CONGRESS

In Faceoff For Minnesota Senate Seat, The Puck Stops Here

by Erin McPike

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008


ST. PAUL -- Independent voter Bill Weidenbach expects to vote for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman this fall, but he wasn't entirely happy when he visited the candidate's stand at the Minnesota State Fair one recent day.

"Can I ask you to give some advice to Norm?" Weidenbach, a medical salesman, asked a Coleman staffer at the senator's booth, which resembled a red, white and blue lemonade stand. "His ads," he said, pausing for effect, "suck."

A short time later, systems analyst Paul Eberhard, a Republican, approached the back of Coleman's stand with a similar, more civil message.

"He's dragging Franken through the mud," Eberhard complained while visiting the fair with his wife, Sharon. "Granted, Franken's doing that, too, but Coleman doesn't need to be stooping to his level."

Indeed, in a land where Minnesota Nice is practically a requirement for residency, ads from both Coleman and his Democratic foe, comedian Al Franken, have a nasty tint that leaves both supporters and foes on edge.

But Coleman, a former Democrat who won his first term by defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale after Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a 2002 plane crash, shows no signs of backing down, on the air or in person.

"I'm sitting here as an incumbent United States senator in a race that should be a challenging race but that I'm feeling very confident about for a range of reasons, including the guy I'm running against," Coleman said during an interview at the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican convention is being held. "You know, there is a God."

As recently as July, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign of Nevada was comfortable enough with Coleman's race that he told a reporter he would be able to shift his focus to other, tougher races.

Both sides have had problems -- Franken with business-related tax problems in a number of states and the fallout from a Playboy article he wrote years earlier, and Coleman with a National Journal story noting that he paid a large monthly rent for a small living space to a campaign consultant.

Polls have narrowed in recent weeks, suggesting a tossup and leaving both sides to claim they are leading.

At least at the fair, Franken seemed to have the upper hand. He drew a bigger crowd to his booth when he visited than Coleman did at his. During Franken's appearance, one family of five that included a newly registered 18-year-old daughter gushed that dual candidacies of Franken and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama have been inspiring and transforming.

In the state Republican Party tent, however, the mere mention of Franken's name elicited the derisive taunt of "Mr. Saturday Night."

Asked why he was inclined to vote for Coleman despite the tone of his advertising, Weidenbach pointed toward Franken's booth and chortled, "Well, I wouldn't vote for that crackpot over there."

But Weidenbach and wife, JoAnne, were clearly more against Franken than for Coleman. For example, they shook their heads at the slogan, "Getting things done for Minnesota," on the back of Coleman campaign T-shirts.

"[Republican Rep.] Michele Bachmann has done more for Minnesota than he has," complained JoAnne Weidenbach, pointing out that one of the only things Coleman has gotten across to attentive voters such as her is that he helped revitalize professional hockey in the state.

"Normy's got an image problem in Minnesota," her husband said, lamenting that Coleman has spent more time emphasizing his pull in Washington rather than what he has done for the state.

In a chat with reporters this week at the Xcel Energy Center, Coleman kept the focus on hockey and the arena that houses the Minnesota Wild in the National Hockey League, saying people in Minnesota still remember him for bringing hockey back to town.

He recalled how President Bush called the arena "the house that Norm built" and gushed, "I got to drop the hockey puck [on] opening night."

Coleman spokesman Luke Friedrich defended the selling point. "It's just one example of how Norm Coleman has brought people together to get things done during his 30 years of working on behalf of Minnesotans. He's done the same thing in the Senate on issues like energy, health care and growing jobs. Al Franken, on the other hand, was living in New York for 30 years and hasn't put one puck in the net for Minnesotans."

There are external factors affecting the race, too. For one thing, Obama is not advertising here yet, but the last Republican presidential candidate to carry the state was Richard Nixon.

Franken said Monday he has felt an uptick in his support since Obama's performance at last week's Democratic convention in Denver. "We were just getting mobbed at our booth" at the fair, he said.

Across the aisle, Minnesota Republican Party officials had hoped to get a bump in the Senate race if Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was chosen as Sen. John McCain's running mate, but the expected GOP nominee made the surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Coleman said he was disappointed that Pawlenty would not be on the national ticket, but said the governor would still be among his biggest supporters.

"I can't calculate the impact on my race. He's going to be here," Coleman said, pointing to the convention floor. "He's going to be very energized. He's committed to me."

If Pawlenty had been running with McCain, "I would not have had his full attention, but I would have sacrificed ... because of what he offered America, but that didn't happen."

For an earlier look at the Minnesota Senate race, visit CongressDaily's Web site at www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily

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