Dear Minnesotans,
This letter will contain some bad words. It's also going to rub a lot of you the wrong way - particularly the 1.2 million that voted for that marionette Norm Coleman. So that's 40% of the state's electorate I can safely say will not like this. Luckily, it's not directed at you.
Nor is it directed at the 1,211,190 (at last count) of you that voted for Al Franken. I've expressed my affection for Al in the past, on this very site - Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot (And Other Observations) turned me on to politics, and was written at a time when liberal punditry had been declared dead and forgotten. You, my fellow Americans, have my deepest thanks for voting for this man.
1,572,251 Minnesotans voted for Barack Obama, and (at least) 1,211,190 of you voted for Al Franken.
This letter is meant for the 361,601 (give or take) difference.
What. The. Fuck?
That's roughly half the state of Alaska - 23% of the Obama electorate in the state - that either decided to either support a long shot third party candidate that was sheerly a protest vote from the beginning or not vote for Senate at all. Meanwhile, Coleman pulled just to within just over 50,000 votes of McCain's total.
I was wrong earlier this year. When I heard bitterness that Franken was surpassing people that had been in office for years based on money and name recognition, I heard echoes of the complaints coming from Hillary's camp. I never took it seriously - I couldn't bring myself to, with the outrageous bullshit the PUMAs were peddling. Democrats, surely, will put such petty differences aside - in this year, if in no other.
How naive I was.
The man is not perfect. He did not pay his taxes in a prompt manner. He made jokes that were inappropriate and sometimes downright offensive. But he apologized. How many times has Norm Coleman apologized for voting for the war in Iraq? How about refusing to hold a single oversight hearing on said war? How about anything that's happened since he allowed the ghost of Paul Wellstone to be bastardized six long years ago?
It doesn't look like we'll hit sixty seats even if Franken pulls it out (and I have full faith that he won this election - I have no reason to believe he hasn't at this point.)
And even if it dhat if health care reform, revamping the education system and beginning the slow process of erecting a new energy economy depends on one vote, and that vote happens to belong to Norm Coleman?
How will you feel?
Will you blame the party elite for backing Franken? Will you blame your fellow primary voters for their stupidity?
Or will you blame your own self-righteous, overly picky ass for refusing to send Al Franken to the Senate to help Barack Obama carry out his agenda?
Really, I only want you, the Minnesota 'Democrat' that refused to vote for Al Franken, to answer one question for me - and millions of other puzzled progressives everywhere.
Why?