GOP Senator Coleman And Indicted Stevens: All In The Family
Under fire from Al Franken, GOP Senator Norm Coleman claimed he'd dumped the contributions he got from indicted Senator Ted Stevens. But it turns out he's only gone halfway in dumping them -- and a personal connection to Stevens might explain why.
It turns out that Coleman's chief of staff is married to Stevens' chief of staff. But more on that in a bit.
Coleman donated to charity the $20,000 he's received from Stevens PAC -- but that's only the amount he's received for this cycle. The campaign told the Star Tribune that the additional $10,000 he also received during the 2002 cycle was long since spent, and he couldn't get rid of money for a campaign that had been over years ago.
But as it turns out, that wasn't a problem for him in January 2006, when the Star Tribune reported that he got rid of money connected to Jack Abramoff that in fact dated to 2002. So why the differing standard this time around?
The marriage between the two chiefs of staff may have meant that quickly distancing himself from Stevens would add to a bad public appearance for his top staffer's spouse. In fact, Coleman had initially tried to avoid donating the Stevens-connected money at all.
We've tried to contact Coleman's Senate and campaign offices about any interactions between themselves and the Stevens camp, but have not gotten a response.
I hope Franken jumps on this. He probably will. I hope it gives him a good boost.
July 31, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope he does too. Frankly, Al Franken has so far run a very dissappointing campaign.
July 31, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al Franken's campaign is the most well funded campaign going against a GOP incumbent this year. You don't get numbers like that from running a "terrible campaign".
July 31, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
and what specifically do you find 'disappointing'?? which ads, which speeches, which talking points, which strategies, which tactics??? or do you just not like the poll numbers?
July 31, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm baffled that Franken is not trouncing Coleman.
(that McCain is even close to Obama also amazes me) When Al had his Daily Air America show I listened almost everyday. In the darkest days of the Bush hubris and obfuscation Franken helped me preserve my sanity.
Franken knows his stuff and would be a tremendous asset to restoring some fairnass to the American way of life.
Wake up Minnesota. You can't have Ventura every year.
July 31, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meh...I still think it's kind of a silly implication. If Normy doesn't want to get rid of 2002 campaign money, whatever.
July 31, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
whatever? yeah, no reason to use it against him. why bother picking away at an issue that resonates with voters...
July 31, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but I don't think this is going to ressonate with anyone outside of the readers here. The idea that Coleman needs to give back money long spent on a previous campaign is rather silly. Should anyone who's ever received money from Stevens, no matter how long ago, return it? Should someone who received money from Stevens 20 years ago return it? It does seem rather silly and I don't believe voters are going to be making any decisions based on it.
August 1, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
the "issue" that resonates with voters is CORRUPTION. please observe the forest, not just the tree.
August 2, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Go Al! take good old Norm to the cleaners. Norm thinks he is slick as hell....go get em; in fact use a good joke or two on the dude!
July 31, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
See? The little baby jesus really is a Democrat.
:)
July 31, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, you're reading too much into this. Nobody knows or cares who anyone's chief of staff is. It doesn't make Stevens' chief of staff "look bad" for Coleman to return all the money because Stevens' chief of staff isn't a public figure from before the scandal and isn't in the news now beyond a couple isolated blog posts. You're thinking too much, Eric, trying to find something where there's nothing.
Coleman can be criticized fairly for not returning all the money that can be legally returned (if that's the case...is it possible Coleman closed his 2002 account but only after he last returned Abramoff money from it?), but this "chiefs of staff are married!" thing is silly.
July 31, 2008 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is about the stink of corruption. it's all over the republican party. and stevens is gonna be really stinking up the headlines in the weeks before the election. there are very real ties between senators coleman and stevens. it would be absolutely foolish to not make an issue of it. of course, the more direct the connection, the bigger the issue you can make of it. and likewise, the less direct the connection is, the less you can make of it.
i don't think anyone is suggesting that franken ought to make an ad about coleman's chief of staff or make the one degree of separation between stevens and coleman a central theme of the campaign. that would be silly. but this is definitely the sort of thing that franken and the dfl ought to make sure is out there.
July 31, 2008 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric - don't pay any attention to DCCyclone.
July 31, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "chiefs of staff are married!" thing is silly, I'd stick to "their chiefs of staff are having sex with each other!" and then let them deny it.
July 31, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The more you can tie Senator Coleman to an idicted Senator the better. Looks bad, which is great news for Franken!
And, really, Franken has NOT ran a terrible campaign, he's been busting his ass here in MN campaigning across the state for over a year and has been putting out some great ads.
He's also proposed several bills this week, including one for tapping the Stategic Oil Reserves and one to make it illegal for any Senator to become a lobbyist.
Living in MN, I think his campaign has been great (and well funded). The bad press IS a problem. However, Franken has been responding strongly and as of late, his numbers are improving. He is slightly in the lead! Let's keep it going....
https://secure.alfranken.com/page/contribute
July 31, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
O hell yes.
July 31, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You people who think this is silly - if you're serious, then boy are you not very good and connecting dots. Delay had his wife and daughter on his payroll and all those illegal bribes and donations were going to pay their salaries, among all the rest it did.
Give it up - this is always important - this is following the money, ya idjits.
July 31, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
In case you didn't catch the snark Tena I agree with you.
July 31, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
From what I read (on a prior post around here somewhere I think, maybe WaPoo) Franken actually did jump on this quite a bit when it came out after the indictment. But I'm not aware that it got any traction.
July 31, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Franken has jumped on this. Here's his radio ad:
http://www.alfranken.com/page/-/AwfullyFishyRadio60BC.mp3
July 31, 2008 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
married people understand what it means to be married to someone who works for a crook as the crook's right-hand man.
July 31, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken called Wednesday for the federal government to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors and to ban advertising that he says leads to unnecessary spending on medication.
Franken, a DFLer, accused Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of participating in "a massive betrayal of Minnesota seniors" in supporting a Medicare drug program passed in 2003 that bars the government from negotiating with drug companies to lower prices.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/26124849.html?location_refer=$urlTrackSectionName
August 1, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Franken's struggles really aren't hard to explain. Coleman is a good politician. He's very vulnerable, not weak, and I've seen him in several campaigns now so I knew he would be no pushover. He succeeded so far in making the election about Franken instead of himself, and the one error Franken made was focusing too long on the nomination campaign and not going hard after Coleman before a general audience sooner. He's doing that now however. Franken's also had the misfortune of having troubles that were easy to twist and report on, whereas Coleman's problems are more nebulous, like close ties to the lobbyist for the Burmese junta.
August 1, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
not sure i'd count that as an error so much as the way it goes when one side has a real primary contest and the other/incumbent side doesn't.
August 2, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink