Fellow Spirits

The Pioneer Press's Nick Coleman has an interesting analysis of what lies behind the Democrats' electoral failure and abject sadness over the events of the past two weeks. His description of Norm Coleman and Paul Wellstone as fellow spirits--both disenchanted by their preferred party (the DFL) in the late 80's and then taking very different paths to deal with it, is something I hadn't thought about, but upon reflection, seems to be valid. He also punches some well reasoned holes in the myth of the Democratic party as the more open-minded, less ideologically constrained, "big tent" party:

"It does no disservice to either man to note that, in a way, Norm Coleman and Paul Wellstone were fellow spirits. Wellstone will always be revered as a DFL martyr and he was, in truth, beloved by the party when he died. But it wasn't ever thus. Wellstone and Coleman came from different philosophical backgrounds, but they both rejected the stodgy DFL that had calcified by the 1980s (Wellstone used to talk about starting a third party) and they each represented new energy the DFL desperately needed.

Remember those campaign ads that tried to embarrass Coleman by showing him endorsing Wellstone at the 1996 DFL convention? I think they backfired. They were supposed to demonstrate that Norm Coleman was a turncoat. But maybe they also revealed that the DFL had turned its back on one of its most promising leaders.

Today, there is much sadness among Democrats. Two long-in-the-tooth DFLers--Mondale and Moe--are defeated. And two of the party's brightest stars have been lost.

One is dead. The other is senator-elect."