Take It Back, Ken Rudin!

I've long enjoyed the commentary of NPR's political editor, Ken Rudin, but on Wednesday's Talk of the Nation he waded into the Minnesota Senate recount without doing even a rough draft of his homework. Here's what he had to say:

"As Katherine Harris was for the Democrats (Secretary of State in Florida during that tortured recount in 2000, the Presidential race), the Democratic Secretary of State in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, has been accused of doing everything he can to make Al Franken the next senator from Minnesota against Norm Coleman. They say a bunch of votes are suddenly appearing out of nowhere and they're all for Al Franken, and so all the suspicions that Democrats had about Katherine Harris are now being done by Republicans [about] Ritchie."

After transcribing that paragraph, I've concluded Rudin was trying to say that it's Republicans who think this, rather than that it's objectively true, but his syntax is so tortured, it came across as a statement of fact that Ritchie is known to have manufactured votes. Which Rudin should know has not even been suggested in Minnesota, not even by Republicans. I'm sure the Republicans think someone is manufacturing votes, but I don't think they're accusing Ritchie of it -- after all, the ballots are in the hands of all the county election officials, not centralized in the state offices.

Unlike Katherine Harris, who had co-chaired Bush's campaign in Florida, Ritchie had nothing to do with Franken's (or any other) campaign. (Which should be the law for all state Secretaries of State, I might add.) Unlike Harris, Ritchie does not come from a partisan political background -- he comes from the nonprofit and agricultural policy world -- he's a wonk, for god's sake! Before being elected in 2006, he started spending a lot of his time organizing nonpartisan voter registration efforts, which anyone who actually believes in democracy should support.

Of course, the Star Tribune's rightwing attack columnist Katherine Kersten took her stab at Ritchie in today's paper, but all she could say is that Ritchie's campaign got some funding from the Secretary of State Project, which was in turn funded by MoveOn.org and George Soros (whom she describes as an "ultra-liberal kingmaker") and that she's got her suspicions.

I'm sure fixing the election is the farthest thing from Mark Ritchie's mind. He just wants to do his job well, uphold the democratic (small D) process, and come out with his career and reputation intact.

Which Ken Rudin just made a little less likely with his careless comments today.