Coleman embraced a new party and adopted a new goal

Ask former Mayor Norm Coleman for his résumé and he says, "It's called the City of St. Paul."

Request his policy positions and the Republican U.S. Senate candidate replies, "St. Paul is my white paper."

In his campaign to unseat Democrat Paul Wellstone, Coleman tells voters he wants to do for Minnesota and the nation what he did for the city when he was its mayor: create jobs and economic opportunity, reduce crime and improve education, all without increasing taxes.

Minnesotans are inclined to accept the image he projects. Voters across the state credit Coleman for revitalizing St. Paul and bringing pro hockey back to Minnesota.

Whether he deserves the acclaim or not will be the subject of a long campaign this fall. But there's little doubt that he has spruced up the city's image — as well as his own.

Travel the campaign trail with Coleman and you may wonder whether you're on the set of the sitcom "Cheers."

"Norm!" people shout as he wanders into crowds at community gatherings. Virtually everyone knows him. In a Pioneer Press poll last month, 97 percent of people recognized his name.

At the Bloomington Summer Fete earlier this month, Bonnie Campion of Bloomington was lugging a cooler to a family picnic when Coleman grabbed the handle and offered to help. "I want your vote," he explained with a big grin.

"I thought you wanted my pop!" Campion responded with feigned anger. But then she grinned back at him, and after Coleman gave her arm a squeeze — he's big on squeezing arms and patting backs — she pledged her vote.

"I like him, and I was very impressed by all the things he did for St. Paul. He turned it around," she said after he strolled away.

A few days later, as the candidate greeted about 150 members of the Minnesota United Snowmobilers Association at a campground near Zumbro Falls, Jeff Patterson of Lakeville volunteered that he likes Coleman because he supports giving outdoor enthusiasts more access to public lands.

But the clincher for Patterson's vote, he said, was that "Norm brought NHL hockey back to Minnesota. I'm a Wild season ticket holder, and that means a lot to me."

Coleman maintains he led St. Paul through a "remarkable renaissance" as mayor from 1994 to 2002. Even many critics acknowledge he compiled a solid record.

Under his leadership, Coleman says St. Paul added 18,000 new jobs; built $3.5 billion in new construction, including $2 billion in downtown development; brought professional hockey back to Minnesota; reduced violent crime; raised student test scores and improved schools; and clamped a lid on property taxes, avoiding levy increases for eight years in a row.

Most of that is true. Some is hype. And while Coleman can rightfully claim much of the credit, others deserve a share of it.

Take the 18,000 new jobs, for instance. The numbers are right, but a booming economy in the 1990s had at least as much to do with the job growth as Coleman's policies.

St. Paul is a safer city now, because of both a national drop in violent crime and additional officers on its police force, according to City Council President Dan Bostrom. But he maintains the council proposed hiring more officers than Coleman was willing to put on the payroll.

The city avoided property tax levy increases for eight consecutive years largely because Coleman imposed tough budget discipline on his department heads, said Joe Reid, former city budget director. But during Coleman's tenure the city did increase fees for water, sewer, parking meters and other services.

Coleman's flashiest achievement was to convince the National Hockey League to award the Minnesota Wild franchise to St. Paul and persuade city and state officials to finance construction of Xcel Energy Center, which now draws 1.5 million visitors a year to hockey games, concerts and high school tournaments.

Coleman led the charge for the arena, sticking his political neck out by guaranteeing the city would build it when the Legislature balked at funding it.

But as for improving education: First, Coleman didn't set school budgets or education policy; Superintendent Pat Harvey and the school board did. Second, test scores haven't risen. Passing rates for St. Paul eighth-graders on reading and math skills tests have remained essentially flat in recent years and are far below the statewide rates. Coleman did, however, help pass a 2000 property tax levy referendum for the schools that was tied to stricter accountability.

And not everything was rosy for downtown St. Paul as Coleman left office last year. Seventeen percent of commercial office space was vacant. The city's RiverCentre convention complex was struggling to pay off debts. Plans for a big retail development at the World Trade Center fell through. And downtown had just one department store, one drug store, one bookstore and no movie theaters.

Coleman's biggest flop was his proposal to build a baseball park for the Minnesota Twins and pay for it with a half-cent citywide sales tax. City voters rejected his plan in 1999.

Overall, Coleman thinks his greatest accomplishment was an intangible one. "I think what was most significant was the change in attitude, the sense of optimism and enthusiasm in St. Paul," he said.

Some facts about Norm Coleman: He's 6 feet tall, weighs 160 pounds and turns 53 next month. He does 50 sit-ups and 50 to 75 push-ups every morning but saves his running for parades. He keeps his high metabolism running on sports shakes.

His accent is a dead giveaway. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of eight children in a close-knit Jewish family.

At Hofstra University on Long Island, he majored in political science, was elected student body president, and with long, scraggly hair led student protests against the Vietnam War.

"With a microphone in his hands, he was really charismatic," recalled former Hofstra political science professor Leon Martel.

After graduating, he followed a friend west, earned a law degree at the University of Iowa and came to St. Paul in 1976 to work for Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Warren Spannaus.

He was a passionate, hard-working prosecutor who didn't miss a trick, said Tom Fabel, the former head of the attorney general's criminal division who is now in private practice. He recalled that once before Coleman was married, he didn't want a northern Minnesota jury to think he was an "eastern playboy," so he bought a wedding ring to wear during the trial.

Shortly thereafter he married the former Laurie Casserly, daughter of a prominent St. Paul Irish Catholic family, who is a model and aspiring actress. They have two children, Jacob, 16, and Sarah, 12, and live in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood.

Coleman built his political career on his achievements in St. Paul, but he picked up some political scars in the process. After he quit the DFL to join the Republican Party in late 1996, he was accused of being an opportunist who switched parties because he saw a brighter future for himself elsewhere.

He lost his first bid for the DFL endorsement for mayor in 1989 but never quit running. He spent the next four years laying the groundwork for his second mayoral campaign in 1993. He beat the DFL-endorsed candidate, state Rep. Andy Dawkins, in that race, angering the city's liberal Democratic establishment.

As mayor, Coleman was a media-savvy cheerleader for St. Paul. His toothy grin appeared frequently on television newscasts across the state. Within two years of his election, he was hinting at his statewide political aspirations.

In 1996, he co-chaired President Clinton's re-election campaign in Minnesota. But by then, he and the DFL establishment were at odds. He was booed when he addressed the DFL state convention. Later that year, he was conspicuously absent from two Minnesota campaign appearances by Clinton and Vice President Gore. By fall, he refused to endorse Wellstone.

Coleman says the underlying cause for his break with the DFL was his opposition to abortion.

The mayor also battled a key DFL constituency: public employee unions. He fought to hold down retirement benefits and lost a fight to privatize city services. Those battles alienated labor leaders and DFL activists but appealed to corporate executives and a growing number of Republican leaders.

After being quietly courted by state and national Republican leaders, Coleman switched parties in December 1996. He immediately went from waiting in a long DFL line for higher office to the head of the Republican pack.

The following year, he easily won a second term, becoming the first Republican elected mayor since 1960. Republicans endorsed him for governor in 1998, pitting him against Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, his friend and former mentor, and raising questions about his loyalty. Their messy fight created an opening for former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura of the Reform Party (now the Independence Party), who "shocked the world" by winning with 37 percent of the vote to Coleman's 34 percent and Humphrey's 28 percent.

The mayor returned to City Hall and began plotting a gubernatorial rematch this year. He polished his Republican credentials in 2000 by serving as Minnesota chairman for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, striking up a friendship with the then-governor of Texas in the process.

Coleman would have had trouble winning the Republican endorsement for governor this year. Some conservative party leaders were disgruntled with his 1998 performance and wanted a new face.

President Bush fixed that problem. He summoned Coleman to the White House in April 2001 and sweet-talked the mayor into shifting his sights to Wellstone's Senate seat. Coleman easily won the GOP Senate endorsement last month.

Coleman's race is a top priority for national Republicans. Bush has already made two campaign stops this year in Minnesota for him, raising more than $2 million. Always a proficient money-raiser, Coleman has raked in $5.5 million, which is in shooting distance of Wellstone's $7.5 million.

"Then, the things I did in St. Paul — the Xcel arena, Lawson Software, the Science Museum — weren't done, and they were attacked as pie-in-the-sky ideas," Coleman said. "Now, they're realities."

I saw Wellstone on TV last week talking about coal mine safty. It reminded me of when George H. W. Bush pegged him perfectly when he asked, "who is this chickensh*t?"

Maybe the voters aren't so keen to accept Coleman as they are to reject Wellstone. I don't understand how a state of down-to-earth Scandinavian farmers could ever have elected such a socialist in the first place. Maybe the zeppelin-sized mosquitoes drained most of their blood and they were in a state of diminished capacity when they pulled the lever.

But it appears they've had a transfusion ...

I agree. Coleman is the great hope for this seat. Should Wellstone pull this out, he's in this seat until he dies. I can't see the MN GOP finding a better candidate ever-- a Republican with a great record and a base in the liberal Twin Cities. Coleman should be picking up independents like Clintoon picks up women while he globetrots making speeches for $100K per visit.

I'd like to think Minnesota is a harbinger of conservative victories in Iowa and South Dakota as well. The economy isn't helping, but the fact that conservatives are holding their own even in recent liberal strongholds and despite this downturn bodes ill for the forces of Darkness.

Maybe the voters aren't so keen to accept Coleman as they are to reject Wellstone

This would apply to me. But then I'm one of the most right-wing people I know.

Coleman was just too recent a convert and Ventura was promising a return to smaller government in '98. And its just as well. Coleman's loss gave him time to prove his bona fides. The Wellstone cult will be difficult to defeat.

I'm heartened by the fact that Coleman has already gotten 34% of the state to vote for him as recently as 1998-- and all of those voters saw his name on the ballot. That was before Bush did so well in the state in 2000 and before his popularity went into the stratosphere post-9/11 and carried the perception of the GOP with him.

Like I said, the stars are aligned for Coleman. I don't see how things could be positioned better for any GOP candidate seeking to topple Wellstone ever.

I hope you're right. Wellstone is having trouble on his left with the Greens, who are fairly strong here(especially here in the twin cities)

It helps that the Mind and Wellstone have proven themselves to be jerks, albeit liberal jerks while Colemann has been steady as he goes. 97-98% name recognition is pretty damned high. I almost disbelieve that statistic for any politician.

When I lived in Minnesota, my dentist said you had to be born in Iowa to be a Republican in Minnesota.
Anything to that ?

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