The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Wellstone

Author:Paul Wellstone
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781588360113
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2001-07-17T04:30:00+00:00

Chapter 6

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“EMBARRASSINGLY LIBERAL”

We won the 1990 Senate race by asking people to vote for what they believed in. That proposition connected with Democrats—and many Republicans—who were looking for more than the politics of polls and conventional wisdom. Our win demonstrated that a politics of conviction can be a winning politics. The 1996 race would test that idea and be a referendum on the kind of citizen politics that we embodied.

I knew all along that it would be a tough race. I was the only senator up for reelection who voted against the “welfare reform” bill, and this vote alone was supposed to cost me the election. I was at odds with most of the powerful economic interests in the country, including in Minnesota. My friend Harry Reid, senator from Nevada, told me, “Paul, you are the most difficult senator to raise money for!”

And Minnesota was far from an automatic win for Democrats. Republicans had won all the U.S. Senate races in Minnesota since 1978, and a Republican had been elected governor in 1990 and 1994.

The Republican Party in Minnesota began its campaign against me in 1993, three full years before my term was up! My outspoken positions on issues and my efforts to fight the Republican agenda (especially the post-1994 Gingrich agenda) made me the top Republican target in 1996. The Minnesota Republicans, using a particularly vicious attack-politics mentality, set a low standard that would eventually cost them.

In May 1994 at the Republican state convention, delegates were given brochures titled “Wellstone Watch,” in which unflattering caricatures of me—with a big nose, short legs, potbelly, even in a dress—accompanied wildly untrue allegations and personal attacks.

This was just the beginning. The Minnesota Republicans also began to hold weekly news conferences, attacking me and distorting my statements and votes. Often, they didn’t even bother sticking to any issues. A typical press release, from the spring of 1994, led with, “Paul Wellstone is a lying, hypocritical whiner.” The Republicans also decided to follow me and my family with a video camera and tape recorder, hoping to gather incriminating statements that they could use in attack ads. At every public appearance, every speech, the Republicans were there, getting it all on tape.

The Republicans knew that my greatest political asset was the trust I had built with Minnesotans. Whether they agreed with me on all the issues, they knew where I stood, and believed I was committed to public service. The Republicans figured that the only way to defeat me was to raise questions about my trustworthiness. The problem was, the Republicans simply couldn’t make this case without lying and making outlandish allegations. Minnesotans would see right through it.

While the Republican Party continued to attempt a smear campaign, Rudy Boschwitz prepared to run again for the Senate seat that he felt was his. Boschwitz, who seemed to be filled with resentment that he had been defeated by a underfunded, unknown, liberal college professor, was prepared to wage an ugly, negative campaign to defeat me.

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