Anyone who has been involved in a school yard fight knows the old rule, 2 against 1 will win every time. At tonight's debate Norm Coleman sat literally in the middle of Independent candidate Dean Barkley and Democrat Al Franken. He was eviscerated by both men.
The most devastating moment came when one of the moderators asked, "What do you think is the greatest threat to our country"? The moderator went on to say it could be any threat, not just of the military kind. Al Franken went first and said the biggest threat was Al Qaeda, and that the Bush administration had squandered the past eight years pursuing the war in Iraq, instead of pursuing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. At the end of his comments Franken ripped into Coleman for his support of President Bush's policy in Iraq.
Then came Dean Barkley. He said the greatest threat was the skyrocketing national debt. He lashed into Coleman saying "this happened on your watch". Barkley's comments echoed a recurring theme by Franken tonight, that President Bush had inherited the largest surplus in US history and was leaving office with the largest deficit.
Then it was Norm Coleman's turn. Coleman said the biggest threat to our country was the "partisan divide" in Washington. Huh? Yes it is a terrible problem, but Coleman kept repeating this line over and over again throughout the evening. Is that really the single greatest threat facing our country?
Granted I didn't see this debate on TV, and there were moments where I wonder if Al Franken might have seemed a bit glib. He repeatedly shook his head at times at Senator Coleman's comments, a move that on television could echo Al Gore's sighs that appeared so obnoxious in one of the 2000 Presidential debates. But Franken also had the funniest line of the debate, when he sighed, and channeled the most overused cliché of the McCain/Palin ticket, saying "maybe I'm just a maverick".
As I left the debate, I shared the fact that I didn't think this was Norm's finest hour with Tom Steward, one of Coleman's oldest aides. He cautioned me that Norm Coleman was his own best consultant and that it was Coleman's idea to suspend negative advertising. I agree that was a good move. But I asked Steward if the move was too late. He said no, that the race is still a toss up. And that's true, even though the latest polls show that Franken is ahead, the race is still within reach for either candidate.
But the days left are dwindling. The Minnesota Secretary of State's office estimates more than 80 percent of Minnesotans will vote a factor that should skew in favor of Democrats.
An indication that anything could happen this election year is that in his closing remarks tonight Al Franken channeled Ronald Reagan. Reagan asked in a debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980, "are you better off than you were four years ago?" Franken tonight said this, "If you think the past six years have gone well, I am not your guy."
And Norm Coleman in his closing remarks channeled the 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. Coleman said tonight "our nation's best years are ahead of us", an echo of Kerry's acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in which he said "our best days are still ahead of us."
Hmm - Al Franken channeling Ronald Reagan. Norm Coleman channeling John Kerry. Stranger than fiction. More proof that anything can happen this election year.
