Paul Wellstone: The Life of a Passionate Progressive

4. Faltering and Recovering

4 Faltering and Recovering To be sure, mere passion, however genuinely felt, is not enough. On the morning of November 6, 1990, Paul Wellstone appeared at a morning press conference and committed the ‹rst of several postcampaign blunders. Visibly exhausted from the previous night’s celebration, he spoke disjointedly about his plans for the transition and then made a statement that he would later regret. “I want to give this all that I have,” he said. “That means giving it 12 years, two terms. That is my post-campaign promise.”1 It was a politically unnecessary move—a poll later showed that Minnesota voters were indifferent to the promise—and it would prove to be a major liability when he decided in 2001 to run for a third term. It also exempli‹ed Wellstone’s tendency to speak before thinking about the consequences of his words. The decision was impulsive; he had not mentioned the pledge in the campaign and had never discussed 65 it with his aides. If he had, they almost certainly would have advised him against it. Even before Wellstone was sworn in, he was off on the wrong foot. A week after his ‹rst press conference, when asked by reporters how he would get along with archconservative North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, whom he had ‹rst encountered as a student at the University of North Carolina, he responded bluntly, “I have detested him since I was 19.” Attempting to clarify his remarks several days later, Wellstone was unrepentant. “I didn’t say hate. I said despised,” he explained. “I have tremendous respect for the institution of the United States Senate. But the fact that I respect the institution does not mean that I need to respect the racists in the institution.”2 Asked if he was concerned that such a comment was a breach of the Senate’s longstanding courtesy of not speaking ill of another senator, he responded, “I don’t know, but I don’t care. It’s just the truth. I don’t think Minnesotans expect me to come to the United States Senate and get involved in back-room deals with Jesse Helms.”3 The comments about Helms made the national news and raised questions about his ability to get along with his colleagues. But Wellstone did not care about getting along with other senators. He went to Washington determined to use Saul Alinsky’s quintessential organizing tool—con›ict—as leverage with his colleagues. It was a strategy that had worked for him throughout his life—as a young professor ‹ghting to save his job, as an organizer working with farmers and laborers, and as a long-shot candidate running for Senate—and Wellstone saw no reason to alter his style after his election. To the contrary, he viewed his victory as a mandate to shake up the Senate, not to make friends. He went to Washington as a party crasher, assuming that AlinPAUL WELLSTONE 66 sky’s rules for organizing would work as a framework for governing. He was wrong. Within weeks of his election, Wellstone would face his ‹rst political crisis: the impending war in the Persian Gulf. When Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait six months earlier, President George H. W. Bush threatened military action against Saddam unless the troops were removed. Saddam refused, and Bush succeeded in assembling a broad international coalition to help the United States liberate Kuwait. War was imminent, and it was a problem for Wellstone. During the campaign, he had supported the buildup of military forces in Saudi Arabia as a deterrent to further Iraqi aggression but argued that economic sanctions against Iraq were preferable to the use of force. Wellstone’s position was hardly radical—at the time, the national debate was revolving around the question of whether the international community should impose economic sanctions against Iraq or intervene immediately— but as the possibility of war grew in the winter of 1990, he gained attention for his vocal opposition to the war. He grew increasingly critical of the White House and tried repeatedly to confront members of the administration about what he perceived to be their rush to war. In late November, he attended a reception at the White House held for new members of Congress and chose the occasion to discuss the war with President Bush. During a receiving line exchange, Wellstone told the president that the country...