Movement liberal.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note

The loss of the Senate is a serious blow. But for me, the death of Senator Paul Wellstone is more devastating.

He was not a liberal in the traditional mold of Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, or dare I say Walter Mondale. Nor was he a maverick liberal, like Russ Feingold. Instead, he was a movement liberal. He was an activist and a radical professor at Carleton College long before he became a politician. And even after winning a seat in the Senate, he recognized the importance of grassroots organizing for progressive change.

"Look, the fact of the matter is, we're not doing a very good job of organizing any longer," he told me in a radio interview back in 1997. "We've got to get back to that."

Wellstone liked to say he represented the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. "People don't see what the Democratic Party stands for as being connected to their lives. That's a real problem," he told me.

His Senatorial career was book-ended by opposition to war with Iraq. He was so outspoken about the 1991 Gulf War that he earned a famous sobriquet from President George H.W. Bush, who asked: "Who is that little chickenshit?" Then, this fall, at great risk to his political career, Wellstone voted against George W.'s authorization of force for another war on Iraq.

Throughout his career, he championed universal health care, the rights of the mentally ill, organized labor, women's rights, the environment, full public financing of elections, equitable funding of public education, decent child care, the family farmer, and the poor. He was a staunch opponent of Bill Clinton's 1996 so-called welfare reform law, and he virtually single-handedly stalled the pending bankruptcy legislation, which would impose onerous new burdens on the indigent.

He was not perfect. He failed to join Senator Russ Feingold in voting against the USA Patriot Act, he voted for Clintons omnibus crime bill...