The Franken campaign is now going public with one major reason for why they handled the recount so effectively: They were prepared well in advance for the possibility. In a profile by MinnPost of Franken’s general election campaign manager Stephanie Schriock, we find out that Schriock had a recount plan fully drawn up months in advance, putting it into motion immediately the day after the election.
Schriock had taken a similar tack in her campaign work in 2006, when she managed Jon Tester’s campaign for Senate from Montana. Correctly predicting that the race would be close — Tester won by less than a point, and wasn’t able to actually claim victory until the next day — Schriock had drawn up a full recount plan just in case. In fact, one of the attorneys involved at the time was none other than DNC attorney Marc Elias, who later became Al Franken’s lead attorney.
“There are two reasons Al won the recount,” said Elias. “He had more lawful votes and because of the organization that Stephanie has overseen.”
Compare this to the general consensus that the Coleman camp didn’t handle themselves well here — though granted, this is something of a tautology considering that Coleman lost the recount. But here’s what conservative blogger (and Minnesotan) Scott Johnson from Powerline writes, in a new article in National Review:
From the outset of the post-election process, the Coleman campaign was remarkably passive in its approach to the recount. The Coleman team appeared to improvise strategy from day to day and spent time spinning the Franken campaign’s activities. They did not appear to have a handle on what was happening or on what was likely to happen. I found getting information from the Coleman team like pulling teeth. For a while I thought they were withholding information for some reason. By the end of the recount, I concluded that they simply didn’t know what was happening.
