(It's tempting to fall back on "you lost, get over it." But as ericf notes, does that really get us anywhere? - promoted by Joe Bodell)
I've heard Franken speak enough about Wellstone's death to be sure that it was this that propelled him the get active beyond satire. In fact, not just Wellstone's death, but the lies the right told about the memorial service, which Franken wrote about in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and talked about on his radio show, propelled Franken to run. If Republicans would just have acted like human beings, like Wellstone's opponent Rudy Boschwitz did, and recognize the political speech was just a grieving friend saying things he shouldn't have, and offered condolences instead of deceptive spin, Franken's win probably wouldn't have happened, because he probably wouldn't have run.
That's where the intensity of this race came from, the lies, the phony outrage, and the "he's dead, get over it" bumper stickers. Frankly, they motivated many DFLers to step up and try to fill part of our Wellstone-sized hole.
I'm not sure we realized how big a hole Wellstone would leave behind until it was there, and we discovered we couldn't just have Walter Mondale jump in to fill it. While we were mourning, Republicans brought out the meanness and used public misunderstandings to spread lies that lead to a political empty jacket defeating Mondale for the seat Wellstone looked likely to retain. We felt like the floor fell out from under us, but the Republicans handed us the motivation to rebuild, and do more than win the seat Wellstone had occupied. |
| Without Wellstone's death, the disastrous memorial, and the shock of Mondale's defeat, there would not only have been no candidate Franken, but no Camp Wellstone. Many candidates for offices right down to the local races wouldn't have thought of running for public office. Though Wellstone preached and relied on grassroots politics, I can't help thinking many more of us realized the need to do our part and not rely on the candidate than would have with Wellstone there, bearing so much of the burden.
The revived DFL now holds all statewide offices except governor, which Pawlenty won by a narrow plurality in a fluke. The DFL has both houses of the legislature, two seats from veto-proof majorities, the only competitive congressional seats are the three Republican ones, and the GOP can forget Minnesota as a presidential swing state without a Minnesota GOPer on the ticket. Maybe not even then.
And now our biggest problem in the governor race is we have many legitimate candidates.
So now the GOP feels like the floor fell out from beneath them. In a way I sympathize, but then I remember "he's dead, get over it".
But then I remember how much Republicans motivated us by gloating while we were mourning, and I don't want to help them the same way. So, those of you happy about recent election results, no gloating. Don't let them put out their conspiracy theories of Franken's stolen election without answering, but don't give them legitimate cause to feel there are smirks to be wiped off our faces. As crazy as they are right now, as much as I'm sure they would deny they're mourning like some weak namby-pamby liberal, at some point, they'll work on filling their hole. The crazies will insist Coleman was robbed and seek revenge, nothing we can do will stop that, but let's not make the saner Republicans open to the vengeful appeals. Make them motivate their non-core supporters with issues or candidates, and not with the memory of liberal Democrats laughing at them. |
