Sleaze

Coleman, Dole Each Claim Enough GOP Votes

Seems like only yesterday that Norm Coleman beat former VP Walter Mondale for Minnesota's Senate seat, the beneficiary of a plane crash that killed Paul Wellstone and backlash against an emotional farewell rally that dominated the all-too-brief campaign between he and Mondale. Yet here he is, two years later, challenging Elizabeth Dole to run the Republican Senate campaign in 2006 and position himself as a power broker in the party he so casually joined just eight years ago.

Don't get me wrong--I don't like either of these folks. But if I'm the Republican Party, I'm grooming Dole, not Coleman. Minnesota may be trending toward the G.O.P., but Coleman isn't safe by any means; Dole, on the other hand, will hold onto her seat in North Carolina as long as she wants it, and giving the otherwise thuggish party a female face could improve its image among the suburban women who are helping the Republicans paint the country red.

So, yes, I'm hoping against hope that Coleman finds a way to get the job, becomes majority leader two years hence when Bill Frist goes back to being a surgeon, and has his ridiculous mug and preposterous voice broadcast around the nation as a representation of all that it means to be a Republican. I look forward to hearing him talk about the importance of families and discussing why his wife is never around. I long to hear Garrison Keillor lampoon him for a national audience, just as he did for Salon.com in the dark days after Coleman won his seat. I yearn for the opportunity to watch Al Franken run against Coleman and show that behind all the jokes, he has more substance on his worst day than Coleman has displayed in his entire life. Yes, Norm Coleman as the face of the G.O.P. seems just about right.