(Note: Four years ago, I had intended this to be my final words on the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash just prior to the 2012 election. But I've been surprised at how many young voters know little about the man and his message. I'm reposting it..one last time.)
One last tear for Paul Wellstone 10/25/2012
“The politics of conviction is a winning politics.” – Paul Wellstone, The Conscience of a Liberal, 2001.
Ten years ago, I served in St. Paul as co-executive director of a non-profit co-founded by Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action (MAPA). Two staff members had attended a meeting that morning with Paul and Sen. Ted Kennedy, then moved on to a fundraiser with the legendary Massachusetts senator while Sen. Wellstone headed north for a funeral of long-time Iron Ranger, Martin Rukavina. Wellstone was scheduled later that evening to debate Republican challenger Norm Coleman in Duluth.
I remained at our University Avenue office with three other MAPA staffers. As the noon hour closed in, word spread that Wellstone’s plane was missing, and fears mounted. About the same time I received a call from our Duluth office, Minnesota Public Radio news confirmed: Paul Wellstone and seven others, including his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia, died just outside Eveleth.
Stunned, saddened and wondering what next to do, I was struck by how mad our communications coordinator, Steve Share, appeared.
“They killed him,” he said. His immediate assassination conspiracy was not alone, as others also viewed it a possibility. A 2004 book, American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone by Don Jacobs and James Fetzer, expanded on those thoughts.
I never believed it, but that anger and suspicion highlighted the passion of both supporters and opponents of Wellstone. I had met Paul several times but was not close to him and his family, as others were at MAPA. And I did not know at the time of my hiring, as the organization tried to beef up its rural Minnesota support, that Paul had grown somewhat disappointed in MAPA’s efforts, which had moved away from a series of key progressive issues, particularly on the environment, and focused almost exclusively on campaign finance reform.
Still, his presence there was strong. And MAPA was one of the organizations which were asked to assist at Wellstone’s memorial service four days later in Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus. All very informally, I greeted and assisted at one entrance, then decided to station myself near one of the rickety emergency exits on Williams’ south side. There were no formal instructions, but standing there by an uncontrolled exit seemed to make sense.
Wellstone’s surviving family members, sons David and Mark, had made only simple requests: No VIP treatment and no heavy security. Remember, this was just over a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and nearly all sitting United States senators would be in attendance, as was Minnesota’s surprise Gov. Jesse Ventura and former Vice President Walter Mondale, who had agreed to place his name on the ballot, replacing Wellstone. And the Secret Service would be heavy around former President Bill Clinton.
So, at my entrance, I watched as actor Michael J. Fox, already struggling to walk, moved into the arena alongside us regular citizens, all likely uncertain as to what would follow. For some reason, I most vividly remember a handshake from former Minnesota U.S. Sen. David Durenberger, a moderate Republican who I had interviewed on a couple occasions previously as a community journalist. His vision and support for health care reform had placed him in disfavor with many fellow Republicans but welcomed by his friend, the late Paul Wellstone.
From my emergency exit post at the top of the first deck, I watched the elevated TV screen zoom in on U.S. senators as they entered the arena. Immediately, you knew this wasn’t going to be your normal memorial service. President Clinton drew huge applause as he entered, but some Republicans – particularly Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, then Senate Majority Leader – were booed. Gov. Ventura and his wife, Terry, drew applause, but would later walk out due to the political nature of the service. And every once in a while, I’d open that old emergency exit door, amazed by the lack of security, uneasy but not surprised by the mounting emotions.
It peaked as Wellstone friend, Rick Kahn, launched into a fiery, emotional tribute. Former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer, who I had grown to respect and know, served as memorial service host and years later spoke candidly about his sorrow over how the event became so political. He wished he would have done more to defuse it.
Seven days after this service-turned-political rally, Coleman defeated Mondale by two percentage points. Most political analysts, me included, attributed Coleman’s narrow victory to the tone of Wellstone’s memorial. Most agreed that Wellstone would have likely won a third term.
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“The health and vitality of rural communities is based not on the number of acres farmed or the number of animals owned but rather on the number of family farmers who live in the community, buy in the community, and contribute to and care about the community.” – Paul Wellstone.
My first close glimpse of this short, fiery progressive activist was in 1982. No DFLer had stepped to the plate and accepted the tough task of taking on popular State Auditor Arne Carlson. So, as the Minnesota DFL convention closed in, Wellstone literally jumped on to the stage at the district convention in Willmar and later the state convention in Duluth.
For those of you who’ve attended such conventions, we know they can be very long and boring. Wellstone electrified us. Gov. Mark Dayton, who as the DFL U.S. Senate candidate lost to Durenberger in that same ’82 election, recalled that convention speech recently in an October 11 remembrance of Wellstone at Macalester College in St. Paul.
A now-forgotten young gentleman was set to be the DFL sacrificial lamb to Carlson, but Wellstone emerged from nowhere.
“The very earnest young man spoke first and gave a very earnest description of the auditor’s responsibilities,” Dayton said, as reported by writer Doug Grow for MinnPost.com. “He reminded everyone that the definition of an auditor is a bank teller without the charisma.”
“Then Paul spoke…The convention went wild. The fact that Paul’s issues had nothing to do with the job of state auditor meant nothing to DFLers who had just heard the most electrifying speech of their lives.”
It was. Paul went on to give many more electrifying speeches on issues dear to him and most Minnesotans. Wellstone’s progressive passion mounted during the Midwest farm crisis of the early to mid-‘80s and his strong support for a southwestern Minnesota protest movement, Groundswell. His fire burned for small, family farmers.
That passion and those speeches were not forgotten by rural Minnesotans, and despite vast political differences, these far more conservative citizens found a friend and fierce advocate. Wellstone went on to one of the most stunning upsets in U.S. political history, narrowly defeating folksy Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, the lone incumbent United States senator to lose in that 1990 election. Six years later, Wellstone’s populist image had grown as he won a Boschwitz rematch by nine percentage points.
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“I told Minnesotans I was for universal health coverage –Medicare for all, living wage jobs, the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, more investment in children and education, more environmental protection, and campaign finance reform…I tried to never equivocate on the issues. I was a liberal and proud of it!” – Paul Wellstone.
Paul Wellstone was very liberal, often considered the most liberal of all 100 U.S. senators. But he won because of his values and convictions, and people liked and trusted him.
In the introduction to his autobiography, The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda, he opened:
“There is one lesson I have learned that I hold above all others from my experience as a father, teacher, community organizer, and U.S. senator: We should never separate the lives we live from the words we speak. To me, the most important goal is to live a life consistent with the values I hold dear and to act on what I believe in.”
Wellstone’s final two years in the U.S. Senate coincided with President George W. Bush’s first term and Republican control of the White House and Congress for the first time in a half century. He was saddened by the conservative turn and noted the irony of Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” which said “there is little that government can or should do about the most pressing issues of people’s lives.”
“That is a fine philosophy if you run your own corporation and are wealthy,” Wellstone stressed. “It does not work for most of the people.”
The last time I saw Wellstone and was ab;e tp shake his hand once more was at a 2002 Labor Day rally near the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth. What struck me was how rough Paul looked, how he had aged since his electrifying emergence in 1982, with that afro-like haircut and finger-pointing style of speech. In Duluth, he had some difficulty walking, then calling it the remnants of an old wrestling injury. Later, it was revealed that Paul really suffered from the early stages of multiple sclerosis.
What always struck me about Paul was how much a regular citizen he was and remained. He rarely wavered from that role, in one sense amazed he became a U.S. senator, in another encouraged by what community organizing and activism could produce. One of my more simple remembrances of Paul was in St. Peter at the American Legion, early in the 1990 election season. Wellstone and a few others sat at the head table as caterers readied plates and announced that the honored guests would eat first.
Surprisingly, Paul became visibly upset at that notion and announced to the caterers and the small crowd that everyone would be served together. And we were. That was Paul. He knew he was one of us, and those he touched knew it, as well.
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“I have dedicated my life to the cause of economic justice and equality of opportunity for all Americans.” – Paul Wellstone.
These words by an amazing man, a life cut too short, resonant strongly as the Election of 2012 nears. Wellstone made an abbreviated run in 1997 for president in preparation for that 2000 election which eventually sent George W. Bush to the White House. While many have speculated what might have been had Wellstone survived, his loss no doubt left the progressive movement floundering.
His passions were many, particularly on the environment, education, health care reform, issues of poverty and campaign finance reform. But it is the areas of mental health and domestic abuse where the Wellstone legacy – both of Paul and Sheila – remain most firm. His legislation calling for insurance companies to treat mental health coverage similar to physical ailments was championed in the House by former Minnesota Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad and Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, both recovering alcoholics, and Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico).
And Sheila’s behind-the-scene work on the issue of domestic abuse produced similar success and results back home in Minnesota.
Paul was also one of just 11 U.S. senators to cast votes against authorizing the use of force in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and the Iraq War of 2002.
That plane crash near Eveleth on October 25, 2002, rattled the world of Wellstone supporters. Wife Sheila, daughter Marcia Wellstone Markuson, campaign staffers Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy and Will McLaughlin, and pilots Richard Conry and Michael Guess also died.
As I began to pull files of old Wellstone stories, knowing I would have words to share on this date, and as the Minnesota media started its story-telling earlier this month, I was saddened again. Doug Grow’s MPR story, interviewing Walter Mondale, brought back tears, as I recalled those days. But Gov. Dayton’s remembrance speech often made me smile.
And Paul would not be happy with those of us who sulked and withdrew from the progressive cause. So the tears should finally stop, while the memories should never fade.
And the work should never end.
And reload. And like or love. (She likely wouldn't have figured out all the options.)
