It's going down to the wire. Coleman- Franken race could be decided by less than 100 votes. And Soros raising money for Franken.

The focus of political attention in Minnesota is of course on the Coleman and Franken recount. At the start of the recount, Coleman held a 215 vote lead out of over 2.88 million votes cast for US Senate candidates in Minnesota. Now, with 46% of the votes recounted, Coleman's lead is down to 136 votes. Of the 46% recounted there are 826 ballots challenges by the Franken and Coleman campaigns.

If the ratio of lost votes holds up for the remaining 54% of votes yet to be recounted that would bring Coleman's lead down to 43 votes.

One of the more interesting comments about ballot challenges was made by the state's foremost election expert. According to Joe Mansky, Ramsey County elections manager who formerly worked for the Secretary of State's office from 1984 to 1999 very few vote overturns occur.

The number of challenged ballots continued to increase Thursday, reaching 823. Mansky -- who worked from 1984 to 1999 in the secretary of state's office and is widely considered the state's foremost elections expert -- said that people shouldn't expect many of those challenges to bear fruit.

"I can only remember two ballot challenges in all those years that were sustained," he said, meaning that the campaign lawyers' views prevailed over the opinion of election judges.

He said he wouldn't be surprised if campaign lawyers negotiate a reduction in the number of challenged ballots before the Canvassing Board meets next month to go through them.

However things turn out the final result will be very close and likely in court. And it appears to me that Franken's campaign is setting up a court challenge by their efforts to get to people whose absentee ballots were rejected.

The lesson to be learned, as it was in the 2000 presidential election, is every vote is important. Voters should never presume their votes don't matter.

In related matter, it was interested seeing liberal billionaire George Soros held a fundraiser for Al Franken in New York City. He's been in the middle of efforts to politically move the United States in a left wing direction.

Ventura's back! At least it sounds like it.

In an NPR interview, Jesse Ventura sounds like he's in the US Senate race against Al Franken and Norm Coleman though he hasn't formally announced yet.

He's already coming out with vintage Jesse comments. He calls himself a statesman in an interview with The Midwest Wine Connection. "I'm not a politician, I'm a statesman. I do one term, and then I go back to the private sector. If I get back into the fray again this year, it's only because I've been gone five years back to the private sector. That's what I did when I was mayor. That's a statesman. That's not a career politician."

He criticises Coleman for not working in the private sector and calls Franken an opportunist and a carpetbagger.

And when saying who Minnesotans should vote for he says, "And all you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us and you decide if you were in a dark alley which one of three of us would you want with you."

That last comment makes me wonder what qualities Jesse believes a US Senator should have -- wisdom and good judgment or the ability to win a street fight.

A poll already show Ventura with 23% of the vote in three way race. With Coleman polling 41% and Franken polling 31%. In a two way race between Coleman and Franken the numbers are 52% to 40% respectively.

I think Jesse hurts Franken more than Coleman. Coleman's a known commodity while Franken isn't. Some say Ventura would be a big threat to Coleman because he's polling at 23% support versus 7% before he started to run for governor in 1998. I think the analogy breaks down because Ventura is definitely a known quantity when in 1998 he wasn't. I think some people who supported him previously won't do it again after our experience with him as governor for four years. I do think Coleman has to take him seriously and can't underestimate him which he probably did when running for governor in 1998. Anything could happen in today's turbulent political environment.

It will certainly prove to be an interesting and and entertaining race with a former comedian and a former professional wrestling in the ring with our incumbent US Senator.