Paul Wellstone

Many Progressives hold the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone up as an example of a true Progressive. I don't disagree. Below are a couple of Wellstone-isms from "The Conscience of a Liberal " which should be required reading.

"Disproportionate among the ranks of nonvoters are "minorities" and blue-collar and low-income citizens. It is the Democrats' natural constituency, if we are willing to speak to the concerns and circumstances of their lives and include them. If you don't say anything important to them and hardly ever show up in the community, people don't vote. Why should they?

Somehow, too many Democrats have failed to make a key distinction. It is true, as the conventional wisdom goes, that if you speak only about the poor, you lose. This is fairly obvious. But to say you should not focus only on the poor doesn't mean you should never deal with issues of poverty. The same holds for issues of race and gender. The Democratic Party, which is supposed to be the party of the people, has far too often been silent about these issues. To do the right thing and to win, they must be put back on the table."

Wellstone was a Populist as well as a Progressive Democrat. He fueled his campaigns on people power. I'm glad to be in a district with a similarly-minded, newly elected Congressman, David Loebsack.