Norm Coleman's Bush-Like Recount Strategy

Nate Silver has a good post up on Minnesota Senate, where he notes that Senator Norm Coleman and his campaign are challenging more and votes as the recount moves along.

We'll update these numbers "officially" with the Secretary of State's data dump at 8 PM, but based on intraday numbers compiled by the Star Tribune (as of 4:42 PM local time), Norm Coleman's rate of challenges continues to skyrocket while Al Franken's -- though much higher than it had been on the first couple days of the recount process -- has leveled off some.

Coleman's rate of challenges thus far today is approximately 23.4 for every 10,000 ballots cast. On Wednesday, the first day of the recount, Coleman's rate of challenges was 2.5 per 10,000 ballots. So for some reason, the Coleman campaign is finding reason to challenge more than nine times as many ballots as it did on Wednesday (and the Franken campaign, for its part, is finding reason to challenge about five times as many ballots).

Now, the Coleman campaign isn't being devious or anything like that; they're simply exploiting a flawed system and trying to win a spin war...

Great info, but I disagree with Nate on one thing: Coleman is being very devious here, and is channeling Bush's campaign in 2000 in the process.

Norm Coleman has one goal right now: he wants to be ahead at the end of the recount. Sounds simple, yes, but it isn't. If Coleman is ahead at the end, but before thousands of challenged ballots are resolved and counted one way or the other, watch for the Senator to loudly declare himself the winner. This will accomplish two things. First, it will give Coleman legitimacy and allow him to solidify claims, whether fair or not, that he won the race. Second, it will allow Coleman and the GOP to demonize Franken for trying to get challenged ballots counted. Republicans will argue that such moves are Franken and the Democrats' way of trying to "steal" the election.

I have no doubt this is what Team Coleman is aiming for. They have to be ahead at the end of this process, regardless of whether many ballots are not including in those numbers. Heck, this is a guy who declared himself the winner on election night despite all of the uncertainties.

What should bother Democrats is that Team Franken seemingly has no strategy to counter Coleman's public relations moves. As Coleman's lawyers have been challenging votes left and right -- assuredly, 99%+ of which are Franken votes, if votes at all -- we've heard very little from Franken or the national Democratic Party.

After Florida 2000, you would think Dems have grown a spine, but you would be wrong. The Dems, after all of their successes, are still weak while Republicans are willing to say and do anything to win an election. This race is going to get very ugly, and watch for these events to transpire if Coleman has his slim lead intact before challenges are resolved.