Ambitious crusader
"He's quick to bounce back," Erlandson admits. Adds Schier: "What you're seeing from him now is an established pattern of behavior. It's not like he got to the Senate and we're saying, 'What happened to Norm Coleman?' Norm Coleman has always been aggressive. [He] has always been relentless."
Now, as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a panel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Coleman and his oil-for-food investigation are attracting the attention of the world. The hearings are reminiscent of a time when chairmen of the fabled subcommittee used their powers to galvanize public outrage and catapult themselves into the spotlight. Then Sen. Harry Truman used the predecessor committee to shine a light on Pentagon waste during World War II, and Sen. Joseph McCarthy pursued his infamous anti-Communist investigations in the 1950s. Richard Nixon served on the committee, and Robert F. Kennedy was once its chief counsel.
Clearly, the subcommittee can be a powerful perch. So, is Coleman running for president? "No one in my position is going to answer that for you," Coleman says, directly sidestepping the question. He says he will seek re-election in 2008 and does not intend to run for president then. But, at 55, he notes pointedly, "I'm a young man." Point taken.
"Norm Coleman has always been aggressive. [He] has always been relentless."
Born: Aug. 17, 1949, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Family: Married to the former Laurie Casserly. Two children, Jacob, 18, and Sarah, 15.
Education: Hofstra Univ., B.A., 1971; Univ. of Iowa, J.D., 1976.
Public service: Minnesota attorney general's office, 1976-93; mayor, St. Paul, Minn., 1993-2001; U.S. senator, 2002-present; chairman, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee.
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