There are many Iowa law alumni of whom we can all be proud.
These individuals are accomplished partners in law firms, judges at the state or federal level, public interest attorneys, legal counselors at Fortune 500 companies, and a variety of political and social activists.
However, as with most families, the law school cannot help but have one or two black sheep that need to be shoved behind a curtain like an uncle who is a few cards shy of a full deck.
There is one Iowa law alumnus in particular who is an unprincipled, disloyal, shallow person of a breed who would sell his soul or his own mother to get a one up on someone else.
That person is United States Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), the man who literally danced on the grave of his opponent, and for the sake of all that is good in this world, this opportunist must be defeated in November. 
Norm is the type of person who was referred to in the American Revolution as turncoat. He was a proud member of the DFL when elected mayor of Saint Paul, and when he decided it would suit him better for a possible future state-wide race, Coleman declared himself a Republican. While he had always had some right of center fiscal views, Coleman’s conversion to the GOP was purely selfish and a clear abandonment of the beliefs he had advocated for many years.
His big jump into statewide politics came in 2002 when Vice President Dick Cheney convinced him to challenge Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), a self-declared liberal and tireless advocate for the voiceless on many issues, for his Senate seat. Fortunately for Coleman (who was 9 points behind in the polls), and unfortunately for Minnesotans, Wellstone and his wife died in a small plane crash shortly before the election. Coleman made it a point to appear on as many political and news shows as possible in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy to express his sorrow and note that he wasn’t going to use his opponent’s death as an opportunity to gain campaign coverage. Uh, Norm, what do you call appearing on all those news broadcasts and pundits’ shows? Coleman went on to edge out Walter Mondale, who was chosen to replace Wellstone, for the Senate seat. He also went on to note to a reporter shortly after the election, “I will be a 99% improvement over Paul Wellstone.”
Following his “election” to the Senate, Coleman has taken the opportunity to morph into a hard-right conservative representing a left-leaning state. He has been one of George W. Bush’s dependable allies in the Senate, and carried water for Karl Rove and the President throughout the investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Coleman has voted with Bush more than 90% of his time in Congress, and was only a few points shy of 100% his first year in the Senate. He has flip-flopped on abortion, and now claims to be pro-life. He has also been a vocal enemy of gay rights – he opposes permitting gay couples to adopt children, supports a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage, and has used anti-gay campaign literature in both his Senate campaigns.
As the day of reckoning, the 2008 general election, has approached, Coleman has returned to his chameleon ways. He was a staunch supporter of the Iraq War until the Republicans were dramatically swept out of office in 2006, and thereafter expressed opposition to the administration’s approach and particularly to the “surge” effort. For 5 years in the Senate he opposed Medicare negotiating drug prices to reduce costs, and then changed his mind on the issue last April. He strongly criticized Paul Wellstone for proposing raising the CAFE standards, only to vote for the increases in those standards last year. Coleman said many times he opposed using local police to enforce immigration laws, but now strongly urges them to do so and frequently rails against “sanctuary cities.” Finally, after cutting off most attempts to investigate wasteful spending in Iraq as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and rebuking any suggestions that Iraq fund any of its own reconstruction, Coleman just announced he supports converting future Iraq reconstruction money into loans.
Norm Coleman is public enemy number one in the upcoming election. It’s officially open season on chameleons, and with any luck he’ll be looking for a new day job come January.
Steve Wieland
fsford
timhilton
smahieu
Morgan N. Engling
maryiowa
jaimiesuzi
jarens
kevinjames
brieanne
lcm
Andrew
sandista
enwinfield
hell. yes.
For the record, I have no real affinity for Norm Coleman. He’s moderately conservative, and I always wonder about people who are so willing to change their points of view. Maybe he had a legit change of heart, I don’t know, and frankly don’t care. On balance, he’s better from my point of view than having a liberal in the Senate.
However, this is pretty funny. It’s a pic of Coleman as a student activist. Remember, the dude is now a REPUBLICAN senator. It’d be like Steve Mahieu serving on the Board of the John Birch Society in 25 years.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/ColemanBullhorn.jpg
I do have to call shenanigans on some of this post, particularly accusing Coleman of some this post, particularly the parts that accuse Coleman of some wrongdoing following Wellstone’s death. Much of the reason that the Dems lost in MN in ‘02 is that Mondale was a fossil and THEY turned Wellstone’s memorial service into a political rally in which Republicans in attendance were booed and turned what should have been a time to remember a loyal American and honorable public servant into a cheap political sideshow. When it backfired, Terry Mcauliffe blamed…the Wellstone family. Nice.
Furthermore, regarding Coleman’s behavior. What is he supposed to do? He believed that he should be the Senator from MN. That doesn’t change because Paul Wellstone dies. Two years earlier, when MO Governor Mel Carnahan died in a similar plane crash just short of the election for US Senate in which is was opposing John Ashcroft, Ashcroft pulled his ads, didn’t make public appearances, etc, allowing the late Mel Carnahan won the election. The race had been much tighter with Ashcroft in the lead (I believe) before Carnahan’s death. However, the MO Democrats took Ashcroft’s silence and ran with it, turning the last two weeks before the election into a neverending memorial service for Governor Carnahan. I’m sure Norm Coleman didn’t enjoy campaigning after Wellstone’s death, but he learned his lesson from the Ashcroft/Carnahan race. If you believe you should be Senator, then your opponent’s death doesn’t change anything, and it certainly doesn’t make your “election” somehow invalid.
Ok, there are a bunch of typos and unintentionally bad grammar in there, but I can’t figure out how to edit it. Bad proofreading notwithstanding, my points remain valid.
If anyone’s interested, here’s a picture of his wife.
http://www.bartcop.com/norm-coleman-wife.jpg
Dems lost in MN in ‘02 is that Mondale was a fossil and THEY turned Wellstone’s memorial service into a political rally in which Republicans in attendance were booed and turned what should have been a time to remember a loyal American and honorable public servant into a cheap political sideshow. When it backfired, Terry Mcauliffe blamed…the Wellstone family. Nice.
“Dems” did no such thing. Wellstone mourners did. The man was a grassroots political phenomenon, and the GOP capitalized on that by suggesting it was somehow unseemly that his supporters would celebrate his political legacy upon his death.
It was probably a bad idea to have a remembrance in a sports arena, because it invited an atmosphere apropos of a sports arena. But to suggest that Democrats somehow “turned” anything into anything is begging the question of in what way is it appropriate to celebrate someone’s life. Clearly, the people in attendance celebrated it in the way they thought appropriate.
Scoring political points off mourners, in my mind, is what’s unseemly.
Coleman is a rank political opportunist, and he was one before he was elected to the Senate. Poor Coleman! If only he didn’t already have the reputation as craven and lacking principles, he wouldn’t suffer the perception that his election to the senate was likewise tainted.
I dispute that it was solely the people in attendance that governed the tone of Wellstone’s memorial. It was also the speakers, such as his campaign staff and the senior senator from Iowa. I didn’t mean to imply some sort of vast Democratic conspiracy when I said that the “Dems” turned it into a rally, simply that prominent democrats, including MN Dems in positions of power, were involved in the tone of the event.
http://www.news-star.com/stories/103102/New_39.shtml
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1030-07.htm
They honored him the way they saw fit. Fine. Maybe it’s exactly what Wellstone would have wanted. Who knows? But people were offended by it. It’s not Coleman’s fault that people were offended by the tone of the event.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200210%5CPOL20021030b.html
How is the fact that people were offended by this event, rightly or wrongly, somehow Coleman illicitly “scoring political points?” Look, as I’ve said, I don’t have any real love for Coleman, but it bothers me to see him unnecessarily eviscerated and made into some sort of “black sheep” that we should be ashamed of or something.
Also, if the poll Steve referred to as having Coleman far behind Wellstone was the Star-Tribune, then take it with a grain of salt. It’s been shown to be significantly and consistently wrong in favor of Democrats. For example, their last poll before the ‘02 election put Mondale winning by 5, when Coleman actually won by 3. There are other examples as well. So, the notion that Coleman would not have won but for Wellstone’s death and the aftermath thereof might not be accurate.
http://www.claremont.org/projects/pageid.1873/default.asp
Well, I was on the fence until I read this article by Garrison Keillor:
http://www.guerillastickers.com/norm_coleman.htm
Gerrison Keillor, besides being a subdued NPR personality, is also wiser than all the wisemen in Persia.
Here is a video that you might find relevant to this blog:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
Which came first, the chicken or the outrage? The GOP undoubtedly contributed to the negative public perception of the event in the aftermath because it was politically advantageous. To say that Coleman is innocent of that activity is naîve.
But I’ll concede that the events surrounding his election alone are not reason enough to cast him out. As you say, it was Just Politics. He’s done lots of other stuff that was also Just Politics… taken together, it isn’t a pretty picture.
A fair point, though it’s only really possible to create outrage when there’s something outrageous to begin with.
In general, Coleman’s pretty much a tool, and I don’t care to defend him much more. I just thought the attacks were a bit excessive.
How’s it feel to know that Coleman have moved past 50% in the latest MN Sen poll? hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! StewartSmalleyPWN3D! GOP 4 EVA!!!