DFL gubernatorial contender Mark Dayton is getting bolder.

Although he had a nearly 9,000 vote lead last week, Dayton demurred on saying he would end up beating Republican Tom Emmer, knowing his lead was narrow enough that it would trigger an automatic recount.Although the recount wouldn't even start until Nov. 29, his campaign is making more confident sounds.The recount is expected to end on Dec. 14.

On Thursday the Dayton camp said that all but one county had canvassed its results (a pre-cursor to the votes being made official) and found an "incredibly smooth canvassing process (that) had no major problems."

The release from the Dayton camp went on to quote recount team manager Ken Martin as saying:

"So, we fully expect that, on December 14, the State Canvassing Board will certify its report of the votes, and declare the result of the election: that Mark Dayton received more votes for Governor than Tom Emmer."

...

"There is no reason for a legal challenge of this election that we can see at this point," said Martin. "We have no indication of any problems with the system. In fact, we're seeing a system that is even more smooth and precise than in 2008 when so much of it was under the microscope. In fact, we're hearing from county elections officials that the 2010 election was even more smooth and precise than the 2008 election. To push a lawsuit just to buy time, and grab power is greedy and just un-Minnesotan. "

Since Hot Dish took the Emmer folks to task for some apples to oranges math, it should also point out that the Dayton team confused things in its release as well.

It said during the canvass Emmer saw " an increase of only 101 total additional votes for Tom Emmer since election night results."

Actually on election night, which would be midnight on Nov. 2, Dayton had a much larger lead than he does today. The Dayton folks seem to be actually making a comparison between Dayton's current lead and his lead once all precincts had reported, which happened the Wednesday after the election.