Earlier this week, Norm Coleman's own lawyer, Joe Friedberg, went on local talk radio and essentially conceded Coleman's court loss. In fact, after all this litigation, after months of delay in the courts, after depriving Minnesota of representation in the US Senate, Friedberg said he believes that not only will Norm Coleman emerge from the court case the same way he went in: the loser, but also that Al Franken will have gained even more votes by the time all is said and done. Way to go, Joe!

TPM has it:

Friedberg: We've been trying this case with the appeal record in mind, and that's where we're going. And it's gonna be a very quick appeal, and then I'll know whether or not it worked.

Rosenbaum: Well, when you say a quick appeal, are you confident that you're gonna lose the case in front of the three-judge panel? By losing the case, I mean Norm ends up with less votes.

Friedberg: I think that's probably correct -- that Franken will still be ahead, and probably by a little bit more. But our -- you know, our whole argument was a constitutional argument. And it's an argument which is really suited for the Minnesota Supreme Court, not for the trial court. So we'll see whether we were right or not.

In other words: don't think Al Franken being declared the winner after the court rules is news, cuz it's not! In the end, you see, the point was never to win this case, it was to appeal upwards. But how far upwards?

Next stop MN Supreme Court, the appeal to which CQ Politics outlined last week.

The Coleman attorneys argue:

* That because the judges ruled certain categories of absentee ballots illegal, even though they were counted in the original count and recount, Franken's lead should be considered to have been built on "illegal" votes. They argue that the judges changed "the rules of the game after they've been played."

* That the Constitution's equal protection clause was violated when counties evaluated absentee ballots differently, resulting in certain categories of ballot being rejected in one county and accepted in another.

* That some ballots could have been wrongly rejected because the state database of registered voters was not fully updated.

Franken lawyer Marc Elias concedes that Franken would not be declared the winner until after the appeal to the MN Supreme Court plays out. When a ruling will come down and thus set that appeal process in motion is unclear.