Who Would Paul Wellstone Vote For?

[Paulie]

24. I met Paul Wellstone (along with Jim Hightower and Dr. Quentin Young) in Chicago in 1998

At an event hosted by "In These Times". I was attending as a member of DSA Chicago. I still have my Wellstone for President bumper stickers from when we were trying to draft him.

Back to Basics: A Conference on the Future of the American Left

by Harold Taggart and Gene Birmingham

"To explore how we (the Left) can increase our presence in the mainstream of American political and intellectual life" was the way James Weinstein, editor of In These Times magazine, stated the purpose of the "Back to Basics Conference". The conference was held Oct. 9-11, at Chicago's Congress Hotel. Several hundred people attended the conference, which In These Times magazine sponsored and managed. In practice the conference urged the Left to abandon its dead-end, self-destructive course toward cultural politics and return to class politics.

Guests, speakers and panelists included a wide variety of stellar figures of the Left. Syndicated talk show host, Jim Hightower, was emcee for the Friday evening (Oct. 9) plenary session, and typified the tone of the conference. Sandwiched in among his hilarious down-home Texas jokes were serious calls to fight predatory corporations and embrace Joe six-pack.

Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, the Left's primary preference for president in the 2000 election, key-noted the conference with an emphasis on the Left's need to join the middle and lower economic segments of society in a common effort for reform if needed changes are to be made in the electoral process. As opposed to the Republican's equating of morality with sex, he defined morality in terms of a living wage, affordable health care, quality education, adequate nutrition for all children and curbing domestic violence, all of which are true family values. Republicans cloak greed and selfishness behind the mantle of "individual opportunity". Wellstone wants us to campaign for education, health care and jobs, saying, "We all do better when we all do better".

At the Oct. 10 plenary, Dr. Quentin Young described the sick U.S. health care system, which costs $4,000 per person. Canadians pay half as much for universal care, better care, and a life span two years longer than ours. The HMOs, PPOs, etc., represent capitalism in its purest state: profits have priority over patients.

Environmentalist Barbara Dudley emphasized a need repeated by others, that the Left has to reach out to the beer and pretzels working majority in America. Rather than viewing the struggle as Left vs. Right, she called us to see it as top vs. bottom, with the largest group in the middle, where our focus should be. Pointing out that most Leftists are past age 40, the need to enlist youth is obvious. No one expected Marx's prediction of capitalism's collapse to occur. In fact, very few mentioned his name at all.

Joel Rogers, founder of The New Party, listed people's concerns: education, campaign finance reform, environment, raising the minimum wage, and concern about global capitalism. Neither Democrats nor Republicans take this list seriously. Liberalism relied on favorable government regulation and mass politics to deal with problems. A new time calls for new politics, emphasizing economic strategy, citizen participation, and electoral strategy.

http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng61.html