CONTROVERSY

Jewish World Review Oct. 31, 2002 / 26 Mar-Cheshvan, 5763


Paul Wellstone and the future of the Democrats



By David Twersky



http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Political fate took a decisive turn last week when an airplane carrying Minnesota's fighting liberal senator, Paul Wellstone, crashed, killing all aboard.

Wellstone entered the Senate in 1990 by defeating a Jewish Republican, Rudy Boschwitz, in a bitter campaign. A turning point came when a Boschwitz supporter sent a letter to Jewish voters attacking Wellstone as a bad Jew because he was married to a non-Jewish woman and wasn't raising his children as Jews.

The letter backfired on Boschwitz; most voters were appalled at the idea that one's religious credentials, narrowly defined, should figure in a Senate race.

Wellstone's replacement on the ballot is former senator and vice president Walter Mondale - for the same reasons Frank Lautenberg got the nod in New Jersey: instant name recognition. Mondale hails from the state's old Democratic Farmer Labor Party tradition, which produced Hubert Humphrey.

In recalling Wellstone, Rabbi David Saperstein, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism director, said, "Paul will be remembered as a great prophetic voice in the proud progressive tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, Sen. Phil Hart, and, especially, Paul's hero, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey."

It was that same Hubert Humphrey whose success in moving a civil rights plank into the Democratic Party platform at the 1948 convention led Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and the Dixiecrats to bolt and run their own presidential campaign. Abandoned by both his right and left wings - former FDR veep Henry Wallace was running on the communist-infiltrated Progressive line - incumbent Harry Truman was considered a dead duck and Republican Tom Dewey a shoo-in.

Humphrey, then mayor of Minneapolis, was also leading Americans for Democratic Action, the once formidable liberal ginger group, simultaneously progressive and anticommunist.

This history is worth repeating because one can't help but wonder whether Wellstone best represented Harry Truman's tradition or Henry Wallace's. Aggravated by Vietnam, the split between anticommunist liberals and the anti-anti-communists finally ruptured the Democratic Party in 1968, costing Humphrey the presidency. (To be fair, by 1968 the issue of race was also splitting the Democrats, driving the Dixiecrats into George Wallace's arms and ultimately to the GOP.) Hammered in 1948, the FDR coalition was smashed 20 years later into Humpty Dumpty pieces no one has been able to put back together again.

Republicans have controlled the White House from 1968 to the present day, with the exceptions of Jimmy Carter's one term following the Watergate scandals and Nixon resignation and Bill Clinton's presidency. But Clinton's project was the movement toward the center and away from the progressive left championed by Wellstone.

Moreover, Clinton was helped in 1992 by Ross Perot and won both elections with about a quarter of the potential popular vote. He restored Democratic rule but was not elected with anything resembling a Rooseveltian popular mandate.

Because on foreign and defense policy Wellstone's stance was more Wallace (Henry) than Humphrey, his stands on Israel attracted criticism from those upset at his unfailing support for the Israeli peace movement.

So with some rare exceptions, statements of praise from Jewish groups have focused on his uncompromising nature, idealism, and domestic agenda. Many American Jews like idealistic domestic liberals.

So now we know that Wellstone was a mentsh who gave people hugs. Moreover, he fought for the little guy and was not corrupted by the need to appeal to the rich and the powerful.

We're not taking the cynics' view. Wellstone was by all accounts a remarkably sincere and dedicated man. The problem is that idealism and sincerity are, in and of themselves, not much of a political virtue. When he stood trying to block the integration of the University of Alabama, George Wallace was sincere in his beliefs, but that did not much recommend him.

Of his friend Paul Wellstone, Saperstein said, "He was a giant for justice, standing above the political fray with an unmistakable moral clarity."

But one man's "unmistakable moral clarity" is another's moral equivalency. From on high, Wellstone twice voted against giving Presidents George Bush (I and II) authorization to use force against Iraq. From on high, above the fray, he was deluded by what the Weekly Standard (not referring specifically to him) recently called the "fog of peace."

These votes count for something. Moral grandstanding is cheap when it takes the form of a marginal vote. But what of those occasions when every vote cast helps shape the fate of the nation?

With America's ability to remain out of the Second World War shrinking by the day, the executive branch asked Congress to amend the draft law to lower the age of conscription from 20 to 18 and extend compulsory service to 18 months.

On Aug. 12, 1941 - only a few months before Pearl Harbor squashed isolationist sentiment - the House approved the change by one vote, 203-202. By one vote.

Wellstone's untimely and tragic death should force us to evaluate, not uncritically reflect upon, his legacy. The question about the Democrats remains vital, as "the party of the people" looks to anchor a worldview that combines toughness, realism, and compassion.

JWR contributor David Twersky is managing editor of the New Jersey Jewish News. Comment by clicking here.

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© 2002, David Twersky