James Lileks' take on the Coleman-Mondale debate (MUST READ!)

If anyone’s interested, here’s my take on the debate: a draw. I listened to it, winced, sighed, yawned. Coleman was often too nice - I can’t hear these calls for a “new tone” without thinking A) he’s pitching this at those who believe nothing in particular, and hence distrust anyone who does, or B) he’s going to be devoured like a limping rabbit who wanders into a wolf den. He made a good point about taxes - he said to Mondale that when you begin with the assumption that you’re going to raise taxes, well, that’s what you’ll do. But when you begin with the assumption that you’re going to concede something to get something done, well, concede you will - and often more than you’d like. Concession, horse-trading, back-scratching and all that cloak-room frottage is the way things are done on the Hill. Of course a candidate cannot admit it. You expect them to shout “I promise that if I agree to fund the Robert Byrd Seniors Hydrotherapy Center, I’ll get one of equal size in Duluth, with towel-warming racks as well!” But when I hear calls for a “new tone” I cannot help but imagine the candidate as a fellow walking into a lion-stuffed Coliseum, armed with a feather.

Mondale was a cranky old nasty man who dropped big clanging pieces of boilerplate on the stage, most of which were forged in 1978. How I tire of hearing how everything is going to hell, and how not a jot of progress has been made since Bobby Kennedy slumped over in the Ambassador ballroom. I did learn something about the Constitution, though. As Mondale said:

I'm opposed to late-term abortion, but I also know that the Constitution says that you must protect the life and the health of the mother.

I have the old original version; Mondale is dancing to the remix, so I will grant him that the Constitution does indeed explicitly state this, right between the provisions that grant gun ownership only to redheads and the amendment that permits quartering of troops in private houses if they keep the stereo down after ten. But for me the great fault line ran through this question:

Mr. Mondale, this is for you. This is from Peggy. ``As a businesswoman in southern Minnesota, I'm concerned about technology reaching our businesses and our homes. What is your vision for keeping all of Minnesota on the cutting edge of technology?''

Growing economy, leadership that builds trust. I think right now there should be a reduction in the interest rates.

I’m not kidding. Pitched a question about getting broadband to rural areas, that’s what he says. One word was noticeably absent in Mondale’s reply: INTERNET. Or, for that matter, Fiber, or broadband, or any other aspect of that amusing diversion we call the Web. High-speed internet access in the rural portions of the state is an issue here, because many small towns are served by independent phone companies that can’t afford the upgrades. Or the local phone exchanges have been purchased by out-of-state companies that don’t want to spend the money to run fiber to the barn. It’s a real issue - our paper did a story on it a while back, how the lack of high-speed access crimps the ability of outstate companies to compete.

I think that we need to support education that produces economic growth. This is maybe where we disagree. We made a promise that in addition to putting a burden on the schools with new testing that we would provide economic assistance for these schools, elementary and secondary and high school, that would allow them to educate these kids for the future. That has not been done, nor have we brought new help to students.

We need to do that. We have several wonderful educational institutions in our state university system and in the community college systems, and in other systems, that help young people to get ready for this technology and get ready for the future. That's our future, and that's where, I think, our support must be.

What we have to do is have to make a firm commitment to make sure that all of Minnesota is wired, and going beyond wired now, now we're talking about wireless. I had an opportunity to visit with the folks over at Minnesota Wireless in Mankato. Wonderful cutting-edge operation, a tentative conference on technology about six months ago, in that same area.

It is our future. We should be wiring the schools and let the businesses draw off a that so they can afford to create the public-private partnership that expands the use of technology. We should be looking at opportunities to expand wireless.

I'm a former mayor. I understand about infrastructure. Part of infrastructure is roads and highways, (inaudible) but another part of infrastructure is the wireless infrastructure. It's linking all of Minnesota through technology. I will be a champion of 21st Century thinking when it comes to making sure that all of Minnesota is wired.

To me, this was the most important moment of the debate - not because it concerned a particular issue, but because it showed who inhabits the current century. Fritz just didn’t get it - which means he’s likely to have a nice steak dinner with The Other White Meat, Fritz Hollings, and sign on to some Disney-paid bill to install copyright protection at the hardware level. Then all the suburban yups who voted for Fritz because, well, you know, Paul and all that, will find himself putting a CD in his computer to rip tunes for personal use - and the disk will be spat out. Or he’ll pop in a DVD he got from a friend, and have to get a new DVD driver with security certificates that establish him as the True Legitimate Owner of the disc - enter your access code now, please, and wait while we access the Warner Brothers / Suncoast database to ensure you are the rightful owner. And the guy will sit there and think: hey, how did this happen?

I’m not saying Coleman is a bulwark against this scenario - only that Mondale obviously hasn’t a clue. When it comes to the computer, to the Internet, he’s truly Grandpa, the guy who thinks he broke the machine when he accidentally minimized a window.

After the debate I listened to the usual cud-chomping on the local shows, but the instructive analysis came a few hours later on an ABC radio summation. I was so amused by it that I typed it up on the spot for blogging purposes. Said the reporter:

“Norm Coleman said he wanted to bring a nice, bipartisan tone to the Senate; speaking an hour later at a raucous campaign rally, Walter Mondale said that was interesting, since Coleman ran the trashiest campaign in modern election history against Paul Wellstone, and he urged everyone to vote for in honor of Paul and Sheila Wellstone.”

Not a word of the substance of the debate. Not a word. Just a repeat of this preposterous assertion that Coleman has run a vicious negative campaign - the worst in human memory! It’s interesting to see Mondale go smash-mouth at his age, at this point in his career. Before he entered the race he was regarded by most Minnesotans as That Old Guy Who Lost That Thing. He had receded into the background, earned the statesman’s halo, and eventually come to represent the state of Minnesota for better or for ill. He was one of our own, on his way to a statewide eulogy. But it turns out he’s willing to hold out his wrists for the strings and twitch to the DNC’s script - if they say Norm Coleman channels Satan, then that’s what he’ll proclaim. I always had a hometown admiration for him as a fellow who knew when to leave the stage and make his way in the real world. But now he strikes me as a man who lies for the sake of power with vigor and enthusiasm - and it’s power he never sought to wield again.

"Dumbya" HA HA HA HA HA

You are so clever. Did you come up with that yourself?

But wait..."Dumbya" + "Repuke"? Madam, you are a veritable fountain of wit and erudition. I can only hope those paint chips you've been eating aren't too hard on the digestion.

How, pray tell, was George W. Bush's campaign based on character assasination? How, with any degree of intellectual honesty, can you claim that such a campaign not only occurred but succeeded when up until the present the media and conventional "wisdom" perception of Gore remains that he is a brilliant, idealistic thinker ahead of his time?

While you're at it, please point out those hordes of "Repuke" journalists...I know of an awful lot of op/ed commentators who are right-wing, but the vast majority of what passes for news in the mass media is quite obviously left of center. What's more, point out which criticisms of Algore are as baseless as the ones leveled at Coleman?

When the same strategy worked for Dumbya against Gore,

Okay, I'll bite -- when exactly did the President "go smash mouth" in his campaign? Was it the part about the "compassionate conservatism", or the "new tone in Washington"?

Be specific, and show your work. You'll be graded on your coherence and accuracy -- if any.

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;-)