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1

Dan,

In case you haven't noticed, Minnesota is hardly in the "diabetic heartland". It's consistently ranked the healthiest state in the country. Washington is 15th. A majority of the population in the state lives in cities, not in small towns. Minnesota, you may also notice, has some rather liberal policies, like the lack of a death penalty, and marijuana decriminalization (not just "lowest law enforcement priority").

It's also, oddly enough, consistently had a Jewish senator since 1978, a pattern that looks to continue this year.

Posted by Andy | June 26, 2008 9:33 AM
2

yah, the ad should really be railing about hipster douchebags who make the barista change the grind on the mill so their ristretto comes out right.

the 'complicated-latte-drinking' smear is about ten years out of date, and should be retired for a newer model.

Posted by ibaien | June 26, 2008 9:37 AM
3

Can't stand the guy. Annoying as fuck. Like me.

Posted by Mr. Poe | June 26, 2008 9:38 AM
4

Are complicated lattes really ordered more often in small towns than in big cities? Really? Any statistics on this? Not trying to discount the point of the post - the 'complicated latte' jab is mean-spirited and lame, as is the whole ad - but to try to redirect that smear towards people in small towns without citing any backup evidence is maybe a little disingenuous in itself.

Posted by rtw | June 26, 2008 9:42 AM
5

I just saw a Norm Coleman ad on TV that I thought was pretty strange. It's his wife giving us all of his selling points while he stands in the background (in their kitchen, I guess) drinking coffee. Then she turns around and asks him to take out the trash. Huh?

Posted by DanFan | June 26, 2008 9:46 AM
6

this reminds me of Bill Maher's New Rule from a few years ago...

(paraphrasing) "New Rule: The longer the latte order, the bigger the asshole."

Posted by Mike in MO | June 26, 2008 9:56 AM
7

I used to live at 88 Riverside Drive - a couple doors down. Best place to live in NYC - no doubt.

Isn't this the same Norm Coleman and Republican Party that used Wellstone's funeral to get themselves elected. Making up wild lies about how despicable it was that the Democrats turned a funeral into a political event. Total fucking douchebags. I love Al Franken. I really hope he wins and can trash the Lofa King, maybe pass something to require Faux News to call itself RNC Broadcasting.

Posted by left coast | June 26, 2008 9:56 AM
8

That whole point that real Minnesotans prefer simpler beverages while ice fishing is so bizarre.

The real ad-controversy here in MN, over the Franken/Coleman campaign, is about this one:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/06/norm_coleman_ad.php

Posted by MnSlogger | June 26, 2008 9:59 AM
9

The funny thing is that Coleman himself was born in Brooklyn.

Posted by lorax | June 26, 2008 10:03 AM
10

Dan, Dan, Dan. Have you ever followed politics? Does it matter where politicians and political consultants have traveled and what the facts are? Have you ever met people? I have no trouble picturing someone interrupting their order for a half-caf whatever to rail against the effete elitist latte sipping carpet bagger from NYC.

Posted by umvue | June 26, 2008 10:15 AM
11

Complicated lattes are a city drink, too, where they are preferred by secretaries and cell phone salesmen and nurse's aides. But it is true that in the exurbs and beyond, the number of drive-thru espresso huts is staggering. Not just Starbucks, either, but independent joints with a mile-long trailing line of Ford F-350s and Dodge Rams.

But since holding contradictory points of view is an American pastime, it's quite possible for those F-350 drivers waiting for their iced caramel hazelnut mochas to hate the idea of citified hipsters waiting for their ristrettos or whatever the hell they are. In fact, I'll bet if you surveyed them, they'd most say that "real men drink Yuban black" even as they probe their frappaccinos for the last drop of cinnamon-strawberry sweetness.

Posted by Fnarf | June 26, 2008 10:24 AM
12

Isn't this the same Norm Coleman who only got into office after his opponent Paul Wellstone, arguably the most consistently liberal member of the Senate, died in a completely accidental, holy-fuck-nobody-could've-seen-that-coming, purely coincidental plane crash weeks before the election that ended up throwing control of the Senate to the Republicans by one seat? So I guess the unfair smear against Coleman would be that he's an unprincipled ghoul and Bush lapdog who gained power like any good apparatchik: After the seat of his troublemaking predecessor was conveniently vacated due to sudden, unforeseen death.

It's only now that Coleman has to run against a non-dead opponent (Mondale doesn't count) he's facing the fight of his political career.

See, unfair smears are fun! Don't get on any planes, Mr. Franken.

Posted by flamingbanjo | June 26, 2008 10:25 AM
13

@8 - That's the one I was referring to in #5. It was such a weird ad, and the only thing I remembered about it afterward was that she asked him to take the trash out. Was that the point...?

Posted by DanFan | June 26, 2008 10:27 AM
14

Is anyone else kind of offended by the new McDonald's marketing campaign that talks shit about "snobby coffee drinkers" that's obviously pointed at Starbucks? Those billboards piss me off. This is Starbucks territory, back off McDs.

Posted by Carollani | June 26, 2008 10:28 AM
15

@7 & 12 - People here are still driving around with "What Would Wellstone Do?" (a la What Would Jesus Do?) bumper stickers. I'm a liberal, but I have to admit that I laughed out loud when I was driving one day and saw a bumper sticker that said "Wellstone is dead. Move on." I hope Al Franken knocks Norm Coleman on his ass. My two cents. :)

Posted by DanFan | June 26, 2008 10:34 AM
16

Lattes are so yesterday, man. I don't know what you people up there are drinking, but down here in San Francisco, it's all about the individually brewed drip coffee. Philz, Bluebottle, that shit'll put some hair on your chest, boyo!

Posted by The Artist Formerly Known As Sigourney Beaver | June 26, 2008 10:35 AM
17

what's totally absurd about this is that Norm Coleman was born in New York not Minnesota. It wasn't until he went to Law School that he lived in the mid-west. More Republican hypocrisy!

Posted by apttitle | June 26, 2008 10:36 AM
18

@14 - I so want to take one of those stupid McDonald's ads and edit in really depressing footage of a typical shitty florescent-lit McDonald's with schlumpy people eating out of paper wrappers, over the B section with the voiceover and footage of the drinks. But, alas, I am too lazy.

Posted by greg | June 26, 2008 10:40 AM
19

Interesting that the narrator still pronounced it as care-uh-male rather than carmle (four pumps of...)

He's a softie too!

Posted by Non | June 26, 2008 10:46 AM
20

@13 - I think that point is that Norm is specially interested in HER.

Or in garbage.

Posted by MnSlogger | June 26, 2008 10:50 AM
21

@11: The coffee drinks that are essentially 50% syrup, 30% ice, 10% (nonfat) milk and 10% coffee are the exact reason I never get drive-through coffee when in the sticks. I've tried, but I don't need some overly-tanned failed-cheerleader type giving me a blank look when I say I just. want. a. latte. no. syrup. I'll suck it up and go to Starbucks.

Posted by Jessica | June 26, 2008 10:54 AM
22

But Small Town Americans and other rednecks know fuck all about Neeoo Yoark Sittee, and therefore have no problem imagining it as a land of skinny white liberals wearing hemp pants riding bicycles to sappy, boring indie concerts fueled by frothy tan vagely caffeinated warmed milk drinks.

Alright, don't start. Point is, it's a stereotype, not a rule.

Makes you wonder, though... why they seem to give such an insane fuck about 9-11 -- infinitely more than any NYCer -- if they hate big cities so damned much.

Posted by K | June 26, 2008 10:56 AM
23

@16,

Exactly. Elitists drink real coffee or maybe tea.


Oh, what I wouldn't give to see that shit-eating grin wiped off that douchenozzle's face. Get him, Al. Get him.

Posted by keshmeshi | June 26, 2008 10:58 AM
24

Considering Minneapolis is a very liberal, cosmopolitan city with plenty of latte drinkers, I don't think this lameass ad is going to play very well anywhere but in the smallest Main Streets of Minnesota...

Posted by michael strangeways | June 26, 2008 11:03 AM
25

It takes a special kind of balls to grow up in NYC, attend elite high schools and colleges there in NY state, get your law degree somewhere else, and then turn around and trash your opponent (who actually spent his childhood and high school years in MN) as an elite east coast intellectual. Magical balls.

Posted by Big Sven | June 26, 2008 11:05 AM
26

My usually republican mother-in-law in conservative, smack in the middle of the state St. Cloud, MN, goes ga-ga over the light white berry lattes (with a double flavor shot) at Caribou Coffee, MN's moosey retort to Starbucks. In fact every conservative I know in MN dumps a load of dough a week at Caribou. I don't think Norm's approach is going to work unless he can finesse the approach to something like
Norm = Caribou = moosey he-man lattes
Al = Starbucks = wimpy liberal lattes
Good luck with that, Norm.

Posted by Mary F | June 26, 2008 11:20 AM
27

Is the Coleman campaign out of money? That ad looks cheap as hell.

Posted by Bub | June 26, 2008 11:22 AM
28

Heartland Rube: "No, City Slickers Have longer latte orders!"

City Slicker "No, you Rubes have longer latte orders!"

Gentlemen, relax. I can settle this for you.

Market forces have determined that enough people prefer complicated beverage options to support an entire mini-economy based on coffees.

The increasingly Balkanized intellectual landscape of The U.S. is careful to exercise it's surplus of resentments in such socally sanctioned areas or ambiguous hate, like say, "people who drive slow" or "people who drive fast" or "people who exercise their freedom to order complex coffee beverages at the expense of our own personal convenience".

God gave us all freewill, but it's totally unchristian and unamerican to abuse that freewill inm the coffeeline. Hell awaits. We know this.

In the end, the rube and that sophisticate will occupy the same circle of hell designated for Gratuitous Orderers Of Complex Lattes.

Thses are the issues of our times. I admire your response to the clarion call to rise up against the titans of inconvenience, but let's not mistakenly turn this into a witch hunt. Long coffee orders have descended form the mouths of rich and poor, black and white, urbanite and hearlander, christian and muslim alike. We must not be deceived. We must not be divided by election year propaganda. We must remain stalwart and vigilant in the fight against the orderers of complex lattes!

Peace and freedom our goal. Hope and change at stake.

Posted by Chamber McSween | June 26, 2008 1:53 PM
29

This is the best smear of Franken they can come up with? that he's a carpetbagger that drinks fancy coffee? How about that he made that fucking "Stuart saves his family" movie and was an SNL writer for ALL of the 80s, even the years when SNL was painfully NOT FUNNY?

Posted by Xenu, Warrior Princess | June 26, 2008 2:22 PM
30

It's hard to believe this ad isn't a parody. It's embarrassingly bad, and anyone stupid enough to fall for this shit deserves Norm Coleman as Senator. My guess is that's a minority, though he's leading in the polls so far so WTF.

Posted by Cascadian | June 26, 2008 3:28 PM

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