If this story ( link ) by Scott Johnson on Powerline is accurate—and I bet it is—then the Norm Coleman campaign got thumped by the Al Franken campaign in the hardball politics of vote recounting. 

There’s no excuse for that.

You don’t count coup against someone armed with Winchester rifles who’s willing to use them.  Unless you want to get shot, that is.

It appears that Team Coleman got riddled by political marksmen during this recount. 

Can anyone explain what Team Coleman or the RNSC was thinking? I mean…did they want this Senate seat or not?

Read on

Senator Coleman has acted a bit like an NFL team sitting on a two-point lead in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter and playing zone defense. He could have been much more aggressive in protecting his position in the days since November 5.

One overlooked aspect of the process is the different approaches the two campaigns took once the recount began. From the outset of the recount process, the Coleman campaign has been remarkably passive in its approach. They have improvised strategy from day to day and spent too much time “spinning” the Franken campaign’s activities, while expecting their lawyers to protect them. They have not appeared to me to have a handle on what was happening or on what was likely to happen.

They didn’t have a handle on what was likely to happen? Hel-LO!!!!!

The Coleman campaign appears to have bet they could create a legal firewall that would prevent the “improperly rejected” absentee ballots from getting counted. In any event, the Coleman campaign appears to have been caught flatfooted when the Minnesota Supreme Court decided these ballots should be included in the recount subject to agreement of the parties (and also subject to the possibility of sanctions for withholding agreement in bad faith).

Whatever my inferences, the Coleman campaign was visibly floored by the result when the ballots they had agreed to include were counted on Saturday. The campaign has not put on a performance that makes an impression of anything other than ineptitude.

Okay…as a Redstate and GOP foot soldier, may I ask out loud, with my rage barely contained, why this happened?

Team Coleman had plenty of time to prepare. If they needed help, they should have called for it.

It is one thing to lose a fight after you’ve waged it the best you could, with all the strength and wits and spirit you could bring to bear. It’s quite another thing to lose it because you got lazy!

If Team Coleman wasn’t prepared for this, then they deserved to lose that seat.

Now, I wish they’d told the rest of us in GOP land. A 42 seat GOP delegation is better than a 41 seat one. Now, that seat is gone to the GOP for six years!

Erick, remember the story of Abraham Lincoln’s one time in war? When he lead militia in the Black Hawk War? Lincoln told the story of him giving an order, and his troops saying back to him “you go to hell.”

Well, when you’re talking to GOP leaders, please tell them we foot soldiers are getting tired of this ineptitude. Let’s see—what recent Senatorial examples can I think of…

1) George Allen’s lame reelection campaign, which resulted in Dem Sen Jim Webb

2) Mark Pryor ran UNOPPOSED this past election.

3) And now…we appear to be losing a Senate seat we’d won, because we chose to count coup when our enemies chose to use Winchesters against us—the same Winchesters they brandished for all to see during the whole recount!

May we please have leaders and candidates who will fight? If the ones we have right now are too beholden to New Tone, begging for earmarks from the Dem majority and seeking the favor of MSM talking heads, then can we please have some leaders who will fight. And use common sense while they do it?

I am TIRED of following these clowns! It is a waste of my time to do so.

Will somebody up there fight? Anyone? Anyone?