One day it started raining as my son was walking home from school. I was in the middle of a home improvement project with a friend, and I wondered out loud if I should drop everything and pick him up. My friend answered, “What is he, made of sugar?” I laughed.
Made of sugar. What would happen to a person who was made of sugar if caught in the rain? He would dissolve. Thank goodness my son is made of flesh, bone and spirit. He made it home through the sprinkling intact.
I thought of this as I listened to Senator Coleman speak at the Republican Party District 42 convention on March 8. The Senator, after having been met with a lengthy standing ovation, spoke of many things. He spoke of accountability, and of not raising taxes on citizens during an economic downturn. But I thought the most important part of his speech was when he said (I must paraphrase), that Democrats seem hungry for change, but they are just on a “sugar high,” when what they really need is to be fed something substantial.
We have all seen the momentum building around Barack Obama, and to a lesser degree, Hillary Clinton. The mantra “change” is being chanted everywhere, with very little substantiality to back it up. I think maybe Hillary Clinton herself said it best when she, referring to Obama, spoke before an audience at a Rhode Island college, "Now, I could stand up here and say, 'Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified. The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.'" I know the same could be said about other Democratic campaigns as well, as the “change” mantra trickles down to the Senatorial campaign level.
I asked a respected friend, who is a staunch Al Franken supporter and who has heard him speak in relatively intimate settings, why I shouldn’t be terrified if he were to be elected as the Senator from Minnesota instead of Norm Coleman. She thought for a minute, then said, “Because he likes families. He’s for families.”
Wow.
Sadly, my friend seems to be on a sugar high. I’m sure Norm Coleman likes families too. If a Democrat were to ask me the same question I asked my friend, there are so many things I could say. I could say Coleman really thinks things through, and despite the leftist rhetoric that he’s George Bush’s puppet, he is his own man. I could say he has the experience to really get things done in Washington, and pull out a laundry list of his accomplishments. I could say he understands economics and believes that the people, not government, know best what to do with their own money. I could go on an on, and you know why? Because Coleman is made of flesh, bone and spirit. His campaign is built on a solid foundation of ideas and integrity.
Franken, on the other hand, seems unable to get a substantive message across to even his most ardent supporters. Some don’t even know why they want to vote for him. His supporters are on a sugar high because he and his campaign are made of sugar. Why is that a problem? Because in Washington, very real, important things that can change the lives of Americans rain down on our Senators every day. And after the rain, Coleman would remain standing, while Franken, and those like him, would dissolve. And those on the sugar high, well, they would be in for one hell of a crash.
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