A candidate for 2000? Paul Wellstone ponders a bid for the White House.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Interview

Paul Wellstone is restless. After defying the odds by winning a second term in the U.S. Senate, he could have settled into Washington for a smooth six years of tilting at conservative windmills.

Instead, he's spending an increasing portion of his time beyond the beltway -- picket lines, in union halls, at doorsteps, and in front of rallies. And he's contemplating a run for the Presidency in the year 2000.

"If it were a different Congress, and a different time in the history of our country, I would spend twenty hours a day just writing amendments and bills in Washington," says Wellstone. "But given what I believe in, I just know there is no possible way to push through the kind of legislation that would make a difference. I can stop the worst here. I can effect some small victories that are important -- and I'll do that. But I cannot in this Congress pass the legislation that is desperately needed for this country. Therefore, I feel very strongly that I have to spend more of my time using my position as a Senator to travel, to speak, to organize."

Organizing is nothing new for Wellstone, who at age fifty-two has three decades of social activism on his resume. Already this spring, he has headlined a Baltimore rally to assure that the city's workers are not displaced by "workfare" hires. He has marched with strawberry workers in California. He has spoken at state and regional conferences sponsored by Citizen Action. And he is an increasingly popular keynoter at state Democratic Party dinners.

"My first priority is still to represent the people of Minnesota and to do my duty on the floor of the Senate," says Wellstone. "But from now on, wherever I can go to advance the cause, I'm going to try. We have to recapture our indignation. We have to be bold and advocate a progressive, populist politics for our country -- a politics that is important for people's lives. I think that's a winning politics."

If that sounds vaguely like a Presidential candidate talking, Wellstone acknowledges that, yes, he is considering the prospect of running for the White House.

The one thing everyone understands is a Presidential challenge," Wellstone says. "Clearly, I'm doing a lot more nationally than I did before, and there is a chance that could lead to a Presidential run. I think it just depends on what the reaction is and what things look like as we approach 2000. I think it's way too early to say, Here's a campaign.' But I wouldn't rule it out at all."

But...