MNpublius.com

Last night, Norm Coleman welcomed delegates to Pig’s Eye with a boring speech about all the things he did as a DFL-elected mayor of Saint Paul between recessions. He said in his speech, ”here we sit in the middle of a great Minnesota success story.” Meanwhile, in the unnerving police state of Saint Paul, where delegates are shuttled around in “secure busses,” business is hurting. The Pioneer Press titled a story: “RNC business boost in St. Paul? Merchants not seeing it”:

Stacey Finnegan, owner of the il Vostro Boutique, leased space for six months at downtown’s Lawson Commons to see if her upscale Edina dress shop would take off in St. Paul. She had expected visits from convention delegates and media to boost sales this week at the Wabasha Street boutique.

So far, she’s seen no such bump. In fact, sales have slowed. Few delegates have been stopping in, and incidents such as Monday’s melees between police and fringe protesters haven’t helped.

On the other side of the perimeter, just a block away from the CNN Grill:

Cossetta’s Italian Market and Pizzeria manager Ray Vanyo was mad that it was outside a security perimeter around the Xcel and not easily accessible to delegates. Vanyo described business as “dismal.” Others agreed.

“We’d been waiting for this convention a year and we bought a lot of food, but it’s going to go bad before anyone eats it,” said Hassan Rowf, co-owner of the 7th Street Bistro.

Meanwhile, Coleman is using the RNC as what the Washington Post calls, a “fundraising bonanza”:

The Minnesota Republican has capitalized on the presence of many of the party’s top donors, holding a raft of lavish events, including a cigar bar function headlined by former House speaker Newt Gingrichand former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. And his efforts have gotten a boost from Jeff Larson, a friend and adviser who is also fundraising coordinator for the convention’s host committee.

Coleman’s windfall is one of the more subterranean aspects of convention weeks that take place far from the carefully constructed stagecraft that appears on television. That is the mingling of politicians eager for financial support with wealthy donors in convention skyboxes where the price of admission can run to the tens of thousands of dollars, on sunset cruises on the Mississippi River, and at private functions in restaurants.

Meanwhile, my RSS reader and Google Alerts are packed full with thousands of photos and articles covering all of the chaos of the war-zone Saint Paul is. I’ve been in Saint Paul each day and quite honestly, I’m not sure yet if I’m even going to downtown again until the convention is over because I simply do not want to deal with it anymore.

The residents, visitors and businessmen of Saint Paul are dealing with a police state and lower business while Norm Coleman and Jeff Larson, the two people primarily responsible for bringing the convention here, are smoking cigars and raking in the dough.

I have never been so appalled at Norm Coleman.