October 25, 2002

October 25 is the anniversary of the death of Senate Paul Wellstone. Wellstone, his wife and daughter, supporters, and two pilots died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota ten days before the 2002 election day.

I was working for an advocacy organization working to get the pro-choice vote out in order to get Paul Wellstone reelected. The loss of a great advocate and the loss of the election were double blows that crushed the spirit of the progressive community in Minnesota. It is still recovering.

I had met Paul Wellstone on a couple of occasions. I had lobbied him to do more on the crushing Iraq sanctions. I met his daughter, Marcia, a couple weeks earlier when she came to a rally we held to underscore the importance of the Senate race for the balance of the Supreme Court.

On the day of the plane crash, I was to join a bunch of activists to ride on the campaign green bus from St. Paul to Duluth, to watch the U.S. Senate debate that evening. Before leaving the office, we heard that the campaign's plane was missing. We stopped and waited. A little while later, Minnesota Public Radio confirmed that the plane had crashed and everyone aboard had died.

We didn't just lose a Senate seat. We didn't just lose a great Senator. We lost one of the great leaders of the progressive movement. Wellstone had been in the Senate for two terms, but was just starting to find ways (and seniority) to make a difference. He was much further to the left than most voters in Minnesota, but people respected him tremendously. This short, feisty, screaming, Jewish, college professor originally from North Carolina stood out like a sore thumb in Minnesota, a state that is reflected more accurately by Garrison Keillor than the reserved natives would care to admit.

Wellstone's vote against the Iraq war resolution shortly before his death was the bravest act of his political career. George Bush started 2002 with a 85% approval rating. Those were the days that just about everyone in the political and media establishment agreed that Iraq constituted a grave threat. Bill Clinton was for it. Al Franken was for it. Even Dan Savage was for it.

Not Paul Wellstone. His vote was seen as political suicide by Beltway pundits. Of course they were wrong. His standing in the polls were not hurt by his vote. Minnesotans respected his convictions deeply, even though many of them disagreed with his vote on the most pressing issue of the day.

So many stories abound about how Paul Wellstone touched individuals. I remember talking to the cashier at the grocery store. She told me about working at the airport and seeing Paul Wellstone on his frequent trips between DC and the Twin Cities--usually outside baggage claim where she was taking a cigarette break. He would always say hi to her and gently chastise her for smoking. One day, he stepped it up and flat out told her she needed to quit. A few weeks later, she quit smoking and gave him the credit for making her do it.

Today Salon's Thomas Shaller wrote: "If Al Franken holds on to beat Norm Coleman to retake the seat Wellstone once held, Franken has some rather big shoes to fill."

But for better or for worse, in the minds of progressives in Minnesota, no person will ever be truly worthy of Paul Wellstone's seat. While I may very well vote for Al Franken, I know he is no Paul Wellstone. While Paul Wellstone convinced airport workers to quit smoking, Al Franken is known for not tipping airport cabbies. While Paul Wellstone lived his convictions regardless of the potential political consequences, Al Franken is running a centrist, DLC, play-it-safe campaign. So in my mind, Al Franken could never be anything like Paul Wellstone, neither could any other living person.

Certainly, Franken or the third party candidate Dean Barkley, would make immeasurable improvements and no longer constitute the stain on Wellstone's seat that is Norm Coleman. Coleman was elected in a wave of anti-Democratic sentiment after Republicans milked the "controversy" of Wellstone's "funeral-slash-rally" for all that it was worth. In a show of how classy he is, Coleman told the Roll Call newspaper six months after Wellstone's death that "To be very blunt and God watch over Paul's soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. Just about on every issue."

If you talk to a progressive from Minnesota about October 25, 2002, you will hear how those deep wounds persist to this day. While Barack Obama is no Paul Wellstone, an Obama victory and the punting of Norm Coleman from Wellstone's seat would be two ever-sweet victories. It would make us feel that we were living up to Wellstone's legacy at least in part.