With the last the Minnesota ballots counted, Al Franken’s lead has jumped from 225 votes to 312 votes. David Kurtz dryly calls the new tally “a landslide by Minnesota standards.”
Meanwhile, pressure is increasing on Coleman to resign. Ramensh Ponnuru is the first major conservative writer to tell Coleman to give it up. Scott Johnson further advances the grieving process by assuring National Review readers that Franken didn’t steal the election. And most importantly, the Albert Lea Tribune, a Minnesota paper that endorsed Coleman, editorialized yesterday that “this newspaper endorsed Republican Norm Coleman for senator, but now it is time for him to step out of the race and let Minnesota have two senators again.” On the other hand, if Coleman too has come to the conclusion that he can’t win the seat, then isn’t it in his interests to maximally delay Franken’s arrival in Washington? A conservative movement that’s happy with Norm Coleman is a movement that might give Norm Coleman a high-paying job…
