You are wrong about that. Reid is giving nothing but hot air to try to intimidate local officials. Reid doesn’t want Franken in his caucus, Klobuchar certainly doesn’t want him, and Obama doesn’t want him, either. They are all just going through the motions. There will be Hell to pay from coast to coast if Franken is seated if Norm has won the recount and the courts certify his victory.
That's a very perceptive comment. People here are hyperventilating over nothing. The national blowback against Democrats will be enormous if they try to "steal" an election where the state officials and courts have accorded Coleman the victory.
It's not as though this seat will make the difference between the Republicans and Democrats controlling the Senate. Nor will it determine a "filibuster-proof" majority -- the threshold for that does not run sharply along party lines. Regardless of the Minnesota victor, there will be some issues where enough liberal Republican votes can be attracted to break a filibuster, and other issues where conservative Democrats will refuse to break a filibuster.
What we are seeing is spin-control. Democrats are trying to position themselves as the victims, so they can claim that Republicans are the ones who refuse to count all the votes and obey the will of the people. Minnesota will become ammunition in their continuing effort to make it easier to register and vote without safeguards against fraud or objective standards of ballot-counting. But if the Senate were to flip the outcome, Minnesota would become the rallying cry of Republicans to tighten up the election process. And that would be a much greater loss for the Democrats.