October 30, 2002 4:10 PM

Remembering the man, not the politician

Mondale announces candidacy for Senate

20,000 gather to bid farewell to Wellstone

Minnesota Poll: Mondale leads Coleman 47% to 39%


Minnesotans gathered yesterday to say goodbye to Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife, Sheila, and their daughter, Marcia. The event would have been a hell of a campaign rally.

In sprawling Williams Arena, where University of Minnesota maroon and gold gave way to Wellstone green, people of many places, stations and leanings came together Tuesday night for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone.

A huge and sympathetic crowd of more than 20,000 people, a mass of state and national media, signs and songs and shouts of unrepentant liberalism -- it would have been a spectacular late-campaign rally.

No, Walter; she's not Satan. Conservatives just think she is the embodiment of all that is Evil.
Candidate Mondale with the favorite targets of Conservatives

But despite the hoots and whistles and proud smiles, despite the fist-pumping and the "Wellstone for Senate" banner that hung along one railing, it was a memorial for the spirited senator, killed in a plane crash Friday along with his wife, Sheila; their daughter, Marcia Markuson; three campaign aides, and the two pilots.

They gathered, former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer said as he opened the program, in hopes of "putting aside crushing grief in order to celebrate the lives that have been taken from us."

During the showing of a video of Wellstone highlights, to the sounds of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," members of Wellstone's staff wept, some with their heads on others' shoulders.

As the video ended, a hush fell across the arena, broken only by the sounds of sniffling. Many wept, too, at poignant descriptions of the Wellstones and their love for each other, and of the style and wit and commitment of the people who died with them.

But much of the night was upbeat, raucous and sometimes acidly partisan, a campaign rally that left some Republicans and other non-DFLers squirming.

"Paul Wellstone wouldn't have it any other way," Latimer said.

It was an event that typified the passion and partisan drive that took Wellstone from Carleton College to the US Senate in 1990. Minnesota is a state where personality will carry a candidate a long way, and Wellstone was never one to be accused of lacking personality. One of the most likable politicians Minnesota has ever produced, the turnout at his memorial was an indication of just how much Minnesotans, particularly younger Minnesotans, cared for Wellstone.

The Senate, regardless of who replaces Wellstone, will be a poorer place for his absence.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on October 30, 2002 4:10 PM.

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