We have just witnessed a long election contest for our Class II seat in the United States Senate. It was the longest such contest in our state’s history. The only real problem is that it was close. We sometimes fail to remember that even actual counting is not always an exact science.
Throughout it all, we saw how open, fair, and accountable our system is. Neither of our candidates questioned that. Before the election winner was certified twelve judges of three parties either participated in or agreed with the results. No judge took the other side.
We probably should consider ourselves blessed for the cool and professional work done by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff, tut state GOP leaders, perhaps funded in part by national Republican resentment, have decided to attack him. They have set up a web site attacking Mr. Ritchie as being [gasp, shock] a liberal and a Democrat, suggesting that he somehow led four learned in the law judges on the Canvassing Board, none of whom was appointed by a DFL governor, on the legalities of things.
Many of the charges are documented by articles and statements in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. That seems as good a source for something like this as asking Capitol City Musings for impartial review of civil liberties infringed upon by smoking bans.
There may be good reason not to support Mark Ritchie in next year’s election. After all, he is a DFL person and while that party has long been good on human rights, they have been terrible on civil liberties and they are not as death on taxes as Bachmannites would like.
But taking him on for what happened in this last election seems only to diminish the accusers.
Throughout it all, we saw how open, fair, and accountable our system is. Neither of our candidates questioned that. Before the election winner was certified twelve judges of three parties either participated in or agreed with the results. No judge took the other side.
We probably should consider ourselves blessed for the cool and professional work done by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff, tut state GOP leaders, perhaps funded in part by national Republican resentment, have decided to attack him. They have set up a web site attacking Mr. Ritchie as being [gasp, shock] a liberal and a Democrat, suggesting that he somehow led four learned in the law judges on the Canvassing Board, none of whom was appointed by a DFL governor, on the legalities of things.
Many of the charges are documented by articles and statements in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. That seems as good a source for something like this as asking Capitol City Musings for impartial review of civil liberties infringed upon by smoking bans.
There may be good reason not to support Mark Ritchie in next year’s election. After all, he is a DFL person and while that party has long been good on human rights, they have been terrible on civil liberties and they are not as death on taxes as Bachmannites would like.
But taking him on for what happened in this last election seems only to diminish the accusers.
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