FLASHBACK: *THIS* is what courage of convictions looks like, current D.C. Democrats...

[Bluebear]

Published on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 by the Washington Post
For Wellstone, Iraq Vote Is Risk But Not a Choice
Principles May Be Costly in November
by Helen Dewar


Anti-war activists were conducting a three-day sit-in at his St. Paul office, even as his Republican challenger was pummeling him as wobbly on national security. For Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.), the Iraq war resolution before Congress presented a lose-lose proposition likely to anger voters he needs in his tight reelection bid.

But to Wellstone there was never really much of a choice.

The 58-year-old professor-turned-senator had built a political career on standing by his convictions, which included a decided preference for international cooperation and diplomacy over war. He was not about to abandon them now, he said on a recent morning, as he put the finishing touches on a speech he was about to deliver opposing the resolution that would authorize President Bush to use force against Iraq, with or without a United Nations mandate.

"Just putting it in self-interest terms, how would I have had the enthusiasm and the fight if I had actually cast a vote I didn't believe in?" he asked. "I couldn't do that."

So far Wellstone is alone among the handful of endangered incumbents in coming out against the resolution. None of them has more at stake on the Iraq vote than Wellstone, according to political observers in Washington and Minnesota. That's partly because of the closeness of his race against Republican Norm Coleman and partly because of the senator's history of marching to his own drumbeat.

But the Minnesota race tells a broader story about how Congress's planned debates and votes this week on the war resolution could affect pivotal races in the Nov. 5 battle for control of both houses. Bush appears likely to win broad authority to invade Iraq. In the process, all incumbents will have to make a choice, and challengers will be pressed to do the same....

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1009-05.htm

[villager]

1. and I guess the message of the plane "accident" was received loud and clear

...by the current crop of Brave New World "Democrats..."

[upi402]

2. Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.)

:patriot:

[truedelphi]

3. In recent months I have witnessed only one man with the type of conviction

That Wellstone demonstrated. And that man was Sen. Sanders, I, of Vermont.

I hope he is not fond of small planes.

[myrna minx]

4. I miss my Senator.

:cry:

[progressoid]

5. We all miss him.

Even if we aren't from Minnesota.

[myrna minx]

6. I can't believe he's gone.

8 years. :cry:

[janet118]

7. Paul Wellstone: A "hunted" man - The Nation

From May 9, 2002 issue of The Nation.

"Paul Wellstone is a hunted man. Minnesota's senior senator is not just another Democrat on White House political czar Karl Rove's target list, in an election year when the Senate balance of power could be decided by the voters of a single state. Rather, getting rid of Wellstone is a passion for Rove, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the special-interest lobbies that fund the most sophisticated political operation ever assembled by a presidential administration. "There are people in the White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone," a senior Republican aide confides. "This one is political and personal for them."

I believe the cover art of that issue was a head shot of Paul with rifle crosshairs imposed over it. It haunted me after his death.

[Bluebear]

8. OK that is eerie :(