Shannyn Moore, a liberal talk radio host in Anchorage, was interviewed tonight by Jon Elliot, and said the Alaska elections look very peculiar. According to her, the turnout was less than 2004 despite a huge increase during caucuses, and despite an active Obama ground game. The McCain/Obama margins were exactly the same as Bush/Kerry despite Palin on the ticket, and many precincts had more than 100% turnout. I'll add that the polls were correct all across the country all down the ballot, except in Alaska. Young and Stevens were far behind the day before the election. Really, does anyone believe these results? With the elections run by the most corrupt state Republican party in the country?

I was concerned a definitive Obama win would cause potentially stolen elections to get overlooked. The news media reported the voting came off with no problems, just like in 2004. Seriously? After committing election fraud election after election, the Republicans suddenly stopped?

@road warrior, you know as little about Franken as you know synonyms for "liberal illuminati" (check road warrior's other letters, anyone who doesn't get what I mean). This man is a serious policy wonk, not just a writer with a quick wit.

I appeal to all liberals/Democrats to keep on top of the media in this Minnesota recount story. Coleman has declared victory with a 465 vote margin out of 3 million votes, and he's already called on Franken to accept the result and stop the recount. This is exactly the tactic Bush used to establish the media narrative for Florida 2000. He declared victory and called on Gore to stop the recount, and the media ran with the narrative that Bush won, and Gore was trying to overturn Bush's "victory". This was how Bush for more pressure on Gore to stop the "endless" recounting than was put on Bush to allow it to continue, and that's exactly what Coleman is doing. We can't let the media get used this way again.

It always strikes me as ludicrous to blame both sides equally when one will compromise and one won't. Maybe it's easier than trying to sort out what's really going on.

The South will remain the place the parties are struggling over. First that's because of the 50-state strategy, which necessarily entails trying to compete in areas where Democrats aren't competitive, which includes much of the South. Second, the Republicans have been reduced to a Southern and Central Plains party, while Democrats are the party playing offense. That means for the foreseeable future, we'll be fighting over Texas, not New York. When we cede the South, then Republicans will be free to stop playing defense, and worry about competing in the Great Lakes again.

Only in the East did Obama get majority of the White vote? That doesn't sound right. I looked at CNN, and I didn't see the breakdown by region. Maybe I missed it. Nonetheless, just how are we defining "East" or any other region? Obama won by low double digits in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, each of which has a small non-white population. There just aren't enough minorities to account for it. Obama clearly got most White voters. Take just the states Obama won, and I'd bet he won the White vote, and maybe by a wide margin. This indicates we still have racial issues to address in the southeastern quarter of the country, but I doubt that's news to many.

I hardly know Franken like Conason does, just a very brief conversation, a couple handshakes at events, listening to his show on Air America.... but I know Franken to be a decent man. The conservatives blogging and commenting on news site articles, writing letters to the editor, etc., are still pounding hard on what a terrible person they think Franken is. I suspect they're trowing everything they have at him in hopes of somehow stopping the recount. Maybe if they keep destroying Franken's reputation, they can get public pressure behind stopping the recount after Coleman finds enough legal excuses to drag it out.

I ask because my recollection is he voted against the FISA bill which included telecom immunity. Just now I found a conservative blog attacking him for opposing it, so I question whether the Hill story is accurate.

The more I think about it, the more sure I am about my recollection. Perhaps he voted for a bill without immunity?

I could accept Lieberman keeping his chairmanship under two conditions. First, he must vote with the Democrats on cloture votes, especially on anything relating to national security. He can vote against passage, but he must vote for closure. Second, he must use his committee to conduct the investigations he should have been investigating the last two years. Maybe let the other Democrats on the committee set the agenda, and he gets to preside over meetings. Otherwise, bye-bye.

After the end of Apartheid, South Africa set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That's where the phrase comes from. It isn't quite what is meant when we talk about investigating and prosecuting, because anyone could tell the commission what they did during Apartheid and be immune from prosecution, except for anything they omitted or lied about. If we follow South Africa's example, we lose the ability to prosecute, but we might get more information. Even if we can never prosecute, it's quite realistic to somehow find out who did what, and stop these people being considered respectable enough for government positions when the next Republican administration comes along. For examples, notice how the Watergate conspirators never made it back into government, but Iran-Contra conspirators did.