Abstract

Wellstone in 2004

The author argues that the legacy of Paul Wellstone, the U.S. Senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002, could provide a model for a successful campaign with a progressive agenda for the current Democratic presidential candidates. During the two years when he was exploring a bid for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, Paul Wellstone spent a lot of time trying to figure out how a progressive could get elected to the nation's top job. He was certain it was possible, as certain as he had been in 1990 that a college professor with almost no money could beat a millionaire incumbent for a Senate seat, as certain as he had been in 1996 that a senator who voted against welfare reform and made himself the number-one target of the Republicans could be re-elected. By mid-1998, Wellstone was pretty sure he had gotten the answer he needed. By putting such issues as US trade policy and corporate corruption--in those pre-Seattle, pre-Enron days--"back on the table" and by pouring resources into educating and organizing around those issues, an excited Wellstone argued, a progressive presidential candidate could play offense. Though Kucinich mirrors Wellstone's ideology, it is Dean who has recognized the importance of framing Democratic issues with an eye toward their popular appeal. Wellstone proved in Minnesota that a pragmatic yet visionary mix of calculation and idealism, of ideology and organizing, could reanimate progressive politics in one state. The Democrats now campaigning for President need to do a good deal of learning and growing; they should begin by praising Paul Wellstone a little less, and imitating him a lot more.