Lightning Round - 120610

Catching up after a weekend mostly spent away from the internet:

• It's not especially surprising that Tom Emmer's campaign is not faring well in the recount, since there's obviously no stomach for it among most people. The only way you can stop voter fraud is to make it too painful for those who would commit. If we aren't willing to send people to jail for false vouching or voting more than once, nothing is going to change. Once the votes are cast, it's too late. It's clear that Minnesota isn't ready to punish people for such behaviors. As a practical matter, it means that Republicans need to win elections by larger margins than Democrats do, so long as Democrats control the apparatus of voting.
• Lori Sturdevant bashed Tim Pawlenty pretty good on Sunday in the Star Tribune, essentially blaming Pawlenty personally for the mythical $6.2 billion deficit. What she's really mad about is this: Pawlenty exposed the fiction of government funding by auto-pilot, which she desires. And since the D's won't control the Legislature this time around, the spending she'd envisioned won't happen and the budget deficit she posits won't materialize. Which, unless I miss my guess, Sturdevant will credit to the heretofore unrealized genius fiscal management skills of Mark Dayton.
• Badgers to the Rose Bowl, to face Texas Christian. TCU was once part of the big time as the footwipe of the old Southwestern Conference, but they now are one of the so-called "BCS Busters," although that will change next year when Horned Frogs join the Big East. I have a feeling that a lot of people who like the current system will be hoping that the Badgers put a whipping on the Horned Frogs. It should be a fun game.
• Meanwhile, the hapless Gophers have selected a guy named Jerry Kill as their new head football coach. My son and colleague Benster has already informed me that the term often used for the Gophers around here, the "Golden Roadkill," is still operative.