Reply #17: kept reading that wiki posting and there's more about his switch

[Muttocracy]

Coleman's politics have changed dramatically throughout his political career. In college, Coleman was a liberal Democrat and was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the early 1970s. He ran for student senate and opined in the school newspaper that his fellow students should vote for him because he knew that "these conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know)... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley reverberate through the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over."<5>

He was once suspended from Hofstra University on New York's Long Island for participating in a sit-in protest against student exclusion from the University faculty club.

When first elected as mayor of St. Paul in 1993, Coleman was a member of the DFL and considered left-of-center politically; but he gradually shifted to much more conservative positions on many issues during his tenure.

While running for mayor in 1993, Coleman wrote in a letter to the City Convention Delegates: "I have never sought any other political office. I have no other ambition other than to be mayor." He goes on in the same letter to say:

I am a lifelong Democrat. Some accuse me of being the fiscal conservative in this race — I plead guilty! I'm not afraid to be tight with your tax dollars.

Yet, my fiscal conservatism does not mean I am any less progressive in my Democratic ideals. From Bobby Kennedy to George McGovern to Warren Spannaus to Hubert Humphrey to Walter Mondale — my commitment to the great values of our party has remained solid.
...

Ironically, prior to becoming a Republican and running against him in 2002, Coleman chaired Wellstone's Senate re-election campaign in 1996. While making the Wellstone nomination speech at the 1996 state DFL convention, Coleman stated: "Paul Wellstone is a Democrat, and I am a Democrat." At this point in time, tensions were so high between Coleman and the DFL party that a number of delegates at the convention were loudly booing Coleman's speech.<12>

(That I didn't know!)