Paul Wellstone - Political Career

Political Career

In 1982, he ran for state auditor but lost to Arne Carlson. In 1988, he was the Minnesota campaign manager for Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.

In 1990, Wellstone ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Rudy Boschwitz, beginning the race as a serious underdog. He narrowly won the election, after being outspent by a 7-to-1 margin. Wellstone played off of his underdog image by airing a number of quirky, humorous advertisements created by political consultant Bill Hillsman including "Fast Paul" and "Looking for Rudy", a pastiche of the 1989 Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. Boschwitz was also hurt by a letter his supporters wrote, on campaign stationery, to members of the Minnesota Jewish community days before the election, accusing Wellstone of being a "bad Jew" for marrying a Gentile and not raising his children in the Jewish faith. (Boschwitz, like Wellstone, is Jewish.) Wellstone's reply, widely broadcast on Minnesota television, was, "He has a problem with Christians, then." Boschwitz was the only incumbent U.S. senator to lose re-election that year.

Wellstone defeated Boschwitz again for re-election in 1996. During that campaign, Boschwitz ran ads accusing Wellstone of being "embarrassingly liberal" and calling him "Senator Welfare". Boschwitz accused Wellstone of supporting flag burning, a move that some believe possibly backfired. Prior to that accusation, Boschwitz had significantly outspent Wellstone on campaign advertising and the race was closely contested, but Wellstone went on to beat Boschwitz by a nine-point margin in a three way race (Dean Barkley received 7%).

Wellstone's upset victory in 1990 and subsequent re-election in 1996 were also credited to a massive grassroots campaign, which inspired college students, poor people, and minorities to get involved in politics for the very first time. In 1990, the number of young people involved in the campaign was so notable that shortly after the election, Walter Mondale told Wellstone that "the kids won it for you". Wellstone also spent a large portion of his Senate career working with the Hmong American community in Minnesota, an immigrant community that had not traditionally been involved in American politics. Wellstone also spent a great deal of his Senate career cultivating the veterans community - he served on the Senate Committee on Veteran's Affairs, successfully campaigned for atomic veterans to receive compensation from the federal government, and for increased spending on health care for veterans.

In 2002, Wellstone campaigned for re-election to a third term (despite an earlier campaign pledge to only serve two terms) against Republican Norm Coleman, the two-term mayor of St. Paul, formerly a Democrat who had supported Wellstone in his 1996 re-election campaign. Earlier that year he announced he had a mild form of multiple sclerosis, causing the limp he had believed was an old wrestling injury.

Wellstone was in a line of left-of-center or liberal senators of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). The first three, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, and Walter Mondale, were all prominent in the national Democratic Party. Shortly after joining the Senate, South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings approached Wellstone and told him, "You remind me of Hubert Humphrey. You talk too much."