Might as well just get this nightmare of an election over once and for all. With the Minnesota recount having concluded, Al Franken now has a lead of 225 votes. Which means Stuart Smalley will be declared the winner when the recount officially ends on Monday.

Craaaaaptastic.

We gave our take on the so-called “fifth pile” absentee ballots from which these 900 absentee ballots were drawn here. The Coleman campaign asserts that an additional 650 additional rejected absentee ballots should have been included in the recount. Given the magnitude of Franken’s lead at this point, in excess of the 130 or so votes that are at issue with respect to duplicate ballots disputed by the Coleman campaign and reserved by the Supreme Court for an election contest, I wonder whether Senator Coleman may now choose not to file an election contest following the declaration of Franken as the winner of the recount on Monday.

Oh well. Look at the bright side: Between both Roland Burris and Al Franken likely on their way to Washington, it’ll be an entertaining few years. I can imagine the quotable quotes we’ll be getting now.

As for Democrats getting closer to the 60 votes, nothing to worry about there. They had 58 votes as it was and convincing Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to support their agenda on a wide-array of topics shouldn’t be too difficult. Might as well give them as little excuse to label Republicans as obstructionists when their agenda fails as possible.

What an awful year that was, huh?