Link and excerpt:
Norm Coleman: I will never vote for Donald Trump -- He's a bigot, a misogynist, a fraud and a bully. I won't vote for Donald Trump.
By NORM COLEMAN - March 3, 2016 — 6:00pm
I won't vote for Donald Trump because of who he isn't.
He isn't a Republican. He isn't a conservative. He isn't a truth teller.
He's not a uniter. Donald Trump isn't the leader America needs after eight years of a president who deliberately divided us and fanned the flames of racial and socioeconomic strife — and, by doing so, diminished America's standing in the world.
I also won't vote for Donald Trump because of who he is.
A bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully.
Who Donald Trump is should have been at the core of his campaign for president of the United States.
Instead, what Trump wanted us to believe is a marketing package that has been sold to the American people.
[...] We have been deceived by a con artist. A fraud wrapped in the veneer of being a businessman, who has slapped a slogan on a baseball cap and is closer to being president of the United States than any bigot, misogynist, fraud and bully in modern American history.
Republican leaders are to blame. Of this there is no doubt. Republicans like me and others who could not believe or comprehend that anyone would take Donald Trump seriously.
Republicans like me and others who did not understand just how angry, bitter, frustrated and anxious millions of Americans are about the future of our nation and their own economic and personal safety.
[...] I am an optimist and still hope that millions of Americans supporting Trump today will tomorrow recognize the poison in who he is. There are many delegates still to be chosen.
But it's also not too late for me and others to make it clear that under no circumstances will we support Donald Trump for president.
Who my choice may be if Donald Trump is the standard-bearer under the rules of the Republican Party, I do not know. I know it won't be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
I bet he did, anyway, in November. He's Norm. Able to justify . . . Wanting those judicial appointments, that cabinet. The executive and both houses of Congress held in his party - his party of choice. Thinking "adults will be in the room" can whitewash anything.
Cutting slack; Perhaps he wrote in Tim Pawlenty. (From here. Emigre to the DC beltway to champion banks, on salary.)
However you view it, the core truth there, beyond characterizing Trump aptly, is,
Republican leaders are to blame. Of this there is no doubt. Republicans like me and others who could not believe or comprehend that anyone would take Donald Trump seriously.
Republicans like me and others who did not understand just how angry, bitter, frustrated and anxious millions of Americans are about the future of our nation and their own economic and personal safety.
Republicans surely earned core blame, but don't forget others to blame. Those who "did not understand just how angry, bitter, frustrated and anxious millions of Americans are about the future of our nation and their own economic and personal safety," and fed bullshit 'Stronger Together" with a giant balloon drop, with the Podesta brothers, with Bubba triangulation, and with Goldman Sachs shoveling cash for "speeches." Same old neoliberal pablum, haughtily served with balloons, a tune, and bought speeches; juxtaposed against Trump playing to popular Angst.
Blame has a reach. Norm described its essence. Do not forget its penumbra. Both parties playing a con. And -
_____________UPDATE_____________
The web is a gift that keeps giving, sometimes not what you'd want, but what you need to know. Norm of that so sincere "Never Trump" sentiment has affiliations, today, as Dan Burns points out, a deeply dark funded political creep machine ginned now into Ilhan Omar attack mode; and Dan gives the kind of severe bad news message you'd in the past have gotten in a midnight telegram:
I saw somewhere that they’re trying to get Doug Wardlow to run against Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) in 2020, as Karin Housley is apparently not up for a rematch. That’s just one indication of how desperately thin - indeed, emaciated - the GOP bench is, in this state.
[link added] Norm is as Norm does. Ostensibly not liking Trump, but liking that slush fund.
FURTHER: Perhaps Tina gets primaried; ideally successfully and by a non-millionaire progressive; and Wardlow is run. We'd have a real contest, twenty-first century democratic socialism vs. middle ages Inquisitional steel-trap mindset. A real GOTV humdinger for each party. And should it come to pass, do not expect Norm to pen an op-ed about finding a hump against voting Dougie.
FURTHER: Several things besides Strib's unexpected republishing of the Norm Coleman op-ed online can be said about the Twin Cities press behavior. Of note, one, here.
FURTHER: A better rumor than the GOP running Doug Wardlow again for anything, is from a single source not within the GOP - some outstate types see Jason Lewis against Tina Smith. Lewis stands a cut better than viewing the ideologue baggage of the other guy, but that's totally damning by the faintest of praise. Virtually no praise at all, which is what Jason Lewis deserves. However, opinions can differ.
FURTHER: As to Lewis, I never listened to his talk radio, but did view debate video with Craig, and he's not the didactic and simplistic evader/distorter that Wardlow is, and his tone is less provocatively shaped. Lewis is not, by far, the worse infuriating obsequious Uriah Heep right wing talk show host I could imagine. Is there anything oiler than that YouTube blurb; music track cutting in as it does, to a practiced crescendo, dad's Bronze Star also shoveled on, not laid on with a trowel as a craftsman in the trade might do. but by the shovel-full, to music with a showman's glance once at the clock, timing, timing, timing.
The YouTube item, on ending, segues to this; Pence exuding oil while throwing mud.
More oil than the Saudis. Few can make Norm Coleman look statesmanlike by juxtaposition. Enough oil and slime laid on admixed to gag a maggot.
Punditry. Fox style. Opinions can differ.