Norm Coleman conference call with conservative bloggers

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) had a conference call with some conservative bloggers about his reelection campaign. Norm needs to shore up his base as they haven't been particularly pleased with his stances on issues like immigration, global warming and SCHIP. Generally, many conservatives consider him a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and he wowed them with some Norm-speak^TM.

He closed with a rather passionate defense of his position with the base, quoting the 80% rule about who to vote for (as my friend Gary says, your 80% friend isn't your 20% enemy.) I paraphrase here, but I think the line he used was "Leadership is sometimes moving in a direction that people don't yet know they need to move." The last election was not a rejection of conservatism, and on the key issues we agree. He left us with a story that comes from a Charles Swindoll book (I knew I had heard it before, but had forgotten where and had to look it up tonight.) His side was the one with the "Yes" face.
(SCSU Scholars)

This is interesting. Norm knows that the base is stuck with him. He tries to position himself as "I'm not all that bad" and I cannot see how that will excite the base. Furthermore, his cognitive dissonance about the 2006 elections is fascinating. This is a sign he'll say anything to anybody if he thinks it's what they want to hear. Despite his assertiona that "the last election was not a rejection of conservatism", he immediately began moderating all his positions on the major issues after the overwhelming Republican defeat in the 2006 election.

He's no longer quite as strong a cheerleader on Iraq. He moderated his position on immigration. He's trying to pretend that he has always wanted healthcare reform. He voted for SCHIP. He voted for the energy bill and consequently broke a neo-con taboo by admitting global warming exists.

Questions were asked first about immigration. Coleman felt that the Bush SOTU speech had stressed the right balance about both respect for the law and for our country's highest ideals. Not a path to citizenship that allows anyone to jump ahead of legal immigrants, and nothing that would go ahead of actually securing the border first. Coleman understood that voters did not trust the Senate on the issue and this needs to be fixed, but he also felt that people want to be able to work and not live in fear. Common ground exists, he thought, in first fixing the border and then having people agree on the speaking English, paying taxes and holding employers responsible for hiring legal immigrants. I did not hear enough of how to get from those to the desire to have people not live in fear, but what I heard was stronger on immigration than some have portrayed as Coleman's position.
(SCSU Scholars)

Reading this retelling of the call makes me wonder, can conservatives read through the Norm-speak^TM? I'm guessing that as people who are supposed to support Norm, they are not going to point out that he did everything he could to weasel out of actually answering any of their questions on immigration. I certainly don't hear that Norm stated a clear position.