Here is the text of Sen. Norm Coleman’s acceptance speech to delegates at the the state Republican Convention:

Thank you, dear friends for the tremendous honor of your nomination. I accept it with a challenge to each one of you; let’s be a party and a people willing to take bold, adventurous risks, so we can pass a better world to our kids than we received from our parents.

81 years ago last week a 25 year old Minnesotan did something the world had never seen: he flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Listen to the words of that adventurous, young Minnesota hero, Charles Lindbergh: “It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you’ve wanted to do so badly. You
almost feel like you could fly without the plane.”

I want you to know, friends I am flying today.

And my wings are this great Republican Party and the bold vision we can bring to America’s future.

We love America. We believe in America. We thank God for America.

And we know the deepest threat to our nation is not terrorism or
globalization or disease but the cynical voices of defeatism, anger and doubt. Times are tough. The issue of the day is: are we tougher?

Now the presumptive nominee of the other party, in a candid moment, told a cocktail party crowd in San Francisco that folks like us cling to our faith and our guns out of bitterness over our lives.

Well the heartland has a message for Senator Obama:

We don’t cling to our faith like a security blanket, we cherish it. For those who believe, it’s a proper response to a just and loving Creator.

And we cherish our Constitutional rights to bear arms, to worship as we please and to seek redress of our grievances not as a reaction to anything but because that’s what free people do.

Their script may be all sweetness and light, but their vision is of a
bitter, declining America.

With one voice we say: never has the opposite of the truth been so precisely stated.

My friends, let me say something about my friend and colleague John McCain.

He’s a genuine American hero. In tough times, you look for people of courage and strength to lead.

The two greatest issues of our time are 1) winning the war on terror, so we can be secure and 2) cutting wasteful Washington spending, so we don’t burden our children with debt.

On these two fundamental issues, he has been a leader without equal. He needs and deserves our heartfelt and enthusiastic support. America needs John McCain to lead us all.

We are going to win in November because we have to: because we still dream, we still hope and we have been proud of America all our lives.

The founder of our Party Abraham Lincoln said what we all believe: that America is the “last best hope of earth.” And that’s what we’re fighting for.

With the help of a lot of good Minnesotan friends here I have been preparing for this job in the Senate, personally and professionally, for three decades.

Thirty two years ago the enthusiasm and idealism of Hubert Humphrey drew me to this place. I married a beautiful Minneapolis girl as Minnesotan as butter sculptures at the State Fair. It’s the best decision I ever made.

We brought four children into the world. Two are with us – Jake and Sarah, two – Adam and Grace are with God in Heaven, leaving us soon after their births. That experience gave us passion for protecting all life.

We’ve lived in the same St. Paul house for twenty years. We’re empty nesters come September when Sarah heads off for college. So to process my impending sadness I spent 2 days cleaning out our garage — a full dumpster’s worth of proof I didn’t just arrive on the latest plane to run for office.

My family faces the same challenges we all face. We’re spending down our 401K to finance higher education for our kids. When we go to the gas station we wonder: which will top off first: the tank or the credit card?

Laurie and I are caught in the common squeeze between the financial responsibility for aging parents and ambitious children.

If you’ve been coming to these events for years you’ll notice someone is missing by my side – my Dad Norm, Sr. We laid him to rest in Arlington Cemetery this year, but his inspiring spirit is right here.

I’d like to ask all the veterans, all the active duty military and guard and reserve members who are with us to stand so we can show our appreciation. Please remain standing.

This is the week of Memorial Day, when we honor those who have died for our country. Let’s all stand and have a moment of silence as we remember in our own hearts those who made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. Thank you.

Everything we enjoy – the freedom to meet here, to enjoy this beautiful land and the chance to dream for the future – we owe to generation after generation of young Americans who laid down their futures so we could have ours. God has blessed America that we are the land of the free because we have been the home of the brave.

I never wore my nation’s uniform, but I’ve had a life-calling to public service of a different kind. For seventeen years, I worked in the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, traveling the state prosecuting criminals and working on legislation like the DARE program.

For eight years I was mayor of our capital city. Bringing its citizens together, never raising taxes, we reduced crime, we added 18,000 new jobs and we brought the NHL back home to the state of hockey where it always belonged. And we built the Xcel Center where in September we will welcome the world to Minnesota for the first time in 116 years to our great Republican National Convention.

I love this job of being Senator. Like Lindbergh, I get a shot of adrenaline every day because I am doing what I’ve wanted to do my whole life: help people achieve the better life they hope for and experience a fresh fulfillment of the American Dream.

After 32 years of public service, I’ve learned a lot from thousands and thousands of Minnesota teachers. I seek your help and support to keep doing what I do best: bring people together to get things done.

I have traveled to every corner of this state for more than three decades – listening and learning and finding ways to help. The people of this state have given me an immeasurable gift: the chance to be involved in helping them fulfill their own dreams.

I remember the farmers I met in Lake Bronson, Minnesota up in Kittson County. They were hurting deeply from serious flooding. Not only did we get them help that year, but the new Farm Bill that just became law contains permanent disaster assistance for farmers, instead of the ad hoc approaches of the past. They changed federal policy that day because the ideas that really help people don’t come from the U.S. Capitol; they come from regular folks like the farmers of Lake Bronson.

I remember talking to a mom on Main Street in Walker, Minnesota. She has a son with severe asthma and expressed great anxiety that the nearest emergency room was an hour away. We got them federal approval for a critical access hospital for Walker and they look forward to breaking ground
on that new facility.

I remember the worry of the folks of New Auburn whose town was faced with an unfunded federal mandate to upgrade their water system. As a former Mayor, I bristle at unfunded federal mandates. I was able to help the folks of New Auburn meet those requirements and improve their quality of life.

I remember the concerns of small businesses, hockey families and anglers all along our Canadian border over the potential cost of new travel restrictions. We were able to make key changes in those rules, but also won a new U.S. Passport office for Minnesota, which will help Minnesota travelers for decades to come.

I could go on and on.

And when it come to International Relations, I want you to know that no problem is too big or too small when it comes to defending Minnesotans’ interests… right now we are stepping up for folks up at Lake of the Woods in their struggle for that fundamental right: their ability to bring minnows into the Northwest Angle. No resolution yet but I am taking this to the
highest levels of the Canadian government, warning them not to come between Minnesota fishermen and their minnows.

I always thought being Saint Paul’s mayor would be the best job of my life, but I have cherished the opportunity to be Minnesota’s Mayor in Washington.

When I hear the rhetoric of other candidates, I wonder: what job are they running for? Being a U. S. Senator is not about being a celebrity or slaying ideological dragons. As a Senator I’m in the customer service business: 95% of what I do is helping people.

When the 35 W bridge fell down or flood waters poured into Roseau or Browns Valley or Rushford, people don’t need an ideologue or a divider: they need someone who can make government work for them.

There is a special group of guests over here on the risers. Many of them have come to my office for help with a specific problem and we were able to deliver. You know I got into public service in the 1970s because I wanted to change the world. Now I’m getting the chance to do that: one person at a time.

Bill Gilger is trying to get a meat packing plant back in business in
Hutchison. We worked with the USDA on his behalf to help keep 190 people at work, adding $100 million to the local economy.

Tom Shilling is a member of the famous Minnesota Red Bulls National Guard unit that served with such great distinction in Iraq. He wanted to come home to walk his daughter down the aisle. His commander said no. We intervened and he was there. He told me “dresses never looked so pretty and flowers never smelled so sweet.”

Michael and Tracy McGarry wanted to adopt two kids from Guatemala. With our help the process that usually took months was completed in one day. Now their kids get the enormous privilege to grow up Minnesotans.

And now I want to introduce you to a special young man, my friend: Wyatt Rech of Montgomery, Minnesota. Come on up here Wyatt. He may be the most powerful person in the room, today. In my mind he is young Lindberg, and he inspires me with his belief in a better future.

When he was two it was discovered that Wyatt has a rare cancer of the liver called a Wilms tumor.

Wyatt and his family didn’t just sit back, commiserate and take care of themselves.

What they’ve done instead is become crusaders to the millions of kids who have cancer all over the country. We spend billions on medical research each year but what they realized is: we have no special effort to help kids like Wyatt.

I’m helping Wyatt and his family change that. With their help I introduced the Conquering Childhood Cancer Act to help kids like Wyatt.

He had a big day when he turned six: a Senate subcommittee passed out the bill he inspired to have the National Institute of Health specifically expand childhood cancer research. So on his birthday, he gave families of the whole country a present. We’ve still got a ways to go before it’s the law of the land, Wyatt here isn’t taking no for an answer, are you buddy?

Let’s say thanks to Wyatt and his family for their incredible example of compassion and public service.

What’s so outstanding about being around young people like Wyatt is: they believe in miracles.

I love David Ben Gurion’s statement at the birth of the modern state of Israel: “Around here, if you don’t believe in miracles, you’re not being realistic.”

I am that kind of realist.

We didn’t turn Saint Paul around and bring back the NHL and build “the Ex’ by listening to the naysayers; we did it by believing in the miracle of free people working together.

Minnesota is only 150 years old. As a young state we need to listen to the fresh, enthusiastic voices all around us.

In the book of Joel, the Scripture talks about a Golden Age when:
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.

The young of Minnesota and America are speaking. Are we listening? They want us to care for the planet they grow old on. They want us to get over our partisan bickering and our stubbornness against change. And they want problem-solvers, not angry sloganeers.

Let us show them—the young people of America—that we have the political courage to be fiscally responsible today so they won’t be buried under a mountain of debt tomorrow.

For the sake of Wyatt and his generation and the generations after, that’s the kind of leaders we must be.

We have to be ready to fly without the plane.

I want to say to my fellow Republicans here in this room, we have a lot of work to do. We have to restore our credibility and our relationship with the American people.

People are really hurting all around us. Gas prices break our family
budgets. Foreclosures are at an all time high. The cost of health care and higher education are getting beyond reach. And debt loads for student loans and real estate with depressed values are putting so many families on the brink. But we have to tell them what Churchill told his people, “When you are going through hell, keep going.”

We have to be straight with the American people.

Let me illustrate a point. When I graduated from High School I was 5′5″ and 135 pounds. This dates me, but I had dreams of being the Jewish Dr. Julius Erving. My coach pulled me aside and said, “Coleman, you may be short… but you can’t jump.” A Republican party that can’t do fiscal discipline and national security is in trouble.

As Republicans in Washington we cut taxes but we increased spending and violated the fiscal discipline that is supposed to be our identity. Some thought we could buy a permanent majority and that was a mistake.

But getting on the right track means putting up a fight against those who want to raise your taxes so we can have an even bigger, more intrusive and more wasteful government. And things have changed. I was part of an almost united Republican Senate that opposed the recent Democrat budget with the largest tax increase in history, over a trillion dollars.

In foreign policy we stuck with a flawed strategy in Iraq for far too long: not seeing a growing insurgency and trying so hard to avoid the “war for oil” label that we failed to push Iraqis to use their oil production to pay for their defense and redevelopment.

And the security situation has also changed dramatically.

Two years ago Al Qaeda owned Anbar Province in Iraq and had plans to establish a new Islamic Caliphate there. But thanks to our outstanding young men and women in uniform, we took it back. I know because late last year I walked through the streets of Ramadi in Anbar without body armor.

With improved security, the Iraqis are producing over 2.3 million barrels of oil a day and they can now pay for their own reconstruction.

Minnesotans want to see our troops brought home safely, without surrendering the gains we’ve made at a tremendous cost. Violence is down. Al Qaeda is on the run. One by one the provinces of Iraq are being turned over to Iraqis and Americans are moving into a strategic support role.

General David Petraeus should have been Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

Here is our challenge today. If I asked for a show of hands, most of us would say we are better off than our parents. But most of the people inside and outside this room are afraid that their children will be less well off than they are.

The other side plays to that fear. We need to offer a hopeful alternative and a pathway to a better future for our kids.

To do that, we have to return to and better communicate our core conservative Republican principles:

We believe that the future of our society depends on individual rights, free enterprise, small business and job creation, not federal programs, mandates, regulations or tax increases to pay for them.

We believe in a dynamic economy which thrives on entrepreneurship, on free and fair trade and on letting people keep the reward of the risks they take.

We believe every child – every child is a gift from God and that all life must be protected from conception to natural death.

We support traditional marriage because we know that every study shows that kids with moms and dads have a better shot at achieving a successful life. It’s about the kids.

We believe in a strong national defense. We have learned the lessons of history: we believe in peace through strength. And yes, Senator John Edwards, there is a daily, ongoing War on Terror and we must fight it and win it.

And most of all, we believe our best days are not behind us, that the American dream has no expiration date.

Now when you listen to our opponents, they are for change, change, change. But when you listen to their policies, it sure isn’t change for the better.

For Viking fans in the room, sometimes change means going from Bud Grant to Les Steckel.

Their talk of change may be set in flowery language but the bottom line is always the same: they want to raise your taxes.

This is what makes people mad. Regular folks work extremely hard for their money and spend it very, very carefully, budgeting it down to the penny. And then government comes along, takes more and more and wastes it.

What the spendthrifts in Saint Paul and Washington need to realize is that Minnesotans still clip grocery coupons, they still shop garage sales and they still keep a change jar.

Our message to the DFL is: keep your hands out of our pockets and keep your hands off our change!

The DFL activists are for a government take-over of health care. We don’t want the folks who did Katrina relief and run the IRS to manage our health care.

To those who want a Canadian style, single-payer, national health program please show us the Mayo Clinic or the Medtronic of Canada. They don’t exist.

The DFL Activists want a new isolationism — restricting trade and pulling back our security presence around the world. And our opponents say the world will be better if we sit down with everybody. Our question for Jimmy Carter and those who embrace his amateur diplomacy with Hamas: what part of
‘We are committed to the destruction of Israel’ don’t you understand?

The terrorists understand only one thing: strength. They are strengthened when we legitimize them. You don’t control a bully by inviting him to lunch.

That’s where they are coming from. “Change you can believe in?” How about: “Change that will cost you an arm and leg… and that cost us economic growth, opportunity, freedom and security.” No. America shouldn’t believe in it.

Let’s show Minnesota what we’re for, not what we’re against.

And we also need to be ready to say our problems are bigger than one party and be ready to work with everyone to find solutions.

Here is my eight point action plan that will help our children inherit a better world than we received.

1. We must grow jobs by cutting taxes, getting capital into the marketplace and unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of America. The 2003 tax cuts must be made permanent.
Jobs are our best health care access provider, retirement provider, community builder and human dignity creator. Jobs grow when we get government off people’s backs and allow job creators to keep the rewards of the risks they take.

2. We must cut wasteful Washington spending. On the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee I have uncovered more than $14 billion in waste and fraud. Government credit cards will no longer be used to pay for custom made suits and online dating services. And government contractors will not be able to take the taxpayers money with one hand and skip out on their tax
obligations with the other.

3. We must end our addiction to foreign oil. We need to overcome environmental extremists who force us to leave a generation of coal in the ground and stonewall new nuclear facilities left and right. They are using fear, not sound science.
There are some problems, in this country, that are too big for one party to solve. Energy independence is one of them. The Democrats pass an energy bill with renewables and conservation- but not a drop of increased production. That’s simply wrong when gas is close to $4 a gallon.

It’s absurd that China can now drill closer to our shores than Americans can. We need to do deep water offshore drilling.
America needs more nuclear power and we should begin right here: Minnesota should lift its nuclear power expansion moratorium now. And we need to press full speed ahead on renewable fuels like cellulosic ethanol, hydrogen fuel cells, new battery and hybrid technology, coal sequestration, and farmer-owned wind production.

4. We must make progress toward providing Health care for all Americans. But we must do it without bureaucrats coming between our doctors and our families. We don’t want to lose our coverage when we change jobs. We want choice, portability and control of our health care decisions. And we can only do that by restoring a genuine health care marketplace that empowers
consumers, focuses on prevention and rewards wellness rather than sickness.

5. We must win the global economic competition. I will not surrender the new century to India and China: we must compete
and we must prevail. Protectionism won’t work. Free and fair trade makes Minnesota a winner - and, in a fair fight, I believe we will win every time. Americans just need a level playing field. That means we must hold the Chinese to their WTO obligations.

We must open markets for our products. And, we must not become an island to ourselves. We will win the global economic competition because we are smarter, more creative, more innovative and economically and politically more free and robust than anywhere else in the world.

I am for laying out an American welcome mat to the best and brightest in the world. If any international student who earns a graduate degree in science, math, engineering and technology wants to stay here and help us grow jobs, I’d staple a green card to their diploma.

6. We must protect our environment; it’s our heritage as Minnesotans and Republicans. My greatest enjoyment is the hours I spend fishing on pristine Lake Ada in North Central Minnesota. It’s where my five year old- who is now my 22 year old- and I learned to enjoy and appreciate the great outdoors of Minnesota. I want my grandkids to enjoy it as much as Jake and I do.

Republicans began our system of national parks and created the EPA. In our environmental stewardship we must, as Reagan said, “plant shade trees we ourselves will never sit under.” And we can do it without sacrificing job growth and understanding that farmers are good stewards of the land they want to pass on to their kids.

7. We will secure our borders. National sovereignty begins and ends with border security. Period.

And finally 8. I am for peace through strength. First, we will never ask the UN for a permission slip to defend our national interests. And toward that end, we must be strong for our cherished ally Israel. And we must make sure that Iran never obtains nuclear weapons.

In closing, I’d like to ask you to think, once again about young Wyatt down here, or your own kids and grandkids.

What kind of country will they grow up in?

One of more liberty, or more government regulation?

A country that stands up for freedom, or backs down when the going gets tough?

A country that respects public service, or turns it over to the most negative among us?

A country that comes together, or divides further and further apart?

What we do over the next 157 days here in Minnesota will push us in one of those directions or the other.

And what we do here matters a lot. John Roberts sat in my office in advance of his confirmation to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He said to me, “If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be sitting here.” He went on to say his nomination to the DC Circuit Court had been stalled for months. But when you, the people of Minnesota made me Republican Senator Number 51, the
nomination came off the shelf and Roberts was on his way to his spot on the highest court in the land.

The Spanish Rabbi Maimomedes once wrote: “Each of us should view ourselves as if the world were held in a balance—and a single act of goodness on our part could tip the balance.”

As you choose to knock on one more door, make one more phone call to a neighbor or friend to seek one more vote—those single acts of goodness could tip the scales of this election…and make America stronger.

A 77 year old Benjamin Franklin described the day when our Constitution was completed and signed in Philadelphia. He said that during debates, he often looked at the Chair where the presiding George Washington sat. The high back of the chair was painted with a sun low to the horizon. He said he could never tell if it was a rising sun or a setting sun. As he saw each
member, one by one go up and sign the document on which our nation is built, he became certain that: yes the sun on the seat was rising.

When the faithful people of the Mayflower came ashore, our sun was rising.

At Ticonderoga and Yorktown, our sun was rising.

Our sun was rising when Harriet Bishop, our first Minnesota school teacher, opened a school in the frontier village of St. Paul.

At Gettysburg – where Minnesotans fought so bravely, our sun was rising.

And so it was when Teddy Roosevelt came to Minnesota and said, “Walk softy and carry a big stick.”

And when Lucky Lindy stepped out of his plane on the Paris airfield and said, “Well… I made it.” The sun was rising.

And at Iwo Jima where our recently-departed hero Chuck Lindberg helped raise the flag.

And our sun was rising when Hubert Humphrey called us to “walk
forth-rightfully into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

Some may wonder if the American sun is rising or setting today. Not me. And not you.

We believe that hope, confidence and optimism are America’s DNA.

Lincoln looked frankly at his times. He saw a nation violently divided and at war – a war that was going badly. He saw terrible destruction and millions held in slavery.

And yet he chose that moment to call this place, “the last best hope of earth.”

As an article of faith we say: America is still rising. We’re getting
stronger every day.

With our prayers, our ideas, our dreams, our hard work and our public service we can pass that hope along.

With the adrenaline of freedom, we too can fly without the plane.

For Wyatt and millions of kids like him, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work to make their world better than ours… by bringing people together to get things done.

Thank you and God bless you all.

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