Paul Wellstone - Aftermath

Aftermath

Don Hazen, executive editor of Alternet, wrote of the death, "Progressives across the land are in shock as the person many think of as the conscience of the Senate is gone." Wellstone died just 11 days before his potential re-election in a crucial race to maintain Democratic control of the Senate. Campaigning was halted by all sides. Minnesota law required that his name be stricken from the ballot, to be replaced by a candidate chosen by the party. The DFL selected former Vice President Walter Mondale to compete with Norm Coleman in the general election.

The memorial service for Wellstone and the other victims of the crash was held in Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota and was broadcast live on national TV. The lengthy service was dotted with political speeches, open advocacies for then-current political issues, and a giant beach ball batted around the crowd in the style of a beach party. Many high profile politicians attended the memorial, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and more than half of the U.S. Senate. The White House offered to send Vice-President Dick Cheney to the service, but the Wellstone family declined.

The memorial service was criticized by many conservatives as overly partisan, including radio host Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter Peggy Noonan, for having a political tone. Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who had stated his preference to appoint a Democrat to serve out the remainder of Wellstone's term through January 2003, "stormed out" of the "partisan foot-stomp" event and threatened to appoint "an ordinary citizen" instead. Some disputed this criticism, however; in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, comedian and political commentator Al Franken wrote that conservative media figures had distorted the event for political gain. On November 4, the day before the election, Ventura appointed state planning commissioner Dean Barkley, founder and chair of Ventura's Independence Party of Minnesota, to complete the remaining two months of Wellstone's Senate term; he had run against Wellstone in 1996.

Coleman received 49.5 percent of the vote to defeat Mondale and win Wellstone's seat. Six years later, he was narrowly defeated (by 200 votes) in his bid for reelection by Franken in 2008, in a three-way race that included Barkley.