Nick Coleman: Norm Coleman is no shoo-in with his neighbors

[CatWoman]

Somehow, the stalemate over this contentious Senate seat -- fraught with emotion since Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash days before the 2002 election, leaving Norm Coleman as Minnesota's accidental senator -- is fitting. It plays out -- big time -- on the street where Norm lives.

Most campaign signs have disappeared around the state, but as the recount began Wednesday, there were still a half-dozen Franken signs standing on Norm's block on the edge of Crocus Hill. Of course, they were still standing: For more than a decade, since his 1996 conversion to the other party, Norm's Democrat-leaning neighbors have worked to make it clear they reject Norm's latter day politics, especially his support of Bush administration policies and the war in Iraq. Battered Wellstone signs, draped in black, remained up for years. This fall, the block sprouted a dense forest of Franken signs, against a lone Coleman sign that stood a few doors from the senator's home.

"He must feel terribly rejected," said Susan Runholt, who owns one of the still-standing Franken signs. "I don't want to hurt Norm Coleman. I have no personal antipathy towards him. But, by God, I get to speak my mind, and we want him to know that we disagree with him on the issues. We have free speech in this country, and that's what makes it wonderful."

Runholt is a writer with a middle-school novel under her belt called, "The Mystery of the Third Lucretia." Norm's son, Jacob, used to mow her lawn, and she isn't enamored of Franken -- she criticizes the DFL for endorsing a long line of lackluster candidates. But she says Norm Coleman's support for George Bush made him an outcast on his own cobblestone street. She parks her car across from the senator's home. On the rear bumper, facing Norm, a sticker says: Senator Coleman: End This War.

"Norm Coleman has needed to listen to the people about ending the war in Iraq," she says. "We're assertive, but not combative. We want Norm Coleman to know we disagree with him."

That message has come across in the battle of the lawn signs and at the polling booth at the nearby Linwood Recreation Center. The last time Norm Coleman carried his own precinct was right after he left the DFL. He won re-election as mayor of St. Paul in 1997, but has lost his hometown by large margins in each election since, including his 1998 race for governor, and his 2002 and 2008 Senate races. On Nov. 4, he lost his precinct by more than 500 votes. Usually it's a disaster for a politician to lose the folks who know him best. Either Norm Coleman is living in the wrong place or he's practicing the wrong politics. Or it might be a little of both.

I was at his December, 1996 coming out announcement, when he received a laying on of hands from former GOP pooh-bahs such as Jack Kemp and Gov. Arne Carlson, who suggested Norm's neighbors should all become Republicans, too. That'll be the day, I thought, as I walked down the street, knocking on doors. At the first house, a woman named Jennifer, who was baking cookies, came to greet me, wiping her hands on an apron.

Your neighbor, Norm, has turned Republican, I said, and Gov. Carlson wants you and all of Norm's neighbors to become good Republicans, too.

"Us," she asked, looking as if I had just offered her an old cigar butt. "Republicans? I don't think so. We're radical lesbians in this house."

You gotta love St. Paul.

But it has been an awkward home for Norm, a red lightning rod in the blue heart of St. Paul. His neighbors nod hello and try to be neighborly. They take a Hate the sin, Love the sinner approach, and many were upset when protesters showed up at Norm's house this year. The senator, they say, is entitled to his privacy. But not their support.

So the divide between Norm and his neighbors remains as wide as the vote margin is narrow between him and Franken.

"We like him, as a neighbor," said Shirley Pearl, a retired St. Paul public school principal who still has her Franken sign up and remembers Norm visiting her house during a block party, back when he was still a Democrat.

"He's very personable, and very nice,'' she said. "But we could never vote for him. Not anymore."

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http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/34782584.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUxWoW_oD:EaDUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyU

[TlalocW]

1. Gotta love Minnesotans

Oh, ya, me and Ollie t'ink he's a good neighbor, but we want to elect a democrat, doncha know. :)

TlalocW

[lojasmo]

2. He didn't win one precinct in Ramsey county

Not even his own.