Roland Burris, Jan. 5, 2009: “The Lord put his hands on the governor and said, ‘This is the person that has to go to Washington.’”

Michele Bachmann, Oct. 14, 2006: “He called me to run for United States Congress”

But isn’t Sarlin missing something here?

These books are intended to be satire. Whether you think they succeed or not, they hardly evidence how Franken might act upon becoming a senator. And most of the Franken critics that Sarlin cites — Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly — are hardly mainstream conservatives that swing voters are likely to take their cues from. Rather, they’re political pugilists whose sole purpose is to rile up the conservative base (and make boatloads of money).

If anything, the Senate campaign in Minnesota proved that merely attacking Al Franken as an ideolog and an interloper is not enough to convince voters to back the Republican candidate. Norm Coleman’s campaign attacked Franken incessantly throughout the contest — and it doesn’t look to have been a very successful strategy.

PepsiAmericas CEO Robert Pohlad has chipped in $50,000, while his wife, Rebecca, added another $37,500. Alida Messinger — a veteran Democratic donor, Rockefeller heir, and ex-wife of former Sen. Mark Dayton — also contributed $37,500. Finally, Jeffrey Balanga, CEO of Minnetonka-based Carlson Marketing, made a $25,000 donation.

As the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal previously reported, there are some other donors with Minnesota connections. UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President Thomas Strickland contributed $50,000, while three other employees of the Minnetonka-based company gave at least $200.

Under rules put forth by Obama’s inaugural committee, individuals are prohibited from giving more than $50,000. In addition corporations, political-action committees, lobbyists and non-citizens are barred from contributing to the festivities.

But the proposed stamp reduction quickly sparked opposition from Democrats. “This is the way many members stay in touch with their constituents,” said Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller. “You don’t have to use up this total allotment if you don’t want.”

Sen. Steve Murphy echoed those comments. “Many of us that have larger districts … we depend upon that postage to stay in contact with our constituents,” noted Murphy, a DFLer from Red Wing. “Today, more than ever, we need the input from our constituents.”

Ultimately the proposal was voted down by a 38-27 margin, largely along party lines.

In winning the most votes by a slim margin, Franken is “tainted,” according to Republican state Sen. Geoff Michel. And while Michel won’t find an argument with that assertion from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers (from whom he may have taken inspiration for his choice of words), history suggests that a slim winning margin won’t hurt Franken at the polls six years from now.

Eric Ostermeier, writing at his Smart Politics blog from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, takes a look back at past victors in Minnesota elections to the U.S. Senate and finds that “there is virtually no difference in the re-election success rate of those who won narrowly and those who won by large margins.”

In fact, Ostermeier reports, senators who won by double-digit margins did slightly worse in the next election cycle than those who won by narrower margins. His conclusion:

In short, if past is prologue (and all things being equal), should Franken prevail and choose to run in 2014, he would seem to have about a 67 percent chance of winning reelection, as 15 of 22 Senators have done before him.

If it seems a bit early (or even a bit nutty) to run the numbers already on Franken’s chances in 2014 on a day when senators of his own party thought better of even trying to seat him a first time — well, it was early. A date-stamp reveals that Ostermeier posted his electoral research on Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 2:38 a.m.

Originally estimated at around $75,000, the cost of the 62-day statewide hand recount of ballots is coming in at more than double that amount. “This is going to cost somewhere around $200,000 or a little more,” Secretary of State Mark Ritchie says.

And, speaking of cash, Norm Coleman needs some. His campaign says it’ll challenge the State Canvassing Board’s results and is expected to file suit soon, possibly today. According to KSTP, his campaign sent out a fundraising email last night. What the campaign needs to continue pursuing the seat? “Lots of money: That’s a safe bet,” said Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak. “It’s going to be expensive, but we know that it’s not taxpayer expense. We’re at the part of the process where it’s the parties that bear the brunt of it.”

But donors should keep in mind their gifts might not go toward the recount challenge at all. In mid-December, Coleman’s campaign stated that it plans on using political contributions to cover “legal fees related to what we believe to be a politically inspired legal action” — a pair of lawsuits that mention Coleman and top donor Nasser Kazeminy.

Al Franken (WDCpix)

In the first week of the 111th Congress, Democrats already have themselves in a pickle.

Party leaders hoping to block the appointment of Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate are pointing to the same legal technicality that Republicans hope to use to keep Minnesotan Al Franken (D) from taking a seat of his own.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Under wildly different circumstances, neither Burris nor Franken has received official state certification to fill the seats — Burris because his appointment came under a cloud of scandal; Franken because his opponent has contested the razor-thin election results. As the new Congress prepares to launch with swearing-in ceremonies Tuesday afternoon, Republican leaders hope to use the lack-of-certification argument to block Franken. Some political experts say that Democratic leaders should tread carefully if they plan to refuse Burris for the same reason — or risk of falling victim to their own standards.

“Inconsistency can be a political problem for Democrats given how delicate this issue is,” Julian E. Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University, said in an email. “The Burris issue is front page news so this is not a decision that can be done and hidden … [I]f they are going to depend on a technicality to keep Burris out, they can’t ignore a similar technicality with Franken.”

Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, was appointed to the coveted Senate post last month by Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested just weeks before for alleged attempts to auction off the upper-chamber slot. Democratic leaders — including Obama — have vowed to block Burris from taking the seat on account of the scandal surrounding Blagojevich. Illinois Sec. of State Jesse White on Monday provided party leaders with some justification when he refused to sign Burris’s election certification papers. White, who has repeatedly said he won’t certify any appointee of the embattled governor, cited a desire “to be true to my word.”

Undeterred, Burris said Monday that his appointment is perfectly legal, and the controversy swirling around it is an invention of the media. He said he has every intention of visiting the Capitol Tuesday to be sworn in.

“I am going there to be seated,” Burris said at an animated press conference as he was leaving Chicago for Washington Monday. “I am the junior senator from the state of Illinois. That’s all I can say.”

If Senate Democratic leaders turn him away at the chamber door, Burris added, “My lawyers will take it from there, and we’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s state canvassing board on Monday certified Franken as the winner of his contest by a 225-vote margin over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R). Coleman’s camp quickly vowed to file a lawsuit in Minnesota state court protesting the results. Minnesota state law prevents the election certification from becoming finalized until that legal process has ended.

Senate Republicans, led by GOP Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), have vowed to block Franken’s arrival until the lawsuit has played itself out. “There are a lot of questions about double-counted ballots, about absentee ballots that likely favor Norm Coleman that were refused to be counted by the canvassing board,” Cornyn told Fox News Monday. “These issues will all be worked out in court over the next few weeks. But, tomorrow, I do not think Al Franken will have a legal right to claim that Senate seat until all the votes are properly counted.”

Kathryn L. Pearson, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, said that, in light of the Burris episode, the Democrats’ success in seating Franken this week might hinge on how they present their argument.

“If the frame is about certification of elections, it does become complicated,” Pearson said. But if the frame is that the canvassing board has determined Franken the winner, she added, “then the case could be made that these are two very distinct situations.”

The Burris issue has become a thorn in the sides of Democrats, who are hoping to use a special provisional designation to solidify Franken’s spot in the upper chamber as quickly as possible — a designation granting all the voting and committee-assignment rights of the office, but making it easier to remove Franken if Coleman’s claims that he won are later discovered to be true.

Such a provisional designation is not without precedent. Following a tight Senate race in Louisiana in 1996, Democrat Mary Landrieu was seated “without prejudice” after her opponent brought charges of election fraud. (A Senate investigation found that the election irregularities were not enough to remove Landrieu from office. In November she was elected to her third term.)

Cornyn, who was recently elected to his second term, referred to such precedents as “ancient.”

In the eyes of some political experts, the entire episode is nothing more than a partisan jousting match with little lasting significance. Stephen Hess, a political scholar with the Brookings Institution, said the state-certification issue is “too inside-baseball” to resonate in any way that would foil the underlying plans of Democratic leaders.

“They’ll do what they want to do,” Hess said. “This thing is going to take a few days to play out — or a few weeks — but it really doesn’t have much political significance…It seems quite clear that very quickly there are going to be two new Democratic senators.”

Still, even Hess conceded that the arrival of Burris in Washington creates an unwelcome distraction for Democrats who’d hoped to use the momentum from November’s elections to move an enormous economic recovery package (among other party priorities) early this year.

“Blagojevich has put them in one hell of a bind,” Hess said. “It’s fascinating to watch them squirm their way out of it.”

Mike Lillis is the Congress Reporter for The Washington Independent.

Al Franken has emerged from the U.S. Senate recount with a 225-vote lead over incumbent Norm Coleman. The five-member State Canvassing Board unanimously certified the results at a hearing Monday afternoon. Roughly two months after the election — and following a painstaking statewide manual recount of nearly 3 million ballots — Franken received 1,212,431 votes, while Coleman was backed by 1,212,206 voters.

While the actions of the canvassing board would seem to suggest that the epic election contest is finally drawing to a close, the Coleman campaign immediately made it clear that they have no intention of conceding defeat. Attorney Tony Trimble announced at a press conference following the canvassing board meeting that they will file a lawsuit contesting the outcome of the contest. The Republican’s campaign believes that various voting improprieties — wrongly rejected absentee ballots, double-counted ballots and lost ballots — have tarnished the recount.

“Since the process is far from complete there can be no confidence in the current results of the United States Senate recount,” Trimble said. “We will file a contest within the next 24 hours to promptly correct those problems.”

The Franken campaign, not surprisingly, hailed the development. “Today is a great day for the people of Minnesota,” lawyer Marc Elias said. “I stand before you proudly as the attorney for the next Senator for the state, Senator-elect Al Franken;”

Franken himself declared victory in front of his Minneapolis condominium this afternoon. Reports out of Washington today suggested that the Senate will attempt to seat him tomorrow with the other freshman legislators. Republicans have vowed to prevent that from happening through a filibuster. In another unwelcome development for Coleman, his office was ordered shut and staff sent home at the direction of the Senate rules committee.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and the four other members of the canvassing board expressed satisfaction at the conduct of the state-mandated recount. “I think this recount has proven the wisdom and the strength of that system in an amazing way,” Ritchie said at the close of the meeting. “This didn’t just fall from the sky. People long before us built this system.”

But canvassing board member Eric Magnuson, chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, summed up the continuing ambiguity surrounding the ultimate outcome of the Senate contest. “I don’t think we’ve written the last chapter in this particular election,” he said.

The election will not be certified, however, for at least seven days. During that interim period Coleman will have the opportunity to contest the results in court — a step that his campaign has promised to take because of alleged irregularities in the vote counting.

Update: Late Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Democrats will not try to seat Franken on Tuesday.

Jim Manley, the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CQ today that there “likely will be an attempt to seat [Franken] this week.” A senior Democratic aide also confirmed that Senate Democrats hoped to swear Franken in Tuesday, along with the rest of the freshman senators.

Republicans have promised to filibuster any attempt to seat Franken before the election is certified. “I think that is the likelihood here if the Democrats try to ignore the Senate Rule Two and Minnesota law and try to short-circuit this process,” Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, told CNN this morning.