ThreeSixty -

By Teddy Woodward

Dressed in a dark blue polo tucked into blue jeans, and wearing casual moccasins, Senator Norm Coleman flashed his gleaming smile at roughly 75 supporters crammed onto the terrace of an Eden Prairie Dunn Brothers on the first day of summer.

As he will hundreds of times during his Senate race, Coleman held the attention of his supporters for 15 minutes, moving effortlessly from topic to topic, eliciting shouts of support and nods of approval. Coleman ended his speech with an appeal to family values, “My momma always told me to say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’.” He then thanked supporters for coming, and asked them to urge friends and relatives to vote for him this fall.

“Please let them understand the choice between myself and Al Franken…makes a difference.”

The choice is an important one, that much is clear. Coleman is running for re-election this fall against Democratic endorsee Al Franken. Coleman and Franken differ on many issues, from how to end the Iraq War to how to boost the nation’s ailing economy.

Coleman stated that his ultimate goal for the war is to bring troops home “safely as quickly as possible.” However, he does not support immediate withdrawal and has repeatedly voted against Democratic initiatives setting firm timetables for withdrawal. Coleman justified his voting record by saying that the Democratic plans were unsafe and “about a political agenda.”

Coleman supports keeping troops in Iraq but in a secondary role. This would include planning and support rather than staying on the front lines, according to his press secretary Luke Friedrich.

“If we would arbitrarily pull out, arbitrarily cut off funding, you would run the risk of these gains we’ve made all of a sudden disintegrating,” explained Coleman after the event in Eden Prairie. He is uncertain how long it will take to phase out of Iraq. “I have deferred to General Petraeus, to his judgments.” General David Petraeus commands multinational forces in Iraq.

Coleman is also talking about the country’s faltering economy. He contends that the root of the nation’s economic problems can be summarized in four words: “dependence on foreign oil.”

“Energy prices are crushing this economy,” stated Coleman. “They are adding increased cost…to growing food, have an impact on retail. It’s sucking money out of people’s pockets.” Coleman believes that solving the nation’s energy problem would help combat Minnesota’s 5.4 percent unemployment rate, the highest in17 years.

He supports drilling for oil off the Gulf Coast, which he believes would lower energy prices and stimulate the economy. Critics question that, however. The National Petroleum Council speculates that there may be as much as 5.2 billion barrels of oil there, but a study conducted in 2007 by the Department of Energy concluded that tapping this oil deposit would not significantly lower the price of gasoline.

Over his political career, Coleman has shifted parties. Critics call him a political opportunist. Coleman says he responds to changing political conditions.

“Those who are critical might say he’s a political chameleon,” said Steve Hatting, associate professor of political science at the University of St. Thomas. “Coleman is very adroit at recognizing political realities and adjusting to them.”

Coleman began his long tenure in politics as an anti-war activist in the 1960’s. He was elected mayor of St. Paul as a DFLer, and then switched to the Republican Party. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1998 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 after incumbent Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash.

Early in his term, Coleman moved closely in step with the Bush administration. More recently, he has drifted toward the center. The Washington Post reports that Coleman voted along party lines 94 percent of the time in the first two years of his term and only 79 percent of the time during the most recent session of Congress.

Coleman said that these statistics are misleading. Since Democrats took control of the Senate in 2006, they have controlled the agenda and Coleman said he has agreed with many of their proposals. Coleman said this accounts for the shift in his voting record.

Alex Kramarczuk, who graduated from St. Paul Academy this spring and volunteered for Coleman at the Eden Prairie event, shrugged off the allegation that Coleman moves with the political winds. “He’s finding his place in national politics. He’s doing what he thinks is right.”