More Encouraging News From The Franken/Coleman Race (With Update)

From the Star-Tribune:

An Associated Press analysis of the nearly 25,000-vote difference in Minnesota presidential and U.S. Senate race tallies shows that most ballots lacking a recorded Senate vote were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

The finding could have implications for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and DFLer Al Franken, who are headed for a recount separated by the thinnest of margins -- 221 votes as of Friday, or about 0.01 percent.

Though some voters may have intentionally bypassed the race, others may have mismarked their ballot or optical scanning machines may have misread them. A recount to begin Nov. 19 will use manual inspection to detect such ballots.

Three counties -- Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis -- account for 10,540 votes in the dropoff. Each saw Obama win with 63 percent or more.

Ballots that showed a presidential vote but no Senate vote are called the "undervote." Statewide, more than 18,000 of those ballots came from counties won by Obama with more than half the vote. About 6,100 were in counties won by Republican John McCain with at least 50 percent. * * *

UPDATE: Franken now trails Coleman by a mere 206 votes.

And, with regard to the Chambliss/Martin run-off for the Georgia senate seat, I think Democrat Jim Martin should do the following three things: (1) go negative, (2) go negative, and (3) go negative. John McCain is scheduled to campaign for Republican Chambliss, who beat out Vietnam vet and triple amputee Max Cleland in 2002 by running ads featuring images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein while criticizing Cleland's votes against homeland security measures. Back in 2002, McCain had this to say about the Chambliss ads:

"I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible."

Needless to say, Jim Martin should prepare an ad featuring McCain's comments from 2002, and start running the ad to coincide with McCain's campaign stops in Georgia. Negative advertising seems to work very well in that state.