The dictionary defines "travesty" as "a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation". That is what I think of when I think of Norm Coleman on the anniversary of the death of Paul Wellstone. This is a personal feeling but, in my mind, there is no Senate seat I want taken from the Republicans more than that seat in Minnesota.

  Each year, I remember Wellstone’s death on this day six years ago. It’s inscribe in my electronic datebook so I won’t forget. It gives me a moment to think for a few minutes about someone who I personally miss on the national stage but, more important, his absence is a gaping hole in the political leadership of the country.

  I’m basically a movement person. I don’t get enthralled or fall in love with politicians because, in my experience, too many of them get into public service for the wrong reasons and even the best of them are only as good as the movements that hold them accountable and threaten them with the loss of their positions if they stray.

  Wellstone was not that type. He was OF THE MOVEMENT. Here are some things that make this so clear (and you can get a lot more at Wellstone Action):

On money and politics:

The ethical issue of our time is that money has come to dominate politics and the democracy my father so deeply believed in is severely compromised. Campaigns match image-makers against image-makers, pollsters against pollsters and millions of dollars against millions of dollars. It is a superficial, trivialized politics of attack ads, manipulated advertising, and nine-second sound bites. It is a politics that treats people as if they are political nerds who know or care nothing about the issues of our time.

And most importantly, money corrupts the process. This is a much more serious corruption than the wrong doing of a single individual. This is the kind of corruption which results in too few people having too much wealth, power and say and too many people being denied a voice. It is a politics of democracy for the few, not democracy for the many.

Money, all too often, determines who runs for office. Should a person have to be a millionaire to run for the U.S. Senate? Money, all too often, determines what both Democrats and Republicans have to say on the issues for fear of offending big contributors. Should a candidate mortgage his or her vision to the wealthy and powerful and privileged. Money, all too often, determines how our elected officials spend their time in Washington.

Politics becomes about amassing huge amounts of money. Issues and accountability do count when it comes to the cozy relationship between a Senator or Representative and the political action committees who contribute the big bucks. They give the money to influence legislation and expect results. But during campaigns and elections most of what the people get is images. Not issues, not accountability. As a result people view politics as phony, irrelevant to their lives, and a game where the rules are rigged for the well healed and powerful interest, not ordinary citizens.

That barely half the people voted in our last Presidential election is a real indictment of "the way we do politics" today. I will conduct my campaign differently. No PAC money from outside Minnesota. I will be accountable to the people, not the oil companies and other giant corporations from outside Minnesota. [emphasis added]

  On the environment, in a speech on Earth Day:

If you come out to western Minnesota, West central Minnesota and for that matter most of Minnesota, and you see the land with its bountiful harvest and the trees and the rivers and the streams, you are reminded, that environment and our natural resources is a precious resource. And you feel an awesome sense of responsibility because I know, and I think most of you know, it is really important that those of us who are here or our children or loved ones or grand children, have the opportunity to live in a beautiful and healthy world. But on present course, I think that that won’t happen. We did make some progress on some pollution and some progress on water pollution, but it’s upsetting to hear on television or to hear on the radio or to read in the paper that if you are a woman expecting a child, you shouldn’t eat fish out of a different state, because of mercury PCPs, many of them carry thousands of miles away. It is upsetting to hear if you have a small child, that lets just eat fish out of our lakes in Minnesota. And it is also clear that a whole new set of environmental issues have kind of exploded. What we hear about the toxic waste dump sites, now literally mountains of garbage and landfills. And now, we hear about a new set of issues that can’t really be solved without the global community.

  On unions, at a Sheetmetal Workers convention in 1999:

  Because of you, the right to join a union. Because of you, some protection against the terror of unemployment. Because of you, some protection against strike breaking. Because of you, minimum wage. Because of you, safer workplace. Because of you, more bread on the table. Because of you, civil rights movement. Because of you, more protection for people with disabilities. Because of you, ending of discrimination against people because of gender. This is a mighty and an important tradition and I’m very proud to speak here today with you because of that tradition…

I want to end it this way. It’s my personal vision and I only say because I’m among friends, I want to tell you I would not be a United States senator without the support of labor, I say that everywhere, it’s true.

Can I conclude on this personal note? As I get older I learn more. When our first child was born, I was only twenty years old. Now we have three grandkids now and our oldest has just turned eight. When she was a baby, I held her in my hands and I thought to myself "I know what I believe in." What I believe is that whatever infant I hold in my hands – it doesn’t matter the color of skin, doesn’t matter rich or poor, doesn’t matter religion, doesn’t matter boy or girl, doesn’t matter urban or rural – every child in our country, the greatest country in the world, should have the same opportunity to develop her full potential, and his full potential. That is the American dream, that is the goodness of our country, that is what unites and binds and ties all of us together as Americans, and that is the economic justice of unions, and that is why I come here as a United States Senator to honor the sheetmetal workers and to tell you that we have our work cut out for us.

  And he had a sense of humor too as he showed in this speech:

I was organizing in the farm areas in the mid 1980s, I was teaching and organizing. Farmers were being dragged under, they were losing their farms, not only where they worked but where they lived. They had no empowering explanation as to why they were losing their farms or what they could do and that became fertile ground (no pun intended) for politics of hatred: Posse Comatatas and some of the precursors to the armed militia, anti-Semitics, racists and all the rest. So my friends took me aside, I’m the son of a Jewish immigrant who was born in the Ukraine, and they said maybe you should just stop speaking – and organizing because you know there’s a lot of anti-Semitism out there. But you know when you are 5 foot 5 you never listen to that advice (and some of you know what I mean). So I went out to the town of Alexandria, Minnesota and I spoke at a farm gathering and I finished up speaking and this big guy (lots of guys look big to me) came up and he said, "What nationality are you?"

And I said, "I’m American."

He said, "Where were you born?"

I said, "Washington D.C." "Where are your parents from?" I told him my dad was born in the Ukraine then his family moved to Russia and he fled persecution, came to our country and my mother’s family came from the Ukraine, she grew up on the lower east side of New York City.

He said, "Then you are a Jew?"

Now, I wrestled at the University of North Carolina and I want you all to know that I was ready to fight. So I tensed up and I said, "Yes I am."

And he stuck out a big hand and said, "Well buddy, I am a Finn and us minorities have got to struggle together!"

  Wellstone was the only Democratic Senator running for re-election in 2002 who had the guts to stand up and oppose the Iraq War resolution:

A fuller picture of Wellstone and his beliefs is here and I love this because it starts out with a speech before my union, the UAW and the fact that the narrator points out "he didn’t need a poll to figure out what he believed": If isn’t clear, I loved the guy. There isn’t much to say about Coleman, other than he disgraces the seat that he holds. Get it back. For Paul.