Norm Coleman's Petty Talking Points

I just had to shake my head in disbelief listening to Senator Coleman’s latest attack radio ad on WCCO radio one recent morning. The ad featured a small town, rural MN mayor taking umbrage to an alleged quote from Al Franken supposedly calling Norm Coleman’s assistance in establishing a rural health care facility as “small bore”.

The Mayor, no doubt at the prodding of the Coleman Campaign, feigns being deeply offended, interpreting Mr. Franken’s comment as somehow demeaning or belittling to the people of rural Minnesota..

The dictionary defines small-bore as:
1. Of, relating to, or being a firearm of small caliber.
2. Trivial or parochial in character:

In the context of politics, the New Republic uses the term as follows: “the petty talking points...and small-bore scandals that regularly intrude on campaigns”.


If one were to actually analyze Mr. Franken’s comment in context, the point he was trying to make is that rural Minnesotans need much more in terms of healthcare than a token clinic in one community. This in no way was meant to disparage the effect one clinic can have on that one community, but rather that all Minnesotans, rural and urban, deserve access to healthcare. The rest of the ad simply attempts to prey on knee-jerk prejudices attempting to label the native born Minnesotan, Mr. Franken as the carpetbagger when in fact it is actually Mr. Coleman, the native born New Yorker who is out of touch with Minnesota values.


Clearly, with all the important issues facing our state and nation, we deserve more from our sitting United States Senator than trivial talking points.

Norm Coleman: Once "...Hand Picked and Recruited By President Bush..." Now Says: "George W Who?" and Tries to Cozy Up To Klobuchar

Minnesota Republican's greatest fear has now become reality: Al Franken wins the Democrats' endorsement on a unanimous first ballot vote. Thanks to a truly magnanimous act by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and an earnest apology from Franken, the delegates rallied around their embattled candidate and sent Mr. Franken back out on the campaign trail with the one clear purpose, defeat Norm Coleman and send him and his corporate lobbyist pals packing.

Watching the local political programs with the usual homely faces of the same tired political hacks week after week, one thing was different come this past Sunday, the desperation in Sara Janazek's increasingly shrill attacks on Al Franken were becoming deliciously humorous. You could just see the panic and terror building as she and her fellow attack dogs began to realize that the voters were sick and tired of their little reindeer games and were not going to be so easily distracted this time around.

Seven and a half years of the disastrous Bush Administration are beginning to take their eventual and predictable toll and all the interest rate and nominal tax cut band aids will not stop the hemorrhaging. With gasoline over $4.00 a gallon, the pathetically too little, too late, response of Bush and Coleman is to increase domestic production: open up An war and the Continental Shelf to oil exploration! As if a few months supply, which would take five years in development, would have any effect on the current price at the pump. This is the energy equivalent of their response to Hurricane Katrina and "you're doing a good job Brownie".

Over the next several months, as Norm let's loose his attack dogs, like the creepy duo of the Republican chair and Janazek, and throw everything including the kitchen sink at Franken while at the same time bemoaning that the issues are not being addressed; Coleman will be running, no sprinting from his former hand picking controllers and trying to cozy up to the likes of Senator Klobuchar and the Democrats in a political theater of the absurd reminiscent of the Chuck Jone's cartoon character Pepe Le Pew and the cat. Norm and Pepe, now there's a couple of real stinkers!

Letter to Congresswoman Betty McCollum: You Are Acting Alot like Congresswoman Bachmann

Hon. Betty McCollum
Saint Paul District Office
165 Western Avenue North Suite 17
St. Paul, MN 55102

Dear Congresswoman McCollum:

I rarely feel compelled to write an elected official but I just want to let you know in a respectful way that you are doing a tremendous disservice to our country, our party and yourself if you continue to do the bidding of Norm Coleman and the Republicans with your divisive and disloyal comments regarding our now endorsed candidate, Al Franken. You and I both know that anyone even remotely familiar with candidate Franken, that he is is a tireless advocate for the working people of Minnesota and that there is not a sexist bone in his body. Are you so unsophisticated that you cannot discern satire from an actual, closely held belief?

I cannot believe with all the troubles facing us as a nation you would stoop so low as to fall for the tired tricks of the Republicans and allow yourself to be distracted by such non-issues as what a comedian wrote in Playboy as part of his job 8 years ago, when he was a private citizen. Are you against the First Amendment? Are you such a hypocrite that you are beginning to believe your own self-righteous b.s.? Are you so naive that you cannot see that you have become a tool of the GOP propagandists?

Come on Betty, grow up! Ciresi lost and now what? Apparently you would have him go back on his word and hand the election to Coleman. If you cannot work for progressive change, the good of the party and most importantly, the good of the nation, switch parties like your pal Norm Coleman. Frankly, lately you have been acting more like the other Congresswoman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann and just so you know Betty, that is no compliment.

Get Out the Shovels: Here Comes the Swift Boaters and the Rest of the GOP Propagandists

I can just see the chain emails about to fill the mailboxes of the great unwashed across America: "Ayatollah Obama's Black Panther Past as the 20th Hijacker on 9/11 Who Refuses to Wear Flag Pin while Reciting Satanic Verses Instead of the Pledge of Allegiance and Running Underground Railroad of Illegal Immigrants!” Think I am exaggerating? Just you wait and see.

Since past behavior is the best predictor of future conduct, John McCain's lip service to an honorable campaign will fly out the window along with what little is left of the "straight talk express". Remember the guy who spoke truth to power and said that the Bush tax cuts to the ultra wealthy during wartime were a disaster? Remember the bipartisan John McCain who wanted to work across party lines to get things done in the Senate? Citizen McCain who correctly analyzed the harmful effect that the religious right has had on the political climate in this country? The John McCain who openly criticized Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson?

Oh how times--oops, I mean--people-- have changed! The new McCain, just to get elected, wants to make the disastrous Bush tax cuts permanent. The new McCain went down to Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia and John Hagee's Mega church in San Antonio and kissed Reverends Falwell and Hagee's big fat asses and is sucking up to the very constituency that he had previously said was ruining the Republican party and had brought gridlock to our political system.

Let's just hope that when the lies of Karl Rove & Company start to fly fast and furious, candidate Obama doesn't take a week off and go windsurfing. I for one would be more comfortable with a candidate like Hillary Clinton knowing that she would never just sit back and take it. After all, just look what overestimating the intelligence of the American electorate has brought upon us the last two presidential elections.