Jay Weiner’s book is to my knowledge the first on a race and recount that captured the nation’s (or at least the press’) attention throughout much of 2009. Unfortunately, I suspect that it is likely to be the only one, as the media has long since moved on to other things. This is a pity as the race was too big a happening to be covered fully by just one book, even one written by MinnPost’s Jay Weiner.

The GOP’s sustained effort to accuse those who mobilize Democratic constituencies — as Wellstone did better than anyone — of vote fraud is designed not just to delegitimize both big-D and small-D democracy, but also to elicit this kind of tribalistic hatred.

Minnesota Republican ratbleeper Tom Mason is quite likely one of the reasons you’re reading this blog right now. But to show this requires me to go back nearly eight years, back to the birth of the progressive side of the blogosphere.