Media still trying to delegitimize MN recount
November 19, 2008 6:53 pm ET by Jamison Foser
A few minutes ago, MSNBC's David Gregory spent about thirty seconds telling viewers about the recount in the Minnesota Senate race. In those thirty seconds, Gregory said very little -- but he did tell viewers the recount will occur "at a total cost of about $86,000 to Minnesota taxpayers."
It's odd that Gregory would focus on the recount's cost, particularly given that it wasn't a detailed report -- the cost of the recount was one of very few bits of information Gregory gave viewers. The cost just isn't newsworthy. Media outlets don't typically emphacize how much elections cost; they certainly don't emphacize how much individual aspects of elections cost. (When was the last time you saw a newscaster announce "election workers rolled voting machines out of storage this morning, at a cost to taxpayers of ..."?)
And that's all this recount is: it is one part of the elections process. Its cost is, simply put, irrelevent. Elections are worth doing correctly no matter how much they cost. Not only that, but $86,000 is, even in the midst of a struggling economy, an utterly trivial amount of money for the state of Minnesota to spend in order to get the results of an election right.
How trivial? The $86,000 cost comes out to 1.7 cents per Minnesota resident. One point seven cents. It's a mere three cents per vote. Anybody out there think making sure each vote is counted correctly isn't worth three cents? Anyone at all?
So why is David Gregory making a point of stressing the cost of the recount, if that cost is completely trivial (and would be worth spending if it were ten times as much)?
Who knows?
What we do know is that Norm Coleman, clinging to a 200 vote lead, has stressed the cost of the recount in arguing that it should not proceed. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has reported "Coleman urged Franken to waive his right to a recount, saying that the prospect of changing the result was remote and that a recount would be costly to taxpayers (about $86,000)."
Awfully nice of Gregory to carry Coleman's water like that, isn't it?
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This is what irks me about living in a Democracy: the hidden charges!
Just when you think the deal is done, and the price is settled, that's when you get hit with the fees and additional expenses and the taxes and the fine print, and the extended warranty that costs about a fifth of the danged purchase, and shipping and handling isn't included in the price either?
You mean all those things aren't free of charge?
$86,000?
I say screw it. I say I can decide the MN U.S. Senate seat for just 25 cents...
I'll take a quarter and I'll flip it in the air: "Mr. Coleman, it's your call sir, heads or tails?"
It's either that, or just count all the votes and spend the money and be sure of the winner.
Democracy irks me sometimes: it isn't exactly free, is it?
The evening actually got worse.
A little while after this, Gregory then referred to whats-her-name as the "call girl who caused all of Spitzer's troubles." Like his problems were her fault!
Some really unbelievable nuttiness going on there today at MSNBC.
And I don't think that these media and political hacks are going to find it as easy to intimidate and confuse the recount in Minnesota, as it was for Florida 2000.
The American People learned from Florida 2000, that it was their (Florida's) ballot and theirs alone, and that the crime was when people from outside of Florida stuck their big noses into Florida's business... the biggest nose of all being Anton Scalia's.
So I think the American People are largely tuning out the media's MN 2008 noise, or are at least not being played neurotically, like they were in 2000 with Florida. Also I think the location and people of Minnesota make it all different too: it's too far away to bus in crazies from Georgia and Texas, like they did in Florida in 2000. And the folks are different in Minnesota too: I don't think they give a hoot about the noise, or about any other attempts to distract or confuse them as they recount their U.S. Senate ballot.
I don't think they give a hoot what the media is saying about them. They're just going to stay focused and recount the ballot, and we're just going to leave them be while they do so. And when they finish the recount, then we'll know... we can wait until they do that.
And not only will the media be left out of it this time, but so won't Anton Scalia.