In the end, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman bowed out powerfully, turning political defeat into education.
“Ours is a government of laws, not men and women,” he said, conceding yesterday to Al Franken. “The Supreme Court of Minnesota has spoken, and I respect its decision and will abide by the result. It’s time for Minnesota to come together under the leaders it has chosen and move forward. I join all Minnesotans in congratulating our newest United States senator — Al Franken.”
I know this is the kind of thing people say, when they lose elections in this country. But, still, there’s something about Coleman’s formulation — pointing out the primacy of law over the individual — that really moved me, particularly now, when, half-way around the word, a different country has told its people, at the barrel of a gun: Ours is a government of men, not laws.
Coleman is a an observant Jew. Of all the things I read during the protracted fight for the Minnesota Senate seat, the most indelible image might have been this one, from an April article in the New York Times:
[Coleman] said that every morning, he puts tefillin — black leather boxes containing scrolls — on his arm as part of a morning Jewish prayer ritual. “I bind myself every morning,” he said. “I bind myself to God every morning because it’s in his hands.”
I have almost nothing in common with Coleman, politically. Among other things, he has been a strategic advisor and consultant for the Republican Jewish Coalition, the political archenemy of the National Jewish Democratic Council, on whose board I serve. But over the last few months, I’ve started putting on tefillin, too – once a week. It’s a powerful but strange ritual, one that political leaders rarely speak openly about.
“David Letterman will make fun of me for this,” Coleman said, after revealing his religious practice.
Maybe. But I appreciated Coleman’s candor. Like his concession speech, it took a certain amount of courage.