Mourning is Over

A constant theme throughout the Wellstone tributes of the past few days has been his unwavering integrity, the fact that he always fought for what he believed in, even when it was an unpopular stance. This claim has some validity--but only when analyzed in a relative sense. Yes Wellstone may have had integrity, be it to a dangerous and destructive belief in centralized government as a vehicle to improve the lives of people, but only when you compare him to his brethren in the ranks of elective government. My observations tell me most politicians, particularly from the Democratic party, will say anything to get elected and their votes are always subject to their evaluation of the prevailing popular opinion. And perhaps Wellstone was less willing to engage in this odious form of pandering. This is probably why his Senate colleagues have begun calling him "the conscience of the Senate," which to me seems like an inadvertent admission by his colleagues that they don't have any consciences or integrity themselves.

But the fact that Wellstone was slightly better than the abysmally low standard set by Daschle, Bird, Kennedy, Biden, et al., doesn't necessarily mean he had integrity in an objective sense. In the months leading up to the election several commentators on the Left had begun to raise these very questions about Welltstone's record and his specific abandonment of his principles in the face of potentially adverse popular reaction in an election year.

The specific examples include his voting for the USA Patriot Act earlier this year. According to an article in the January 16, 2002 issue of City Pages G.R. Anderson reports reactions from the Left included:

For me, the most disappointing surprise in the Senate tally was the Paul Wellstone vote," wrote Nat Hentoff, a columnist for the Village Voice and longtime Wellstone admirer. "He is one of the few authentic liberals left in Congress."

"He screwed up and pissed off his constituents. He has to backpedal and put this stuff out to show that he's still concerned about civil rights," offers Ken Pentel, a coordinator for the Green Party of Minnesota and former gubernatorial candidate. "You can't hold him accountable for the whole Senate. But at least from Senator Wellstone you might expect something to distinguish himself. Instead, there was nothing. Complete silence."

Regarding the debate about military intervention in Iraq, Steve Perry had the following comments, in the September 18, 2002 issue of City Pages:

This summer, Bush had to fight off members of his own party and a few rebellious Democrats when he began stumping to invade Iraq. Wellstone, meanwhile, got in lock step with the majority of his party, known to those who track campaign contributions as the Democratic Leadership Council. Like most incumbent legislators up for reelection this fall, Wellstone's safely neutral position is that Bush must prove that Hussein poses a "credible threat" before he would sanction unilateral military action. Whatever that means.

And later in that same article:

So where's Wellstone? After all, this is the guy who told the New York Times a year after he was elected that "life is sacred, and my standard is to do everything you can to avoid loss of life, regardless of who the people are and the country they live in."

According to Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant, who chimed in last week with a piece entitled "Paul Wellstone is not an outsider anymore," it is simply a matter of maturity. Our senator, Sturdevant concludes approvingly, "appears to have concluded that playing the respectfully skeptical seeker of truth is more, well, senatorial."

No kidding. At any rate that's one way to put it, agrees a Democratic insider turned Green strategist I talked to last week. Especially if your definition of "senatorial" squares with the centrists who run the Democratic Party, fund campaigns, and convince candidates that public opinion polls are more important than principle: "The guy has a messianic complex. The party has convinced him that the future of the U.S. Senate rests on his shoulders. What does that mean? It means don't rock the boat. And yeah, that kind of makes you wonder: What's the point?"

Regarding Wellstone's support of the 1996 Defense of Marriage bill, Green Party member Jeff Taylor had this to say, in the August 13, 2002 issue of Alexander Cockburn's Leftist magazine, Counter Punch:

Gay and lesbian activists were stunned and angered in June 1996 when Wellstone announced at a gay-sponsored fundraiser he "personally opposes same-sex marriages" and was considering voting for the "Defense of Marriage" bill which would deny federal recognition of them (Star Tribune, 6-5-96). It seemed completely out of character for the "enlightened," progressive politician.

We might be able to piece together an explanation from the news story. The Star Tribune noted, "He faces reelection this fall in a race that is a top target nationally for Republicans." Two sentences later, the reporter says, "Wellstone shocked the crowd when he said he was raised to believe that marriage was reserved for the union of one man and one woman." This was the first his gay supporters had heard of this basic belief. Presumably, Wellstone was also raised to believe that romance and sex should be between one man and one woman, but that hadn't stopped him from unreservedly supporting gay rights throughout his years as a college teacher, political activist, and office holder.

From Taylor again, regarding Wellstone's reneging on his pledge to only serve two terms, due to the fact that Republicans controlled the White House and House of Representatives, so circumstances had changed since 1996 :

The changing circumstances rationale first used by Wellstone and echoed by apologists is probably specious anyway. Wellstone didn't groom anyone within the DFL to succeed him after making and remaking his no-third-term pledge. That strongly suggests that he had no intention of keeping his promise. Wellstone continued to raise campaign money and passed up the opportunity to publicly promote a successor in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. Four years passed between his second election and the supposedly crucial changing of circumstances (Bush elected and the Senate evenly divided). This would lead an objective observer to suspect, if not conclude, that Wellstone never had any intention of retiring upon the conclusion of his second term.

Paul Wellstone is now a professional politician. There are certain groups which have a vested interest in keeping Wellstone in power, namely (A) the quasi-liberal interest group leaders who make a good living off talking about the problems of others and exploiting their fears and (B) the corporate-funded Democratic Party which finds it useful to have a tame "liberal" on board to point to whenever Ralph Nader begins his siren song.

And finally, Taylor's analysis of why the Democratic party embraced Wellstone, and in retrospect, it's an adequate explanation of why the entire Democratic party power structure was in attendance at Williams Arena on Tuesday night:

Breaking his promise to serve only two terms isn't the real problem. It's a symptom. Wellstone the populist fighter lives on only in memory, stump speeches, and slick TV ads (many paid for by DFL soft money). Wellstone can't claim to be a man of great integrity. He's not that different from all the other politicians who call themselves "public servants" while they mostly serve themselves, their friends, and their pet causes.

The Senator can't hardly run on the slogan "Paul Wellstone: Just Another Politician Trying to Hang Onto His Job," so the race is cast in portentous, almost apocalyptic terms. "Wellstone has to win to keep a Democratic majority in the Senate." "Wellstone is Bush's #1 target." "If Wellstone loses, it's the end of liberal civilization as we know it." Yeah, right. How is Wellstone's reliably Democratic vote any different from those of Tim Johnson or Bob Torricelli? When he does swim against the Democratic current, he's casting a symbolic vote which doesn't accomplish anything beyond bolstering his threadbare maverick image. If his one vote would make a real difference-against the interests of the Democratic establishment-he'd probably knuckle under with a self-deluded explanation.

Those same slogans will now be used to bolster the campaing of Walter Mondale and now they'll have the added enhancement of the legacy of the so-called last man of integrity in the Senate.