The present Minnesota recount has been more pleasantly conducted, but it comes with the same unfortunate ending.  Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate, will concede later today and end the recount process, making Mark Dayton the first DFL governor in a generation:

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned Republican Tom Emmer will concede the governor’s race to Democrat Mark Dayton in a news conference tentatively scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in his hometown of Delano.

Three Republican party sources confirm that Emmer made the decision Tuesday afternoon.

His concession will come 36 days after election night when Emmer and Dayton went home separated by less than .5 percent.

That lead was just barely under the 0.5% margin that requires a recount as opposed to one demanded and funded by a candidate.  The margin of actual votes was far larger than recounts usually reverse at almost 9,000.  Emmer really only had one hope going into the recount, which was that a recanvass of Hennepin County would substantially change the vote totals.  Hennepin, which houses the city of Minneapolis, miscounted returns on Election Night by tens of thousands of votes.  The recanvass during the recount phase didn’t change the corrected totals much at all, which put an end to Emmer’s hopes of prevailing.

Dayton becomes the first DFL governor in 24 years.  However, Dayton will also have to deal with the first GOP-controlled legislature in Minnesota history, which means his high-tax program won’t get a chance to get off the ground.  Dayton made a name for himself (of sorts) as the worst Senator on Capitol Hill during his one term there, as designated in 2006 by Time Magazine, including an episode where he ran out of Washington before the 2004 election claiming that it was too dangerous to keep his office open.  Given his track record, Dayton probably won’t make a name for himself this time around by staring down the GOP majorities in both chambers.

Meanwhile, Minnesotans can congratulate themselves on a trifecta of nuts in state-wide elections over the last twelve years: Jesse Ventura, Al Franken, and Dayton.  Gonna be a loooooooong four years.