Fox analyst: Franken victory 'the bottom' for GOP David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday January 9, 2009





Print This Email This Al Franken has been certified the winner in the Minnesota Senate race but ousted incumbent Norm Coleman is planning to challenge the results of the recount in court. Meanwhile, some conservative Republicans, including Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, have begun charging Franken with "stealing" the election.



Fox's Steve Doocy asked a group of political analysts on Friday, "Is there some funny business going on in Minnesota?"



In response, Republican commentator Andrea Tantaros insisted that, although she does not hold Franken personally responsible, "Democrats are stealing this election. ... There are more ballots in some counties than there are actual voters."



"I know Republicans thought we hit the bottom on Election Day, but this is the bottom," Tantaros later added.



The claim that there are more ballots than voters in some counties has been a common refrain amount those raising charges of fraud. For example, pundit Dick Morris recently asserted, in a column titled, "Stop Al Franken From Stealing the Election," that "in Ramsey County, 177 more votes have been counted than people who voted on Election Day."



However, Talking Points Memo notes that claims like these refer to situations where "the votes tallied in the recount were more than were counted on Election Night, with no reference to what was on the voter register. The whole point of a recount is to find votes that the machines failed to pick up at first."



Tantaros herself has drawn attention in recent months by her "gratuitous insults" of Democrats and her attempt to defend Sarah Palin's erroneous claim that the vice-president "is in charge of" the Senate.



Among Doocy's other panelists, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, who has been a long-time proponent of the idea that Democrats routinely steal elections through "voter fraud," largely agreed with Tantaros, saying, "Al Franken is not stealing the election -- but the canvassing board which conducted the recount made some very controversial calls."



However, Democratic consultant Dan Gerstein commented, "There's naturally going to be questions raised, but I think the Republicans are playing with fire by making accusations of stealing the election. There's no evidence that Al Franken has done anything wrong, and John Fund just confirmed that."



"What's wrong is to suggest that ... the canvassing board is partisan," Gerstein concluded, noting that there is only one Democrat on the board, while the other members are Republicans or non-partisan.





This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast Jan. 9, 2009.









Download video via RawReplay.com









