U.S. Senator-elect Al Franken roundup

The headlines tell the most important story: today, it becomes official -- Al Franken has won, and is your U.S. Senator-elect from the great state of Minnesota.

• Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Senate race certification set for Monday with Franken up 225 votes

• CNN: Panel to declare Franken winner of Senate race

• Washington Post: Franken to be declared Senate victor in Minnesota

The only option Norm Coleman has left is a legal battle that analysts agree is doomed:

• On CNN, Hotline Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter said: "it’s going to be very hard for Norm Coleman to overturn this."

• Local political analyst Larry Jacobs says it is "unlikely" that Coleman could ultimately prevail.

• Politico doesn't give Coleman much of a chance: "Indeed, even if some of the Coleman campaign claims regarding double-counted ballots and missing ballots were resolved in their favor, Coleman still would likely be trailing Franken."

• Nate Silver thinks Franken's lead is a blow to Coleman's legal prospects. "Either way, a number of legal stratagems that might have seemed appealing to the Coleman campaign might now be somewhat mooted. For instance, even if all 130 ballots that the Coleman campaign claimed were double-counted for Franken were removed from his tally (but no ballots at all had been double-counted for Coleman), Franken would maintain a significant advantage."

• TPM's Eric Kleefeld has worked through the numbers and says Franken's lead appears "insurmountable."

• Local political reporter Esme Murphy says Franken looks like a winner. "Yes, it was excruciatingly close. But this was not a tie folks, and one candidate is looking like the guy who won. The question is will the guy who appears to have lost follow the recommendation he made just two months ago."

With the state canvassing board declaring Franken's victory and analysts agreeing that Franken has won this election, the only question is when the Senate will seat Franken, and whether Norm Coleman will keep his word and concede now that he's lost, or whether he will subject the state of Minnesota to months of legal wrangling.

Whatever Coleman ends up doing, Senators are now moving towards seating Senator-elect Franken sooner than later.

On Sunday afternoon, Chuck Schumer joined Amy Klobuchar in calling for Franken to be seated at the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow.

And significantly, late Sunday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on Norm Coleman to concede, giving Coleman a chance to make a dignified exit before the Senate drops the hammer.

Meanwhile, leave it to Nate Silver to identify an important -- but easily overlooked -- ramification of Franken's larger-than-expected victory.

If neither Franken nor Roland Burris are seated on Tuesday, there will be 98 U.S. Senators. By rule, it takes three-fifths of seated Senators to defeat a filibuster. Since three-fifths of 98 is 58.8, instead of the usual 60, only 59 senators would be needed. But since three-fifths of 99 is 59.4, a 99-senator Senate would require 60 senators to defeat a filibuster.

Therefore, assuming that Franken is seated (as he should be) it becomes even more important to have a Democratic senator from Illinois...which brings us to the question of Roland Burris. Harry Reid has been unwavering in his opposition to seating Burris...until yesterday, when it became clear that Al Franken had won convincingly.

MR. GREGORY: How does this end?  Do you think Roland Burris will be in the United States Senate?

SEN. REID: It's going to be very, be very difficult for that to occur.  I've learned being in--a senator for the time I have that anything can happen.  The best thing that would happen, as I've indicated on this program and I've said before...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEN. REID: ...Blagojevich should step down.  He should do it today.  If not, he'll be impeached.  And I--and that's prior to his being...

MR. GREGORY: But are you willing to go to the mat on this to deny Roland Burris, if it requires going to the Supreme Court?  Is it worth that effort?

SEN. REID: The state of Illinois deserves a vote in the United States Senate, and the people of the state of Illinois, the fifth most populous state in the union, deserve that vote.  It's too bad Blagojevich has diverted attention from the real issue.  And we'll--we're--as I've indicated, we're going to come--I'm going to meet with Senator McConnell, my Republican counterpart.  I hope to do that Monday evening.  I think it's around 6:00 or something like that.  We'll talk about this.  I hope we can solve this issue on a bipartisan basis.

MR. GREGORY: But there sounds to me like there may be some room here to negotiate and actually seat Burris?

SEN. REID: Hey, listen, David, I'm an old trial lawyer.  There's always room to negotiate.

MR. GREGORY: All right, so you're not saying no completely that he won't serve?

SEN. REID: That's right.

Wouldn't it be something else if Al Franken's victory was just what we needed to resolve the situation in Illinois?

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Update (8:11AM): Norm Coleman's lawyer has raised the possibility that Coleman won't file a legal contest:

Asked whether Coleman would sue, Coleman recount lawyer Fritz Knaak said: "He doesn't have to make that decision yet. I have no reason at this time ... to believe we aren't going to be contesting this thing if we're down at the end of the day."

"The only thing that could waver or change that would be a call from Norm Coleman saying, 'I don't think so,' and I don't see that coming," Knaak said.

One the one hand, Knaak is still signaling Coleman's predilection to litigation. On the other hand, this is the first time that Coleman's camp has publicly raised the possibility of conceding.

The reason? Even they know the numbers won't change by much:

"It's conceivable, I'm not saying probable or likely, but conceivable that in a ... [court] contest, we could see these numbers change by hundreds on both sides," he said. "Everything is on the table and it's a different game."