The Liberalest Senator: Can the GOP send Paul Wellstone back to the faculty lounge?

National Review, Nov 11, 2002 by John J. Miller

'Taxes were raised on just about everybody in order to get this country going again." That's Democratic senator Paul Wellstone explaining the causes of the late prosperity. Specifically, he says, it was his brave support of Bill Clinton's 1993 budget, which passed the Senate by a single vote. Enjoy those bygone days of wild-bull markets and near-full employment? Send a belated thank-you note to the tax-hiking senior senator from Minnesota.

Wellstone's strange remark came on October 15 at a debate in Moorhead, where he squared off against his Republican opponent, former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman. Most people don't believe tax hikes pave the way for economic growth, of course, but Wellstone's claim could hardly qualify as a gaffe-he's been saying this sort of thing on the campaign trail all along, and he really means it. The question is whether voters will buy his logic: Wellstone is caught in one of this fall's tightest elections, and conservatives would love to see Coleman defeat him.

That's because the 58-year-old Wellstone is the most liberal member of the Senate-a title that has him beating out the likes of Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. He inhabits a world in which health-care coverage is never complete enough, the minimum wage never high enough, "the rich" never taxed enough, and government never big enough.

At just under 5-and-a-half feet tall, Wellstone is a short man, but high on principle. Probably no other member of the Senate has been on the losing side of more 99-1 or 98-2 votes. None has voted more consistently against the Bush administration, according to Congressional Quarterly. Wellstone aspires to be a Barry Goldwater of the Left; the title of his recent book, The Conscience of a Liberal, is a deliberate echo of the conservative hero's own classic. He even has presidential ambitions-or at least he once did. Before the 2000 election, Wellstone was the clear favorite of his party's "progressive" wing-i.e., anti-New Democrats who swear by The Nation. Yet he bowed out, citing a bad back, and stumped for Bill Bradley. Al Gore was simply too mainstream.

Paul Wellstone may sit at the far end of the political spectrum, yet it is difficult to dislike him on a personal level-even right-wingers must admit that he would probably make a good neighbor. Smiles and laughs come easily to him. His personal life, in fact, seems quite conservative: He married young, had a few kids, and remains married to his wife, after 39 years. He can be feisty, but he's rarely rude; there's still something of the college professor about him, acquired over the 21 years he spent teaching political science at Carleton College. When many Democrats talk about, say, extending unemployment benefits, their fists pound podiums, their ears billow smoke, and their faces turn red with rage. Not Wellstone. He speaks in measured tones, as if believing reasonable people will agree with him if they just listen long enough.

Which isn't to say he'd be persuasive if he could lecture on a topic for a whole semester. "All politics is personal," said Wellstone at a recent press conference. Indeed, he wants the government involved in everything. Consider this passage from his book, in a section on pre-K education: "Our national goal must be to ensure that every child, by kindergarten, knows the alphabet; colors, shapes, and sizes; how to spell his or her name; and has been read to widely. . . . This will require well-paid professional teachers, assisted by skillful and well- paid teaching assistants."

It will? Most moms and dads don't have such an excruciatingly hard time teaching their toddlers about big blue squares and little yellow circles. But then this proposal isn't really about what children must learn; it's about increasing the size and power of the National Education Association. Wellstone may be a man of principle, but his are the principles of labor unions, feminists, and greens.

Wellstone would still be hanging out in faculty lounges if he hadn't succeeded at his true calling-politics-in 1990. That year, he ran against the incumbent Republican senator, Rudy Boschwitz. At first, Wellstone seemed a sacrificial lamb, but he ran a scrappy and clever campaign, touring the state on a bus and spending his meager funds well. He won by a whisker in what must be considered one of the great Senate-election upsets of the last quarter century.

An important factor in Wellstone's surprise victory was his pledge to serve no more than two terms. Those were the days when term limits were trendy, and Wellstone's commitment almost certainly tipped a few crucial, late-deciding voters his way. It may even have made the difference in his race. By running for re-election this year, however, he formally breaks his word. He insists that keeping his promise of a dozen years ago is less important than keeping Tom Daschle as Senate majority leader.

Wellstone made an early mark in Washington. Shortly after his election, he said of his colleague Jesse Helms, "I have detested him since I was 19." At his initial meeting with the first President Bush, just before the Gulf War, he pestered the commander-in-chief with anti-war rhetoric-prompting Bush to ask, semi-famously, "Who is this chickensh**?" Not long after, Wellstone held a weepy press conference at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in an ill-advised attempt to turn a sobering national emblem into a crass political symbol. On the Hill, he was seen as undisciplined; he had trouble keeping staff.