It’s been an open secret forever in Saint Paul and Minnesota politics; Norm and his wife have a rather unconventional marriage. Schultz is being disingenuous if he claims this is some big revelation (or, equally likely, the dim little bulb inside his thick little head hasn’t quite quite figured it out yet, and his prime directive, “blow hard first, ask questions later”, is in control).
What the heck is an "unconventional marriage"?
Mitch is correct. These rumors have been out there for quite some time. Mitch does Senator Coleman a great service by working to confirm these rumors.
I work in a pretty conservative office. On most days, I am the token progressive, token liberal in the office. We talk politics a lot. We had long discussions about the Franken Playboy stuff. I posed this topic in the office yesterday, to 7 co-workers, involved at different levels of politics.
None of them had heard of any issues with Senator Coleman's marriage. None of them had any idea what an "unconventional marriage" was. One jokingly said that Senator Coleman was not gay and did not support "unconventional marriages". The other said it was purely a liberal smokescreeen. The rumor is/was not as widespread as Berg thinks.
How will this news be received in the conservative small towns that dot rural central Minnesota?
The Twin Cities media outlets and bloggers (myself included) hit Franken hard on the Playboy writings. Will these same mainstream media outlets put Norm Coleman under the same microscope? Especially after a right wing blogger blew the lid off the story?
To steal from Two Putt Tommy, this is the mother of all smokescreens.
SITD commenter's even say it's true.
PeterH Says:
June 9th, 2008 at
11:04 pm
Norm and his wife haven’t slept together in years?
Sounds like he’s got a traditional marriage.
Oh, that's satire...
Let's be consistent here. If we're going to criticize Al Franken for Playboy writings and other problems, which call into question his judgement, than we should do the same here. I have no idea what Senator Coleman's marital situation is. I don't really care either. However, I find it interesting how right wing blogs frame Coleman's marriage as an "unconventional marriage".
This US Senate race between Coleman and Franken has the potential to be the nastiest race in the nation this year. It will not be "Minnesota nice".
Do we want this race to be about issues? I'd rather it be on the issues, but I know Two Putt Tommy and I are ready for a rumble!
At the recent Minnesota GOP convention, Senator Coleman gave a rousing speech with a cute 8 point plan.
In the closing part of his speech, Coleman, the former Democrat, urged his now-fellow Republicans to do “a better job” of emphasizing the “core conservative Republican” values of individual rights, free enterprise, no taxes, protecting life “from conception to natural death” and supporting traditional marriage.
So he calls on supporting traditional marriage but lives an "unconventional marriage"?
Nice...
One of Paul Wellstone's most powerful quotes I recall (and witnessed in person) is "never separate the life you live from the words you speak."
I feel a bit of irony there, don't you?
3 comments:
The Colemans lost two children due to a somewhat rare genetic disorder, and have two adult children who appear to have reached adulthood in generally sound shape. Ms. Coleman's mother was long an opponent of reproductive rights and choice. That combination of having four pregnancies and two not working, plus an upbringing of a most conservative view of sex and procreation - who knows how a marriage can be stressed by such factors. I would cut as much slack there as on what Franken wrote around a decade ago.
I think Coleman's oceanic drifts on the issues to settle on the conservative side of the GOP without being wonked out totally that way speaks of ambition and expediency over committment.
I think it is the "What do you want me to be today," or "What today will be the best career step with consistency the hob-goblin of petty minds," that dimension of Coleman - a man you can trust - to be loyal to a fault to his ambition, I think that is what Franken will, at the core, have to demonstrate statewide.
And Coleman has put that very recent "against sexual abuse" thing on his "Norm's news" Senate website pages - it is clear he is positioning that as his "high ground." He has been a total Bush-Cheney bootboy on Iraq, deficits, tax breaks for the rich, you name it, he's voted it. Torture, hey, nobody's waterboarding Norm, it's okay and he voted against the Kennedy amendment. CIA, why restrain them, just a little bad-boy fun, so he voted against the Rockefeller amendment. Habeas corpus, legal Latin he learned in law school, Arabic has a different root language development from Latin, why apply Latin to those fellows? So he voted against the Specter and Lahey amendments - I think I got it right - this link:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_109_2.htm
The bill was S.3930, 109th Congress, 2d session.
This Wikipedia page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006#_note-9
pic of the bill signing, Coleman not even having the wherewithal to stand with those he pleged servitude to at the signing - trying to not leave any troublesome fingerprints I guess.
The Bush-Cheney GOP has treated him the way a good butler should be treated. Respect for his service, manners, understanding of his place. Having no seat at the Cheney energy confabs, he still understood where he should be whenever it was time to vote.
I bet he does not even feel pressed paying what all of us, him included, have to pay per gallon of gas. It's a minor cost in the cost-benefit analysis named Norman Coleman.
One other thought. Barry Goldwater's book, Conscience of a Conservative --- Coleman's set to write a sequel, Expediency of a Conservative. But only if Rupert Murdoch gives a seven-figure advance for the manuscript. That's Chapter 2 of the book, Practacility of a Conservative.
Good post. I'll be watching the MN senate race closely.
I happen to live in the red state of MT, a red state with two blue senators and a blue governor. There has been a shift over the past 5 years in Montana politics as the Dems have won elections with moderate candidates over unpopular Republican incumbants. This is an election year for Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Senator Max Baucus. It schould be interesting to see what happens. The Schweitzer biography "Blue Man in a Red State" (~150p) is an interesting read. Check it out!
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