Coleman-Franken: Saturday, December 20, 1:34 PM

There have been so many headlines and post titles calling the Coleman-Franken Senatorial race almost over, too close to call, to be decided “in the next couple of days,” having one or the other candidate leading by “only 5 votes,” or 33 votes, or 2 votes, or updating the never-ending story, that it is becoming more and more difficult to find a headline or post title that has not been previously used.

For example, here are some of the post titles some of my co-bloggers and I have used on TMV since November 10:

* Franken Edges Closer in Minnesota

* Coleman-Franken—”So What’s Next?”

And these two very recent ones on Politico’s “The Score Card”:

Coleman leads Franken by just 2 votes
Dec 18 2008 – 8:10 PM EST

Franken grabs lead in Senate recount
Dec 19 2008 – 5:32 PM EST

From now on and for as long as this seesaw may go on, I’ll just post any important updates under the title “Coleman-Franken: Date-Time,” starting with the latest one from yesterday, Saturday, December 20, 1:34 PM, from the Politico’s “Franken expects to defeat Coleman by 35-50 votes.”

In this post, we learn that Franken’s campaign attorney Marc Elias expects Franken to be leading Coleman by “between 35 and 50 votes” when the Canvassing Board finishes counting all the disputed ballots on Tuesday.

To which Coleman’s campaign pfomptly issued the following response:

This is just more bluster and hot air from a campaign that has been trailing for two years. While we can understand their need to latch onto their temporary lead, the reality is there’s a long way to go in this process. We have no doubt that once this recount is fully completed, Senator Coleman will be in the lead and will be reelected to the Senate.

So, as we have said so many times, so many ways: “Stay tuned” to the next date-time update.