Paul no saint. (Letters to the Editor).

The plane crash that killed Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter, and several others is a horrible tragedy for their surviving family, friends, and acquaintances. Although the desire to focus on the best qualities of someone whose loss one is grieving is understandable, I believe progressive politics are better served by a balanced, critical assessment of Wellstone's political career than by the avalanche of mostly uncritical eulogies over the past month, including your own (Editor's Note, December issue).

By all accounts, Wellstone did a world of good as an activist professor at Carleton College, inspiring many students to incorporate activism and progressive politics into their own lives. Wellstone's shocking election to the Senate in 1990 on a shoestring campaign budget but with a huge pool of enthusiastic campaign volunteers demonstrated the power of grassroots activism in a way most of us had only dreamed about. His outspoken opposition to the Persian Gulf War and support for single-payer health care were also inspiring to many a progressive, including myself.

But Wellstone went to Washington with an agenda of changing the system and the Democratic Party from within. Instead, the system changed him.

During his last term in office, Wellstone voted for wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, the Defense of Marriage Act, the USA Patriot Act, economic sanctions against Iraq, increases in the military budget, and Congressional resolutions exonerating Israel of any blame for violence in the Middle East. He failed to speak out against Bush's theft of the election or to support his African American Congressional colleagues' call for an investigation. He stopped being an outspoken advocate of single-payer health care. He was publicly critical of Ralph Nader's Presidential candidacy.

Even his much-praised opposition to the looming war with Iraq was not based on principle. His public statements about the issue indicated that, rather than seeing the United States as the major threat to world peace as most progressives do, Wellstone shared his Congressional colleagues' view that Iraq was a significant threat that needed to be dealt with (i.e., attacked) militarily, just not unilaterally or unconstitutionally.

To be sure, Wellstone continued to compile a mostly quite progressive voting record and to fight for consumers and workers--within the framework he accepted. His political limitations serve to illustrate a very important lesson that Paul himself might have taught in his days at Carleton: Real change and real leadership do not come from Capitol Hill; they always have, and always will, come from the grassroots.

Jeff Melton
2002 Green Party
Congressional candidate
Bloomington, Indiana