Buyer's remorse with Franken?

The latest polling returns from the Minnesota Secretary of State show Norm Coleman winning over Al Franken by 462 votes out of 2.42 million votes. It's certainly too close to declare victory by either side in light of a recount next month. (Hopefully, it won't be a rerun of Florida 2000 controversy.)

But looking at the voting numbers, the race shouldn't have been close if another candidate had been in the race for the DFL. Franken had over 360,000 fewer votes than Obama and nearly 400,000 fewer votes than all eight DFL congressional candidates. In other words, a lot of people ticket split between Obama and Franken. Hundreds of thousands couldn't bring themselves to vote for him no doubt because of his work as a SNL satirist and some of his writings on rape and women and mockery of Christians beliefs. While he certainly brought a lot of money to the table, a candidate with a Minnesota "nice" personality and not the baggage would no doubt have done better.

Ritchie actually said he wanted to depoliticize the Minnesota Secretary of State's office?

The mainstream media has picked up on the story that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie wasn't totally forthright in his denials regarding how his campaign got the list of individuals and organizations gathered through the Secretary of State's office. The list was comprised of organizations and individuals brought together to increase voter turnout. Individuals in attendance ended up getting a political fundraising letter from Ritchie.

Previously, Ritchie had denied knowing how the campaign got the list. He now insists that it solicited contributions only to pay for the newsletter itself. But its text invites recipients to an upcoming campaign fundraiser.

However, it turns out he personally gave the list to the campaign.

Ritchie said Tuesday that he personally provided a copy of the directory to his campaign and requested that those on the list get a copy of his campaign's civic engagement newsletter, which is distributed to about 12,000 individuals and groups whom he described as active in civic life in the state.

It also reminds people that Ritchie said when campaigning he wanted to depoliticize the office of secretary of state.

Ritchie, a DFLer, was elected on a platform of de-politicizing the office, which supervises elections.

Frankly, Ritchie was and is viewed as a highly partisan, liberal activist. He headed up a liberal environmental group prior to running for the secretary of state position.