Video: Norm Coleman: Conservative values tested over time

posted at 9:26 am on June 5, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

AIP’s Katie Favazza covered Norm Coleman as he traveled through St. Louis yesterday and spoke at the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference.  Coleman, who remains locked in a legal battle over the close Senate race with Al Franken from last November, told the conference that the next generation of conservative leaders needed to have “bulldog courage,” as well as faith:

“It takes bulldog courage to overcome obstacles,” said Sen. Norm Coleman this afternoon at the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference in St. Louis, Mo., an event which American Issues Project sponsored. Encouraging conservatives with an incredible sense of optimism–both for the future of America and the outcome for his own, still-undecided Senate race–Coleman encouraged the crowd to “outwork our competition” and added that “a single act of goodness can tip the scales.” …

“Political movements are like rivers,” he said. “They start small, as all really important things do … and [ultimately] gain strength more powerful than its source.”

Sen. Coleman stated unequivocally that Obama is “dead wrong” on domestic and international issues and expressed concern for “a foreign policy predicated on wanting to be liked rather than respected.”

Coleman emphasized principles of action amidst this grassroots-focused crowd, urging conservatives to identify modern-day Jack Kemps, mobilize in blue and purple states and hold elected officials accountable for their actions. He also focused on the strength of ideas over hype and personality. “Conservative principles have stood the test of time,” Coleman said. “The American people agree with us, but they like the president. … We need to find ways to more optimistically promote our vision.”

The Obama years will provide many challenges and obstacles to conservatives, but plenty of opportunities as well.  Winston Churchill once noted in his History of the English Speaking Peoples that good monarchs tended to produce no meaningful political reforms, but bad monarchs provoked reactions that eroded their power and empowered first the nobility and then the middle class.  We would have no Magna Carta without the abuses and incompetence of King John, for instance.

Barack Obama is not King John, but this principle holds true in American politics as well.  Obama and the Democrats have forced a lurch to the Left unlike anything we have seen since FDR, and perhaps ever, as the government creates almost as many czars as cars at Government Motors.  That kind of radical change creates an opportunity for conservatives to remind Americans that massive increases in government power are detrimental to individual liberty and choice.  We just need “bulldog courage” to get out and make our case rationally and calmly, and allow Obama’s overreaches to do part of the job for us.

Jim Hoft got a chance to talk to Coleman after his speech, and Coleman reminds us that we are not unarmed unless we choose to be:

Blowback

You must be logged in to post a comment.