By all means, hold a new Senate election

Remember the line in "Dumb and Dumber?" Dumb — or was it Dumber — wants a date with the girl. She gives him million-to-one odds. He replies: "So you're telling me there's a chance."

So now we learn that there's a shot at a "do-over" election in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race? And better yet, that the odds of such an election actually happening seem to be far less than a million to one? I may be dumb — or dumber — but I say let's go for it. Sooner rather than later.

If enlightened, progressive Minnesota had a runoff election law on its books comparable to that of benighted, retrograde Georgia, Sen. Norm Coleman or Sen. Al Franken would now be well into his third month of service in the new Congress, after having won a majority, not just a plurality, of the vote.

Well, Minnesota has no such law — and no legitimate winner in its senatorial sweepstakes. What's worse, there won't be a legitimate winner no matter how this legal process sorts itself out. Let's be honest here. We'll never know who actually obtained more votes among those cast or miscast on or before Nov. 4.

Sen. Franken? Isn't he the fellow who was finally seated when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take the case following the Coleman campaign's appeal after losing before the three-judge panel and the state Supreme Court — and after the Senate filibuster staged by Republican senators was finally broken after the funeral of a third senator who had been forced to remain on the Senate floor for far too many days and nights?

Or Sen. Coleman? Isn't he the fellow who was finally seated when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the rulings of the three-judge panel and the Minnesota Supreme Court — and after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally surrendered? The following day it was announced that the Vikings will move to Las Vegas. Rumor has it that Reid wanted the Wild as well, but the Coleman camp finally knew where to draw a blue line in the ice.

In truth, Coleman — at the time still a fully incumbent senator — should have called for a new election no later than the afternoon of Nov. 5. He should have said something to the effect that the people of Minnesota deserve a clear winner, that such a winner has clearly not been determined and will more likely emerge from a two-man race. In other words, let's do what the state that once produced Gov. Lester Maddox has long done. In other other words, let's do the right thing, even if there's always the chance that the result might be — or ought to be — embarrassing to all concerned.

Let's assume that both are true. So what? It's still the right course of action. There was a time when it also would have been the statesmanlike thing to do. Today that ball is in Franken's court. If he would really like to be the legitimately elected incumbent junior senator from Minnesota, it ought to be incumbent upon him to join Coleman in calling for a new election now.

If Franken were to do that, something amazing would happen, and something enlightening could happen. Minnesotans would rub their eyes in wonderment that Coleman and Franken had actually agreed on anything. And the country could obtain a kind of "how are we doing" snapshot of the new administration.

But both of these potential happenings are mere bonuses. The only two reasons to hold a new election are these: Minnesotans deserve to know who won, and each candidate deserves to be a senator untainted by mystifying ballots, mind-numbing court rulings, midnight filibusters, or, horror of horrors, the prospect of the Las Vegas Vikings.