Norm Coleman won Minnesota because he was well-financed
and well-packaged.
Norm is a slick retail campaigner, the grabbiest
and touchingest and feelingest politician
in Minnesota history, a hugger and baby-kisser,
and he's a genuine boomer candidate
who reinvents himself at will. The guy is a Brooklyn
boy who became a left-wing student
radical at Hofstra University with hair down
to his shoulders, organized antiwar marches,
said vile things about Richard Nixon, etc. Then
he came west, went to law school, changed
his look, went to work in the attorney general's
office in Minnesota. Was elected mayor of
St. Paul as a moderate Democrat, then swung comfortably
over to the Republican side.
There was no dazzling light on the road to Damascus,
no soul-searching: Norm switched
parties as you'd change sport coats.
Norm is glib. I once organized a dinner at the
Minnesota Club to celebrate F. Scott Fitzgerald's
birthday and Norm came, at the suggestion of
his office, and spoke, at some length and with
quite some fervor, about how much Fitzgerald
means to all of us in St. Paul, and it was soon
clear to anyone who has ever graded 9th grade
book reports that the mayor had never read
Fitzgerald. Nonetheless, he spoke at great length,
with great feeling. Last month, when Bush
came to sprinkle water on his campaign, Norm
introduced him by saying, "God bless America
is a prayer, and I believe that this man is God's
answer to that prayer." Same guy.
(Jesse Ventura, of course, wouldn't have been
caught dead blathering at an F. Scott Fitzgerald
dinner about how proud we are of the Great Whoever-He-Was
and his vision and his dream
blah-blah-blah, and that was the refreshing thing
about Jesse. The sort of unctuous hooey that
comes naturally and easily to Norm Coleman Jesse
would be ashamed to utter in public.
Give the man his due. He spoke English [that's
open to dispute -ed]. He didn't open his mouth
and emit soap bubbles. He was no suck up. He
had more dignity than to kiss the president's shoe.)
Norm got a free ride from the press. St. Paul
is a small town and anybody who hangs around
the St. Paul Grill knows about Norm's habits.
Everyone knows that his family situation is,
shall we say, very interesting, but nobody bothered
to ask about it, least of all the religious
people in the Republican Party. They made their
peace with hypocrisy long ago. So this
false knight made his way as an all-purpose feel-good
candidate, standing for vaguely
Republican values, supporting the president.
He was 9 points down to Wellstone when the senator's
plane went down. But the tide was
swinging toward the president in those last 10
days. And Norm rode the tide. Mondale took
a little while to get a campaign going. And Norm
finessed Wellstone's death beautifully.
The Democrats stood up in raw grief and yelled
and shook their fists and offended people.
Norm played his violin. He sorrowed well in public,
he was expertly nuanced. The mostly
negative campaign he ran against Wellstone was
forgotten immediately. He backpedalled
in the one debate, cruised home a victor. It
was a dreadful low moment for the Minnesota
voters. To choose Coleman over Walter Mondale
is one of those dumb low-rent mistakes,
like going to a great steakhouse and ordering
the tuna sandwich. But I don't envy someone
who's sold his soul. He's condemned to a life
of small arrangements.
There will be no passion, no joy, no heroism,
for him. He is a hollow man.
The next six years are not going to be kind to
Norm.