Norm Coleman, R-MN

Norm Coleman is still in his first term as a Senator from Minnesota, and it looks to be his last. His national career got off to a dubious start when Karl Rove convinced him to switch from seeking a second term as mayor of St. Paul to challenging incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone instead, and it’s just gotten even more dubious ever since. With Rove behind the scenes, Coleman benefited from Republican efforts to politicize Wellstone’s tragic death in a plane crash and then use other GOP surrogates like Newt Gingrich to attack his replacement opponent, Walter Mondale.

Ironically, while he was still nominally a Democrat, Coleman had chaired Wellstone’s 1996 re-election campaign. He had also held Mondale up as a shining example of the “great values of our party.” Then he found it more politically expedient to jump ship and join the Roadblock Republican party instead. He’s been an ardent supporter of their agenda ever since, running on anti-gay, anti-worker, anti-progressive platforms while claiming to be open-minded and bipartisan—this despite the fact that he’s voted with the Bush Administration agenda nearly 100% of the time he’s been in the Senate.

Coleman defended Rove’s role in the illegal leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity. He voted to advance the opening up of the ANWR refuge to drilling. He’s repeatedly voted to cut funding for many key federal programs, while still protecting sugar-beet subsidies and other costly pork-barrel projects for wealthy supporters in his home state. And after only a few months in office, he even had the temerity to tell reporters that he was a “99% improvement” over Wellstone because of his much closer working relationship with the White House.

Way to score points in Minnesota, eh? Heckuva job, Normie. No wonder Coleman’s up against stiff opposition for re-election in 2008, with the more widely known (and much more widely trusted) Al Franken leading the list of those vying for his Senate seat. Coleman is as much a political opportunist as he is a die-hard obstructionist, a Roadblock Republican if ever there was one, and he deserves to be back on the streets looking for a new day job ASAP.