There are a number of things about the race between Paul Wellstone and Norm Coleman that remind me of the 2000 U.

Monday, March 18, 2002

There are a number of things about the race between Paul Wellstone and Norm Coleman that remind me of the 2000 U.S. Senate contest in New York that featured Hillary Clinton and her Republican challengers, former New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani, and Rick Lazio the one-time congressman from eastern Long Island. The fact that Coleman hails from Brooklyn New York is an obvious similarity, but more importantly I’m just as puzzled over his candidacy for the senate as I was with Guliani and Lazio two years ago.

Like Guliani, who never really convinced New Yorkers of his desire to secure a senate seat, one has to question how Coleman’s heart could possibly be in this race. Until the president mysteriously handpicked him to run for the senate, Coleman’s major aspiration appeared to be the governorship of Minnesota.

Mayors do not generally long for legislative positions. Nor is the office a logical springboard to the upper body of the U.S. Congress, although Hubert Humphrey made the jump from Mayor of Minneapolis to the senate back in 1949.

Idaho governor Dirk Kempthorne went from serving as the Mayor of Boise directly into the U.S. Senate, then retired after completing only one term, frustrated and bored with parliamentary politics, returning to Idaho in order to once again become his own boss, this time as governor.

Like Kempthorne and Guliani, Norm Coleman is accustomed to being the-man-in-charge, and would likely be frustrated as a senator. Unlike being mayor, it’s almost impossible in the senate to deliver special projects to your constituents without at least three-terms-worth of seniority.

Therefore, hailing the fact that you’ve brought a professional hockey team and a science museum to your city, while it may help to jazz up a bid for the governorship, is nothing but silly special effects in a U.S. Senate campaign.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes claimed that unless something can be measured, it can neither be discussed, nor understood. Descartes came a century and a half too soon for the U.S. Senate.

Senate candidates, especially those seeking their first term, should not try to define the political landscape by quantifying such things as new roads or buildings. Likewise, voters should not look upon their senate races like a shopping expedition to the Mall of America. The U.S. Senate, as an institution, isn’t supposed to be a &uot;Super House of Representatives&uot; or deliver the goodies like a state executive or mayor. The Framers intended the role of the Senate to be that of an anchor against hasty action, a body in which the depth of ones intellect and oratorical dexterity are paramount.

Both Coleman and Lazio sport a &uot;gee whiz&uot; type expression and a Boy Scout appearance that makes it somewhat difficult to take them seriously for as high an office as the U.S. Senate. Rather than seasoned public servants they look like they’ve jumped off the pages of an Archie’s comic book, fresh from slurping up double-straw chocolate milkshakes at Pop Tate’s.

Stepping into the Senate race to replace the problem-laden Guliani in the spring of 2000, Lazio was once likened to one of those guys in the original Star Trek episodes who you instantly knew was going to get bumped off as soon as the landing party beamed down to some strange planet. Falling off the stage the day before receiving his party’s nomination, and receiving an enormous cut on his face only served to reinforce this image.

In the end analysis New York voters appreciated the depth of Hillary Clinton’s intellectual abilities over those of Rick Lazio and deemed her as the rightful heir to the scholarly Daniel Moynihan.

Anticipating the same scenario in Minnesota, the Coleman crowd will likely continue their claim that Senator Wellstone is a &uot;lone voice in the wilderness.&uot; By doing so they completely overlook what the Senate is supposed to be all about. They also miss the fact that the United States itself is viewed as sort of lone voice in the wilderness, due, in great part, to the go-it-alone policies of President Bush – the man who persuaded Norm Coleman into this senate race.

The U.S. Senate should be presided over by thoughtful men and women, not administrators. Minnesotans like having their senators in the thick of the debate. That’s why Paul Wellstone was elected in the first place. Minnesota Republicans, on the other hand, have a habit of self-destructing when it comes to serving in the U.S. Senate. It’s as if there is something about the institution that they just don’t get.

John Rosenberg, a Minnesota native, is a political and foreign affairs writer in Washington.