-- [Update: the dead tree version had a much more Republican-friendly version, see below] --

The Star Tribune will run an article tomorrow ran an online article about Sen. Norm Coleman's press conference today about energy. The Star Tribune is actually covering an issue in this race. I'm flabbergasted. Did they miss the Republican talking points to make sure this race stays on everything but the issues?

As I've mentioned before, Norm will be performing very difficult political gymnastics in an effort to keep his Senate seat. Norm needs to distract everyone from the last 5 1/2 years of doing nothing on this issue and emphasize his aspirations.

Sen. Norm Coleman said Monday that more oil drilling on the Outer Contintental Shelf off the country's Atlantic and Pacific coasts would generate billions of dollars for the government which could be invested in expanding consumer access to alternative energy.
(Star Tribune)

Norm can promise with both hands in plain view to make sure that he's not crossing his fingers and I would have trouble believing him. It's Norm-speak^TM. Norm will say absolutely anything to get elected. While Strib is completely incapable of analyzing anything Norm says, at least they allowed the Franken Campaign to point out a wee bit of the truth:

But a spokeswoman for likely Democratic candidate Al Franken said Coleman has had six years to push for alternative energy and is only talking about it now because of the upcoming election.

"Al's been calling for a real investment in renewable energy for two years, and Norm's been ignoring the need for six years," Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh said.

Thanks, Jess. But the Strib wasn't done. They let Norm answer facts with more Norm-speak^TM.

Coleman defended his record, saying he's long been an advocate of fostering alternative fuel use. But he said the importance of addressing energy costs has been driven home the last few days as he campaigned at the Minnesota State Fair. "That's the number one issue on the minds of Minnesotans," he said.

Really? You have? And which alternative energy would that be? Could you be more specific? You can't? What a shame.

Norm-speak^TM is Norm's only tool. He cannot answer this question directly. Notice that he almost answers it, but without any specifics. This evasion is classic Norm-speak^TM. He then quickly follows up his intentional vagueness with specifics on his plan.

However, this is Norm's plan which he's only talking about because he's up for reelection. He knows he's in trouble so he's got to sound like environmental issues matter to him. His polling data must be telling him so.

The key point of this plan is that drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf would pay for this. Uh huh.

Rather, Franken believes oil companies should drill on domestic land where they already hold leases.

"Drill on the leases you're sitting on now," McIntosh said. "Norm's just proposing to give away more oil to the oil companies" — a criticism that dovetails with the Franken campaign's most recent line of attack against Coleman, floated in TV and online commercials, that criticize him for taking campaign contributions from oil companies.

Franken has also spent a lot of time on the campaign trail, talking about the importance of alternative energy sources. He speaks often of an "Apollo program for renewable energy," government investment in technologies to make alternative and renewable energy more available to consumers.

Update: dead tree version of article is different

The version that made it into the dead tree version of the Strib, written by Kevin Duchschere, provided much more one-sided coverage as I would expect from the Strib.

Gone is any discussion of where both candidates stand on the issue. Al's campaign is only allowed to complain about Norm's positions but are not allowed to state what Al actually believes in.

I was surprised that the Strib editors let slip a discussion of the issues into their paper. They quickly corrected that in the dead-tree version providing yet another one-sided article that is nothing close to an honest portrayal of where both sides stand on this issue.