Nick Coleman: Norm Coleman no shoo-in with neighbors

We don't need no stinking recount. Minnesota voters spoke clear as a bell: They didn't want either Norm Coleman or Al Franken to be elected senator and, so far, neither has.

Somehow, the stalemate over this contentious Senate seat -- fraught with emotion since Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash days before the 2002 election, leaving Norm Coleman as Minnesota's accidental senator -- is fitting. It plays out -- big time -- on the street where Norm lives.

Most campaign signs have disappeared around the state, but as the recount began Wednesday, there were still a half-dozen Franken signs standing on Norm's block on the edge of Crocus Hill. Of course, they were still standing: For more than a decade, since his 1996 conversion to the other party, Norm's Democrat-leaning neighbors have worked to make it clear they reject Norm's latter day politics, especially his support of Bush administration policies and the war in Iraq. Battered Wellstone signs, draped in black, remained up for years. This fall, the block sprouted a dense forest of Franken signs, against a lone Coleman sign that stood a few doors from the senator's home.

"He must feel terribly rejected," said Susan Runholt, who owns one of the still-standing Franken signs. "I don't want to hurt Norm Coleman. I have no personal antipathy towards him. But, by God, I get to speak my mind, and we want him to know that we disagree with him on the issues. We have free speech in this country, and that's what makes it wonderful."

Runholt is a writer with a middle-school novel under her belt called, "The Mystery of the Third Lucretia." Norm's son, Jacob, used to mow her lawn, and she isn't enamored of Franken -- she criticizes the DFL for endorsing a long line of lackluster candidates. But she says Norm Coleman's support for George Bush made him an outcast on his own cobblestone street. She parks her car across from the senator's home. On the rear bumper, facing Norm, a sticker says: Senator Coleman: End This War....