Recounting Minnesota: Blogging the Al Franken Election Saga

On November 5, 2008, the day after Election Day, US Senate candidate Al Franken spoke to the Minnesota press: We won't know for a little while who won the race.

Many professionals predicted the Minnesota election for Senate between Al Franken and incumbent Norm Coleman would be the closest race of the 2008 cycle. But no one could predict it would take 245 days before the victor would be seated in the US Senate.

No one obsessed more about the election aftermath during those 245 days than a blogger at DailyKos who signed himself WineRev. At DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas ground-zero website for political progressives, WineRev s near-daily updates became must reading. Whether it was recounters in tears in Austin, county judges talking out loud to paper ballots, or the briefcase brigade arguing law or examining witnesses, WineRev's reports became a regular fixture on the Recommended Diaries list.

For all who want to relive the tense days of recounting, the court dates, the insights, wit and everyone's mistakes, Recounting Minnesota pulls together WineRev s diaries, along with trenchant, droll, or exasperated comments from readers, a timeline for every twist, and a foreword by Markos Moulitsas himself, all served up with a lively, Internet-flavored urgency.