California Democrats decline to endorse Feinstein

[ehrnst]

191. Paul knew how to get things done

I found it disappointing that so many on the Left viewed him as a compromised, career politician sellout towards the end, especially when he went back on his promise to only serve two terms, and was planning a third run. He saw just how complicated it is to get things done, and wanted to use his experience to move it along. He had hired more "inside the beltway" veterans as staffers, rather than activists who meant well, but didn't have the ability to do the administrative gear-greasing maintenance that is 85% of DC political office. As a former professor, he felt that was as important to being a good politician as keeping office hours, a good class syllabus and gradebook was to effective teaching. He also, after a lot of consulting with experts, had decided that single payer would not be as likely as to work as Hillary's concept (that at that time, was to the left of Obamacare). He worked across the aisle with Domenici on a bipartisan bill to require health insurance companies to cover mental health and substance abuse. He was a team player.

He was genuinely friendly, and easy to work with, and felt you could get more done with honey than vinegar, like his Minnesota residence taught him. I remember him once standing up on a chair at the Minneapolis airport, in a red union suit, jeans and suspenders, after being mobbed by constituents before boarding a flight to DC and telling everyone to come see him in the Hart Senate office building. My father-in-law was a Minnesota politician (what we would call a "Yankee Republican" - pro-gay rights, pro-environmental protections, pro-Planned Parenthood, who passed away in 2000 before he could be disgusted with what the GOP has become) who worked with Jim Ramstad and Paul as well. Jim Ramstad was the one who got Paul's legislation to a floor vote after Paul's death.

I doubt Paul would be considered a "progressive" by today's standards. Paul was not a gadfly. He has become this towering figure that he actually wasn't before his death. When Al Franken called Hillary a "Wellstone progressive," he was dead on.

But I know that everyone in the progressive community in DC was sobbing the day he died. And not just us.


http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/264093-remembering-my-friend-senator-paul-wellstone-