Why Are You A Democrat?

I'm a Democrat because as pathetic as it can be, the Democratic Party is still the only thing standing between me and Feudal Fascism.

But Al Franken says it best:

Strong Tears From a Real Man

Think Progress:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) broke down in tears today on the floor of the Senate while discussing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Franken, who has been a staunch advocate for domestic violence victims, got emotional discussing women who face homelessness after being abused. “Once a woman becomes homeless, she becomes even more vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse,” he said. Watch it:

Dignified Senator Franken Can Still Bring the Funny

Via Talking Points Memo:

Here's a video from yesterday, courtesy of our friends at The Uptake, of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) speaking to a reception held in his honor at the Hart Senate Office Building after he'd been sworn in.

When speaking of his family, his friends, supporters, and the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, Franken was frequently choking back tears -- as he noted, he has a tendency to stop just short of actually crying. And he also got in some nice jokes:

"If I thanked everyone here individually, who helped in this campaign, I would be thanking virtually everybody in this room," Franken said. "There's a couple of you who are kind of -- just here for the ride. (The crowd laughs.) But, 95% of you in this room had a tremendous amount to do with this victory."

Heart of a Clown

Resident Senate Idiot James Inhofe today called Senator Al Franken (D-MN) a "clown."

Here's how that "clown" displayed grace, humility and nobility beyond the ken of subhumans like Inhofe.

Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-MN) just held a victory rally at the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul, celebrating his hard-fought and heavily-litigated victory that finally came true yesterday. In some of the most heartfelt terms possible, he thanked his staff, all of his supporters and volunteers, and especially his family -- and paid tribute to a departed friend, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

"Well, it was close," he began his remarks, to the laughter of the crowd, alluding to his final certified victory margin of 312 votes out of about 2.9 million. "But we won." And the crowd applauded.

"And when you win an election by this close a margin, you know that not one bit of effort went to waste," he later added. "And so I want to thank every single person who knocked on a door, marched in a parade, made a phone call, gave money, gave time, gave energy, gave of themselves to this effort. Thank all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

The longer his speech went on, Franken became more emotional, clearly touched in a very deep way at the amazing victory he has won, and all the effort that other people put into it on his behalf.

"I want to thank our beautiful kids, Joe and Thomasin, who helped out so much and put up with even more during this long campaign. But most of all, most of all, I want to thank their mom," he said. "You know, this September 19th will be the 40th anniversary that Franni and I met at a freshman college mixer. We've been partners ever since, and when we decided to make this effort, I called our friends and said, 'Franni and I are running for the Senate, and if we win, I get to be the Senator.' Well honey, I get to be the Senator. (They hug, as the audience cheers.) I get to be the Senator because of you. This was a historically close race, but it wouldn't have been if it weren't for Franni. I would have lost, by kind of a lot."

Read the whole thing - Eric Kleefield, who has been covering the Minnesota Senate race like a blanket for more than eight solid months, deserves your page views.

2008 Election Still Open to Repug Theft

When Talking Points Memo, which broke the US Attorneys scandal, says a story is flying under the national and MSM radar, bloggers should need no further encouragement.

Did you know that the mere fact a republican incumbent lost a tight re-election is proof that the election was rigged and needs to be done over?

No? Then meet former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, the biggest sore-losing WATB north of Rush Limpballs.

In a nutshell, Norm Coleman has lost but refuses to concede and now wants to throw out the original election, the one he lost, and hold a new one.

Coleman was ahead after the initial tally on election night, but then found himself 225 votes behind Al Franken after the state-mandated recount. So Coleman sued to have the results of the election overturned by a court, primarily (though not exclusively) on the grounds that certain absentee ballots were counted that shouldn't have been and others weren't counted but should have been. That's most of what the twists and turns of the legal dispute have been about (a political junkies dream, really).

But five weeks into the election contest trial, the court has repeatedly issued rulings that narrow Coleman's chances of either collecting enough newly counted ballots or throwing out already counted ballots -- or some combination of the two. So in recent days, the Coleman legal team has become increasingly shrill in its attacks not just on the court but on the entire electoral process in Minnesota, getting closer every day to outright calling for the Nov. 4 election be declared null and void and a whole new election be held between Coleman and Franken. And now Coleman himself has suggested that a do-over election may be necessary.

In the background of course is the fact that the longer the legal dispute drags on, the longer Senate Democrats are denied an important 59th vote, in the person of Al Franken. But let's not allow that to distract from the fact that Coleman (and the GOP) still desperately wants to win, and has shown himself willing to do just about anything to get there.

Throwing your hands up and saying let's just call the election a tie and do it again is the desperate last act of a losing candidate. That this ploy requires attacking the entire electoral process and the people who conduct elections in the state is just a sign of his desperation. But apparently even the Coleman camp is starting to see that a do-over election is the only avenue still open to Coleman that might, albeit remotely, allow him to return to his seat.

For years, and certainly most loudly since the Florida debacle of 2000, Republicans have made ill-founded election hijinks charges against Democrats. But Norm Coleman, with the support of national Republicans (keep in mind that one of Coleman's lawyers is Ben Ginsberg, the Bush campaign's top lawyer in 2000) is now poised to try to pull off what would be perhaps a bigger election robbery than Bush v. Gore: toss out the nearly three million votes cast on one of the most-anticipated election days in this nation's history in favor of a much smaller special do-over election. It's breath-taking. Yet for some reason this story still seems to be flying below the national political radar.

Read the the whole reality-defying fiasco.