will fall short of the three-fifths majority.

And then Lieberman may not be viewed as necessary.

To be continued ...

Assessing the Senate Races

If you're looking for insightful analyses on the races for the presidency, the Senate and the House, you can't go wrong if you consult Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Today, he's provided us with an update on the races for the Senate.

Party control of the Senate, he observes, has changed hands six times since 1980. "This is no longer a rare event."

Sabato has come to the conclusion that "2008 is virtually certain not to generate a seventh such shift."

As I've mentioned before, a big part of the reason is that these senators were elected in 2002. It was the midterm of George W. Bush's first term as president. Normally, midterms go against the party that occupies the White House, but the country was only a year removed from the 9-11 attacks and Bush was pressing for the authority to go to war in Iraq.

So the Republicans won a lot of seats in the Senate. And, as a result, they have twice as many seats to defend as the Democrats do in this election cycle -- when gas prices have risen about 36% in a year, the war is unpopular, and Bush is a lame duck.

All the Democrats are seeking re-election and only one, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, appears to be in a close race. Most observers, Sabato included, believe Democrats will retain at least 11 of their 12 seats.

The Republicans have to defend more than 20 seats, and a handful of their senators are retiring (including Larry Craig of Idaho, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska).

Due to the death of one senator and the retirement of another who was not scheduled to be up for re-election this year, Republicans have to defend two more seats -- in Wyoming and Mississippi, where the voters will be electing two senators at the same time.

Sabato says Wyoming Republicans should be able to hold both their seats, but the seat formerly held by Trent Lott in Mississippi is currently a tossup.

In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Rep. Roger Wicker to succeed Lott. Sabato says Wicker has a "50-50 chance" of holding the seat for the Republicans in November.

In assessing the 11 most competitive Senate races this year, Sabato concludes that Democrats will pick up four seats and two seats currently held by Republicans are tossups (Alaska and Lott's old seat in Mississippi). Thus, a six-seat gain is possible for the Democrats.

In Alaska, longtime Sen. Ted Stevens "is mired in a major corporate scandal involving pay-offs and bribery," writes Sabato. But "[h]e has not been indicted and may be able to clear himself."

And, as Sabato observes, "it is too early to call any November election for an Alaska Democrat."

None of the Democratic seats are currently likely to shift to the Republicans, according to Sabato, not even Landrieu's seat.

Louisiana lost a lot of Democratic votes when a large number of blacks had to leave New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Sabato points out, but he concludes that the state is leaning to Landrieu. "This might be a tight race in the end, but it isn't starting that way."

It's not all bad news for Republicans, according to Sabato. They might not be picking up any seats, but there are a few they may be likely to hold, even if it turns out to be a Democratic year.

In Minnesota, the home of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman "is beatable," Sabato writes, "but it is uncertain whether the new convention-crowned Democratic nominee, comedian Al Franken, can do it.

"Franken has been found to have had a substantial number of overdue tax bills in various states, and some of his off-color satires from past years have not sold well in this more politically correct era."

Franken might still have a struggle on his hands if former Gov. Jesse Ventura opts to run as an independent -- a move he's been mulling lately.

Ventura won't win the Senate seat, Sabato says, "but he's the ultimate wild card."

A Followup On The Senate Races

The Virginia Senate seat being vacated by John Warner (see Tuesday's post) lost a candidate today. Republican Rep. Thomas Davis decided not to run, apparently setting up a battle between former governors.

Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Jim Gilmore appear poised to face off next year. Mark Warner has already announced his plans to seek the seat. Gilmore reportedly will announce his intentions later this fall.

And it's interesting that, while I was speculating on Norm Coleman's race for re-election in Minnesota (see Monday's post), Ezra Klein of The American Prospect was reflecting on Paul Wellstone, Coleman's predecessor and political rival who died in an airplane crash five years ago this week.

And I amended the portion of Monday's post last night to include a mention that Bob Kerrey wasn't going to run for Chuck Hagel's seat next year. I think Kerrey, formerly of the 9-11 commission, likes the school where he is now and doesn't want to change vocations.

There could be -- in fact, probably will be -- some volatile races next year. The presidential race is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.