Minnesota's Jewish Sen. Norm Coleman faces competition from commentator Al Franken.
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGERnorm coleman 88(photo credit: )
Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman got off to a decidedly unkosher start when he took the podium at the Republican National Convention last week to greet the crowd.
"Good evening and welcome to Pig's Eye, Minnesota," he told them. Anticipating their raised eyebrows, he continued, "That's right. We were called Pig's Eye until a Catholic priest built a wooden chapel a few steps from here, dedicated to Saint Paul."
A former mayor of the city named for that apostle, "I proudly welcome you to my city of St. Paul," Coleman said, noting that he often references the Catholic saint "although I am a person of the Jewish faith."
Coleman is one of only 48,000 or so Minnesotans - out of five million total - who can make such a claim. And yet, for the last 30 years, the state's voters have elected Jewish candidates to fill the seat. Despite boasting one of the country's sparser Jewish populations in a region not known for diversity, Coleman is participating in a race this fall that should extend the Jewish reign for another six years.
He is facing off against Al Franken, a Jewish former talk show host, author of several best-sellers and comedian who made a name for himself on Saturday Night Live. Franken won the Democratic primary on Tuesday and either he or Coleman is expected to head to Washington once the contest is decided in November.
A non-Jewish third-party candidate, Dean Barkley, will compete in the general election, but he is expected to hurt rather than beat the two front-runners.
Coleman himself took the seat of popular Jewish Democrat Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash in 2002. Though the governor at the time appointed Barkley to fill the vacated seat, he lost his election to Coleman two months later. Before that, Wellstone had beat out Jewish incumbent Rudy Boschwitz for the seat, which the latter had held since 1978.
Back then, people thought Boschwitz's background would be a liability in this once agrarian Midwestern state, nicknamed "land of 10,000 lakes" for all of its waterways.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post at a reception during the RNC, Boschwitz recalled one person telling him, "'There are more lakes in Minnesota than there are Jews. You'll never win.' But I did." He attributed that in part to another state slogan "Minnesota nice," used to describe the helpful and amiable residents.
"There is no prejudice in this state. There's what they call 'Minnesota nice.' And that nice means that they are very hospitable to all kinds of people, including Jews," he said.
"In other parts of the country, your background and ethnicity might matter, but not here," said Ron Carey, chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota, speaking to the Post from the convention floor of St. Paul's XCel Energy Center shortly after Coleman's address and struggling to be heard above the din of whistles and applause. "People look at each other as Americans and Minnesotans, not as Jewish or Polish or Catholic."
But it wasn't always that way, according to Minnesota Jewish Community Relations Council executive director Steve Hunegs, who described himself as an amateur historian. In fact, he said, a respected national journalist in the 1940s labeled Minneapolis, the state's largest city, the anti-Semitism capital of the US.
Hunegs pointed out that "Minnesota nice" has two connotations. The first is that Minnesotans are "very, very polite and friendly," but the second is that that outward demeanor masks "less charitable" sentiments under the surface.
"People will be nice and not really mean it," he explained, but added that when it came to Jews, "that wasn't the case, because in the 1940s nobody was making bones about discriminating against Jews. It was so prevalent. There were places Jews couldn't live and places Jews couldn't work and places Jews couldn't eat."
Hunegs said it wasn't clear why there was such a strong level of hostility toward Jews - as well as blacks and Japanese - in Minneapolis, noting that it contrasted with their treatment in St. Paul less than half an hour away. He suggested that perhaps it traced back to the different origins of the "twin cities."
The predominantly Catholic St. Paul, a business and commerce center, welcomed Jews much earlier, in the mid-1800s, as they made their way there from Germany due to involvement primarily in trade. In contrast, Jews arrived in the Scandinavian and Protestant Minneapolis only toward the end of the century during the massive wave of immigration from poorer Poland and Russia.
Regardless, one of Minnesota's favorite sons, Hubert Humphrey, worked to alter his constituents' attitude when he became mayor of Minneapolis in 1945. Hunegs recounted that he brought major business and union leaders together and told them their treatment of minorities must change, particularly since it was hurting the area's economic development. He then pushed through laws banning job and housing discrimination, before championing national civil rights legislation as a US senator in the 1960s.
Within a generation of Humphrey's election, things had changed, according to Hunegs, who grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis. He pointed to the selection of a Jewish family friend as the honorary "commodore" of the 1973 annual Aquatennial summer festival celebrating the city's water heritage as marking the fact that Jews could attain "high positions of civic life."
Only five years later, Boschwitz began the three decades of Jewish ownership of one of the state's two Senate seats, despite Jews being as much of a rarity then as they are now. So much so that Hunegs recalled first meeting Coleman, a Brooklyn native, at his sister's family Seders because her in-laws had met the young attorney at an airport on the New York-Minnesota route and invited him for Passover since he had so few Jewish options in his adopted state.
Now, though Jews aren't a major part of his constituency, Coleman has no problem being out front on issues of concern to the community, making particularly strong statements on Iran.
"The greatest danger that we face in the world is the threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon," Coleman told the Post as he toured the Energy Center hallways during the convention, pausing to shake hands with delegates and pose for pictures along the way.
And last fall he told the Post that when it comes to acting against Iran, "if action is going to be taken, it's not going to be Israel alone."
Coleman, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Near East subcommittee, continued that "the reality is that Israel would have to have approvals and authorities. If something is taken, the United States is going to be part of that. We have to understand that. There is no saying, 'Israel did it.'"
Early polls indicated that Coleman is facing a serious challenge from Franken (who did not speak to the Post despite requests for an interview), showing the incumbent would likely lose a tight race in a year that Democrats are expected to make gains in Congress.
Franken capitalized on his name recognition from his days at Saturday Night Live - his iconic characters include the self-help guru Stuart Smalley - and the reputation he has carved out as a liberal critic of Washington and the Bush administration to gain attention and contributions. His arguments were well-received by many in Minnesota, which tends to vote Democratic.
But his stock started to fall a few months ago when reports came out that he owed back taxes in various states where he had once worked, though he overpaid his taxes in some cases in Minnesota and New York. And Republicans have successfully attacked him for controversial statements he made as part of comedy routines, particularly when jokes about rape he once made - and now terms inappropriate - surfaced. His past has also left him vulnerable to charges that he is a carpetbagger, Minnesota born but New York bred, and returning home just to have a shot at winning an election. It was a theme hammered home by his main primary challenger and echoed by the GOP, and it has helped Coleman regain the lead in most polls.
"He's been in New York and Hollywood too long," was how Carey put it. He dismissed his values as "more in tune with those of a New York senator than a Minnesota senator." Hunegs noted a certain irony with that line of attack, since Franken was the only one of the four Jewish candidates to have been raised in the state.
And while sometimes New York and Hollywood can be veiled references for Jews, in this case Coleman is Jewish as well, and faith hasn't been an issue in the campaign.
The only time when religion seems to have been a factor was back when Wellstone defeated Boschwitz in 1990. According to reports at the time, Boschwitz's team was trying to win the Jewish vote, and a letter was circulated charging that his opponent was a bad Jew for intermarrying and not raising his kids Jewish. Wellstone was quoted as saying that must mean his opponent has a problem with Christians, and the backlash unleashed in the general public against Boschwitz is believed to have contributed to his defeat.
Today, though, the way that Hunegs has seen Jewishness come up has been in the pride of members of the Jewish community at the fact that their co-religionists have done so well in so unlikely place.
"It matches the rise of the Jewish community throughout the country, that Jews can attain the highest offices," Hunegs said. "It's a testament to American democracy, that most doors are now open to Jews." Even in Pig's Eye.
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