Coleman vs. Franken: Bowlers and Talking Fish

In the most recent Minneapolis Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, the U.S. Senate race just got more interesting. Republican incumbent Norm Coleman still leads his Democratic challenger Al Franken 41 percent to 37 percent, but the margin is much smaller than it used to be.

One reason why might be Dean Barkley of the Independence Party (also known as the Jesse Ventura Party), who has been taking away votes from the other two candidates. The former Senator (yes, he was. You can look it up.) is in third place with 13 percent. The other reason might be that Coleman and Franken aren't endearing themselves to voters, and Barkley is seen more as a protest vote.

Since the local TV stations would rather cover the latest murder in North Minneapolis than the Senate race, most people's awareness of the campaign is limited to the barrage of advertising that's been flooding the airwaves. As you might expect, most of them have been of the finger-pointing variety.

If you watch enough of the Norm Coleman ads that were produced by outside supporters, you might get the impression that Franken is an angry guy who wants to raise taxes while not paying any of his own, cut Social Security and Medicare for senior citizens, and eliminate the secret ballot for union elections (For those of us who don't belong to unions, we've heard several explanations of why this is important. But we still don't get it. Maybe they're making something out of nothing?).

Franken's ads play up the claim that Coleman and President Bush are joined at the hip when it comes to his Senate voting record, even going so far as to show pictures of them embracing. They also employ a talking fish--You know, the one that hangs on your wall and sings "Don't Worry, Be Happy"?--to highlight Coleman's taking trips that may have been paid for by special interests. It's nice to know that Franken, the former Saturday Night Live performer who turned into a dead-serious politician, still has a sense of humor.

Coleman counters with his own ads insisting that his being buddy-buddy with Bush was just a fabrication, producing evidence that the photos the other party uses were retouched. Oh, and those guys from the bowling alley are back, suggesting that if Coleman could bring Vikings and Packers fans together, then certainly he could bring peace to Congress and the Middle East. And, don't forget, Coleman brought hockey back.

It'd be nice if these guys would come out and actually tell us what they would do if they were elected to the Senate. But we've watched enough campaigns to know that the last place you'd want to do that is in a TV commercial. November can't come soon enough.

More Than A Convention Bounce?

It's now a dead heat in the national polls between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. But one wonders if McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has created more than a post-convention bounce. To use an overworked sports cliche, this might very well be a game-changer, taking the Republican duo all the way to the White House.

Palin has become a phenomenon, gracing magazine covers, and a Tina Fey impersonation on Saturday Night Live. Media folk have descended upon Alaska to take a closer look at the governor's role in the Troopergate affair, the Bridge to Nowhere, etc., without revealing anything we didn't already know. Admittedly, she has more executive experience than Obama or McCain combined. If she's not the one running for president, it certainly seems like she is.

In her ABC interview with Charles Gibson, Palin demonstrated her lack of foreign policy chops by not knowing anything about the Bush Doctrine (which, roughly translated, means: Do unto others before they do unto you), not being much of a world traveler (unless it's for Alaska state business), and kept steering the conversation back to energy policy as it relates to national security (You'd do that, too, if you ran a state where the energy companies own it lock, stock and oil barrel).

Palin has also claimed that she could see Russia from her home in Alaska, so that makes her an expert on foreign policy. Right. I can see Canada or Mexico from my home in the Twin Cities--but only if I have access to a powerful telescope.

The Obama campaign has yet to find an answer for Palin in a manner that doesn't sound sexist or patronizing to the female voters he's trying to court. Obama also must be kicking himself for choosing Joseph Biden as his running mate instead of Hillary Clinton. It's a move that, more than his race or his lack of experience, could end up costing him the election.

The Republican Party hopes that the voters can put aside unimportant matters such as national security, the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and focus on the change coming to Washington via a 27-year Senate lifer who claims to be a maverick, and a governor who represents a state with more caribou than people. Stranger things have happened. Look at the president we have now.

Seven Years Later

On the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and the flight that would have crash-landed in the White House, but was diverted to a field in Pennsylvania instead--killing nearly 3000 people--it might be a good idea to ask: Where are we today?

The two remaining presidential candidates--Senators Barack Obama and John McCain--buried the hatchet for a few hours to lay wreaths on the site where the WTC used to stand (and will stand once more, once all the construction delays end around 2015). Tomorrow, they'll go back to debating whether putting lipstick on a pig is sexist.

President Bush announced a drawdown of a few thousand troops from Iraq, meaning what's left is the same number of soldiers he started out with when he invaded the country. The job of ending the war will be left to the next president.

A top military official told Congress that the war in Afghanistan is in danger of being lost because of the resurgence of the Taliban.

A poll finds that one-third of Americans believe another terrorist attack is only a few weeks away.

Major breaches in security are still being found in areas most vulnerable to attack, such as shipping ports and nuclear power plants.

More laws intended to keep Americans safe are instead being used as a means of intimidation. For example, both Obama and McCain voted for a bill making it legal to wiretap your phones.

Pakistan has a new leader, the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto. But his mental fitness is being questioned, which is not a good thing in a country with nuclear weapons that could be stolen by terrorist groups.

By the way, whatever happened to Osama bin Laden? Is he dead, or just hiding in a cave someplace? And why hasn't he been caught?

MSNBC: The Place For Confusion

MSNBC has announced that it is removing Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as anchors of its election coverage, but will be used as commentators. David Gregory, the network's White House correspondent, will now be leading the coverage.

NBC News, which runs the cable network, apparently decided the pairing of liberal-leaning Matthews and Olbermann made them an easy target for the media-hating Republicans, as demonstrated at their convention last week. Remember the derisive chanting? Andrea Mitchell getting snowed under by balloons? What in the name of Huntley and Brinkley is going on?

It's like, I don't know, CNN teaming Lou Dobbs with Jack Cafferty. Or Fox News Channel pairing Bill O'Reilly with Sean Hannity.

It's also possible that Matthews and Olbermann got demoted because they and others were acting like children during the Democratic convention in Denver. As a result, Olbermann was a no-show for the GOP shindig in Minnesota, anchoring out of his New York studio. Obviously, neither of them are being considered for the coveted Meet The Press hosting slot vacated by the late Tim Russert.

MSNBC had the lowest ratings of any of the networks carrying the conventions, and that includes the broadcasters (led by sister network NBC). CNN, which touts itself as "the best political team on TV' every 15 seconds, had the most viewers for the Democratic convention. Fox News, which claims to be "fair and balanced" (only conservatives tend to believe that), took the honors for the Republican get-together. Go figure.

MSNBC remade itself as "the place for politics" and for liberal commentary, with Matthews' Hardball, Olbermann's Countdown, and now Rachel Maddow's new TV show. Matthews is an acquired taste, best heard in small doses. Olbermann can be funny, but he needs to get over his fixation with "Billo, "Comedian" Rush Limbaugh, and the Rupert Murdoch news empire.

(A word about Maddow, who is reportedly the first openly gay person to host a news program. She's competing against herself in some markets--such as Minneapolis-- when her syndicated radio talk show is heard on tape delay in the evening.)

Despite its NBC News pedigree, MSNBC is not the place for reliable news coverage--one reason why they rank near the bottom of the ratings. It is, however, the place for documentaries too lurid to be shown on Dateline NBC. Unless it's a rerun of To Catch a Predator.

Throughout its history, MSNBC has been the most unfocused of all the cable news channels. Do they want to cover breaking news that NBC won't handle? Do they want to fill the air with outrageous personalities (such as Don Imus and Jesse Ventura) who say things they may have to apologize for later--if they aren't fired first? Or do they want to be the liberal version of Fox News Channel? And how long will it be before they try something else?

Cleaning Up After The Circus

A couple of leftovers from the Republican convention before they turn the Xcel Energy Center over to hockey:

• John McCain's speech got a slightly larger TV audience than Barack Obama's did. Must have been the NFL football lead-in on NBC.
• More than 800 arrests were made by sometimes-overzealous police during the four days of the convention. Naturally, the local police is patting itself on the back. But the city councils of both Minneapolis and St. Paul may be launching investigations.
• You know that song they played when McCain and Sarah Palin were receiving their curtain calls Thursday night? It was "Barracuda", a 1970s hit for the band Heart, presumably in honor of Palin's high school nickname. And Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart are reportedly not happy that the GOP did that. Look for them to sic a few barracudas (as in attorneys) of their own.

GOP In Minnesota: Politics First

The Republican National Convention concluded in St. Paul Thursday, and not a moment too soon. Senator John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted their party's nominations as President and Vice-President, respectively, to cheering delegates waving "homemade" campaign signs. With all the veterans in the audience, was this a glorified VFW convention?

McCain struck a conciliatory tone in praising Barack Obama for winning the Democratic nomination at the beginning of his speech. But he also touted his experience at getting bipartisan support for his programs, and offered up himself as an agent of change in gridlocked Washington, even though he's been supporting President Bush's policies for the last few years. When you've been in the Senate for 26 years, as McCain has, the old 1960s adage "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" comes to mind.

The Senator from Arizona defended his support of the surge of soldiers in Iraq, leading to what he apparently believes is a prelude to an eventual victory. A hollow one, yes, but a victory nonetheless.

McCain recounted his POW experience during the Vietnam war for seemingly the millionth time. OK, we get it. But Vietnam was such a costly and controversial war (much like Iraq), the word "hero" doesn't apply here. As long as the Senator keeps using his experience as an all-purpose "get out of jail free" card whenever he is criticized, it cheapens his accomplishments. Just because you put on a uniform, it doesn't make you a hero.

There were a couple of uninvited guests who made themselves known while McCain spoke. Two members of the Code Pink organization and a couple of veterans who disagreed with the Senator's policies were shouted out of the arena with "U-S-A! U-S-A!", as if this were Lake Placid in 1980. McCain referred to the protesters as "ground noise and static". Now the national television audience got a taste of what we've been seeing the last few days, with police and demonstrators clashing in the streets of St. Paul, resulting in approximately 400 arrests.

Along the way, McCain referred to the Republicans as the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt (we're sure he meant Theodore) and Reagan. He also demonstrated that he remembers the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. And he concluded his speech by echoing the old Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" as if he were exhorting his team to victory. Insert your own age joke here.

McCain's speech was benign compared to Governor Palin's on Wednesday. She proved to be an excellent and telegenic speaker, mouthing Republican talking points mostly written by someone else, and taking shots at Obama and the news media. She and other speakers followed the same script: Republicans Good. Democrats Bad. Obama Worse. Liberal Media Rot In Hell.

(To be fair, the Democrats at their convention last week used a similar script: Democrats Good. Republicans Bad. Bush and McCain Worse. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity . . . oh, never mind.)

Curiosity about Palin and her made-for-People magazine life story resulted in 37 million TV viewers tuning into her speech, one million less than Obama's the week before. Wonder how many McCain got?

Now the delegates are going home, primed and ready to support their man (and woman) all the way to what they hope is victory in November. They will take away memories of sitting on their hands while a hurricane played out in Louisiana, parties turned into fund raisers, a rock star to rival Obama, and an old soldier reporting for duty as the party's presidential nominee. And trying to remember if the convention was held in Minneapolis or St. Paul.

GOP In Minnesota: Praise and Protests

The Republican National Convention, delayed for a day because nobody wanted to be seen partying like it was 1984 while there was a hurricane going on, finally went on in earnest at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center.

Tonight's program was devoted to speakers saying nice things about John McCain, the apparent GOP presidential nominee. Former candidate Fred Thompson and Senator Joe Lieberman (officially an independent from Connecticut, but really one of McCain's best pals) stood in front of a distractingly blue video screen, telling the delegates and the prime time network audience why they thought McCain is a better choice for the country than the Democrats' Barack Obama.

President Bush also spoke in support of McCain, but he did so a time zone away at the White House, just before the networks went on the air. Seems the President has become an embarrassment to the Republicans, so they treat him like the weird old uncle nobody listens to any more, who only surfaces for special occasions. Such as Halloween.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will accept the vice-presidential nomination Wednesday. Her 17-year old daughter will also be there. She's five months pregnant, and plans to marry the father. Conservatives (and Obama, too) believe the privacy of the Palins should be respected in this matter. That train left the station the moment Governor Palin accepted McCain's offer to be his running mate. It also means that Palin's "family values" stand is taking a hit.

For those of you who have been watching the convention coverage on network and cable, we have a news flash: All is not sweetness and light on the streets of St. Paul. Police have made hundreds of arrests of those who were protesting (among other things) the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Intersections were blocked, property was damaged, and people were hit with tear gas. But none of this got anywhere near the convention hall. The protests got extensive coverage on the local network affiliates, but not a peep on CNN or Fox News.

To be fair, there have been peaceful protests around town, using police-approved routes. Compared to what else is going on, that's like coloring within the lines. It also gets you fifteen seconds of airtime on the local news, which is about the same as coverage of the 5K Fun Run to Defeat Athlete's Feet.

Two more days of this infomercial to go, and the people affected by Hurricane Gustaf can soon go home to areas that won't have power for several days. They're the fortunate ones, because they can't watch another disaster unfolding on the north end of the Mississippi.