From Washington to St. Paul, the political rhetoric was soaring today.

After a pre-trial hearing in the Al Franken-Norm Coleman recount case, Coleman lawyer/spokesman Ben Ginsberg fired the first salvo. After a 90-minute hearing devoted to the Minnesota case, Ginsberg, a prominent Republican Party attorney, chastised Franken lawyer Marc Elias.

Elias had told the three-judge panel that it was important that Minnesota have two senators. That a constitutional crisis could be faced if a Minnesota Senate seat remained open.

Minutes later, in the hallway outside of the Supreme Court courtroom, where the hearing was held, Ginsberg, cameras rolling, offered an unexpected tangent.

He played the Washington politics card.

“On the constitutional crisis he keeps invoking, I seem to have missed his deep concern for vacancies in the U.S. Senate when Senator Obama in the 110th Congress missed 46 percent of the votes. Senator Clinton, during the 110th Congress missed 31 percent of the votes … Mr. Elias has been talking about a constitutional crisis because Minnesota does not have two senators. The point is that in the 110th Congress, the state of Illinois was without two senators because Sen. Obama was out campaigning, Sen. Clinton was not there to make the votes. I don’t recall him saying that was a constitutional crisis.”

As with Coleman-side assertions today, Elias looked shocked – just shocked – that Ginsberg would play partisan politics. Elias also is the lawyer for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

After laughing for a few seconds when being told of Ginsberg’s off-on-a-tangent Obama remark, Elias said, “You would expect nothing more from Mitt Romney’s lawyer.”

Meanwhile in Washington, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made an appearance at the National Press Club and said:

“Let me say this about the Minnesota Senate race.  It’s going to be decided in Minnesota. It’s not over yet.  But it’s not going to be decided in the Senate; it’s going to be decided in Minnesota.

“And I know everyone is impatient for it to be over, and I’m sure the two candidates would love for it to be over, but it ain’t over yet as they all say: ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’ And it’s not over under Minnesota law until the legal process runs its course.

“Now, what to do about the interim would be also governed I think by Minnesota law. And so the people in Minnesota are going to have to decide how they want to deal with this hiatus that has occurred here as a result of what seems to everyone -- and certainly I know it seems that way to the candidates -- an endless election … There is nothing for the Senate, the United States Senate to do.’’