Senator Bernie Sanders came to Duluth, MN yesterday afternoon and I was delighted to be among the crowd of some 6,000 souls packing the old DECC Arena to see and hear him. Bernie was introduced by Jake Sanders (field organizer in MN), by former MN State Senator Becky Lourey and finally by U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (MN-05).
Surveying the crowd on the floor—OK, on the ice-rink...it's Duluth, folks—as the event began, my eyes locked on that green sign with white letters to center-left in the picture below and my breath hitched a bit.
Wellstone.
Senator Paul Wellstone.
The Wellstone name is almost sacred in MN DFL politics, and not one to be invoked lightly. I recall an event in October 2012 when Jill Biden spoke at Wellstone Hall in our Duluth Labor Temple within days of the tenth anniversary of the plane crash that killed Paul, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia and five others. There was not a dry eye in the hall as Biden spoke of her personal memories of the Wellstones, their progressive politics and their political legacy.
And so the spirit of Wellstone appeared at Bernie's Duluth rally yesterday. A simple green-and-white sign, yet an icon gravid with meaning.
Let us recall Sanders' tribute to Paul Wellstone in the Senate on 25 October 2007:
This is the fifth anniversary of the deaths of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, and I just wanted to say a few words on that. I was a friend of Paul's when I was in the House, and on some of the important social and economic issues that I worked on there he was the person that I went to to work with a member of the Senate. And I think that history will remember Paul Wellstone as one of the great Senators of our time, not just because of his accomplishments but more important because of the extraordinary vision that he had.
Paul believed very much that we could create a very different kind of world than the world we're living in right now and he was prepared and did stand up day after day on the floor of this Senate, taking on virtually every powerful special interest that exploited working people and low-income people and who led us to wars that we should not be fighting. He was a man that believed passionately in a world of peace, in a world of economic and social justice. And that vision that he brought forth is a vision that I hope nobody in this Senate and nobody in this country ever forgets.
And one of the major characteristics of Paul Wellstone is that he understood that the way we succeed politically in this country is not simply by going out to the wealthy and the powerful begging for more and more campaign contributions, which is what happens so often in Congress, but he understood that the way you can win elections is by rallying ordinary people at the grassroots level. And perhaps that achievement from a political perspective will be what he is most remembered for. I know that in Minnesota what he did is organize at the grassroots, and brought thousands and thousands of people who had not been involved in the political process together to stand up under a progressive program for economic justice and for a world of peace. And he understood profoundly something that many here do not address: that real change takes place from the bottom and not from the top. That when millions of people stand up and say it is imperative that we have economic justice in this country, that we have a livable wage, that we have a healthcare program that guarantees healthcare to all of our people, that we protect our environment... When that comes from the grassroots, then we will succeed.
So he was a tireless advocate of grassroots politics. I just want to say as someone who worked with Paul, who was very fond of both he and Sheila, that the vision that they brought forth is something that I hope that I will do my best to continue advocating for. His loss was a loss for the working people in this country, for the vast majority of the people of this country, for the United States Senate, and I will not forget what Paul Wellstone stood for.
Thank you very much.
No, Senator Sanders... Thank you.
Don the Wellstone mantle.
It is yours, credibly.
And I will caucus for you with a ghost from the past inflecting our “Future to Believe In.”