Coleman

MN Senator Norm Coleman stopped by at work today and spoke to a large conference room with 150-200 people, packed to the rafters. Being a high technology company, the audience seemed to be 90%+ supportive. His 15min talk was pretty much centered on innovation, technology, education, and global competitiveness. He took questions for 15min, they were all courteous, and covered the topics of making the tax cuts permanent, intellectual property / China / India, health care, and American's willingness to continue to take risks as in the space program.

The most memorable part of his talk was as he mentioned that as he meets with Mexican leaders they complain about being undercut by China and India, as he meets with Chinese and Indian leaders they complain about being undercut by Vietnam, Brazil, and Russia. The point is that if one wants to race to the bottom as low cost producer for low skill and increasingly medium skill jobs, there are plenty of folks ahead in the race. We don't want to be in the kind of standard of living that the countries in that race are in, so we want to keep racing for the top of the best innovators with the best technology, it is a tough race, but the prizes are worth it.

As he answered the questions, the first thing that struck me was how non-partisan his comments were ... he talked about "working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle", or "my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are coming to understand this more and more". Yes, it could be taken as "patronizing", but certainly not as the mean and nasty that Republicans are portrayed at in the media or we regularly hear from Democrats.

The second thing is how good a job he did of sticking to the Republican value of taking responsibility and not blaming others. There was no "blame the media" from him, it was "we haven't done a good job of communicating on tax cuts and Medicare part D'. Never mind that the MSM is hammering away every day with every negative to Republican story they can come up with, Coleman understands that complaining about it isn't going to change it, and realizes that no matter how difficult it might be, guys like him have to do the job. Gratifying, one is happy to stand up and applaud that kind of understanding and acceptance of the way things are.

It was a great opportunity to see a US Senator at close range, and he lived up to every expectation. A different and enjoyable way to spend 30min of the work day.