Coleman continues to slide in polls

Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican Senator for Minnesota and extraordinary political chameleon, is again riding low in the polls. A little over four years ago, Coleman was at a 52% favourablity level. Since then, he's been struggling to keep his head above the crucial 50% mark. The latest poll puts him at 49%.

The results fall pretty much along partisan lines: 70% of those who feel terrorism is the top issue support Coleman, 69% of Republicans like him, 67% of evangelicals give him the thumbs-up, and he wins over 72% of those who call themselves conservative. Those would be nice numbers for a Republican primary, but for a general election it looks less sunny. Norm never won a majority in the 2002 election that brought him to power, only a plurality. He has weak support (44%) from Independents and those who call themselves moderates (46%).

At first the classic Bush Team crony, Coleman voted with the Administration 98% of the time in his first year. As the shine began to come off Bush later on, Coleman struck poses to show some space between himself and Bush. He voted against the surge, but has completely fallen into line with the GOP on every vote to change the policies on Iraq. Formerly a pot-smoking, anti-war liberal Democrat, Coleman changed his stripes and jumped ship in 1996. Since then, his positions have shifted with the political wind. He endorsed Giuliani and bought in to all of the crazy, hyper-fear, eternal war, Muslim-hating rhetoric of that campaign. Then the breeze shifted, and he was all about McCain. He is now irrevocably tied to the Bush agenda, and as McCain increasingly embraces Bush in order to manufacture some kind of GOP consensus, Coleman will be forced to return to his role as a Bush crony with all of the attendant unpopularity that such a designation brings. Norm isn't an idiot; he knows that the tide has turned against him. He now has no choice, however, but to make another shift into a diehard GOP stalwart.

Meanwhile, the more-recently (2006) elected Democratic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, enjoys a strong 61% approval rating. She has strong support from moderates (71%) and wins over 58% of Independents. She also has strong support in outstate Minnesota, while Norm has barely a majority there. The message to take away from this is that the senator who rejects the Bush agenda is considerably more popular than the senator that has bound himself, hand and foot, to that GOP agenda. So while Norm is not exactly reviled, he is pushing a weaker message than the Democrats.

As I said before, Coleman gets his strong support from Republicans and those that call themselves conservatives. However, Republicans are only 27% of the state and conservatives are only 26%. Evangelicals are only one-third of the state, and those who consider terrorism as the most important issue are only 7% of those polled. Coleman's strong support comes from the margins of the electorate. Any sane candidate in Coleman's position would make a sharp shift to the centre, but instead conditions have forced Coleman to move even farther to the right. This also does not bode well for this seat to remain in Reublican hands.