Six months after the election, Franken certainly did not fail to note Coleman’s hurtful assessment of his predecessor: “To be very blunt-and God watch over Paul’s soul-I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. And there was much to comment on in Minnesota, for Wellstone had died just 11 days before the election and his opponent, Norm Coleman, had not exactly stopped campaigning in the days after Wellstone’s death. By then, he had traded comedy for political and media commentary. The eulogies lasted three and a half hours.Īl Franken ’73, who was a friend of Wellstone and had raised money for him, was among the mourners. Twenty thousand people jammed into a Minneapolis arena to mourn. On October 25, 2002-just two weeks after the Senate vote-a plane carrying Wellstone, his wife, his daughter, two aides, and two pilots crashed in northern Minnesota. Wellstone voted against the war, but Cheney never had to retaliate. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.” And when the second Bush administration was rounding up votes for an invasion of Iraq, Wellstone said he heard from Vice President Dick Cheney: “If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. ![]() Bush’s reaction: “Who is that chickenshit?” An equal-opportunity offender, Wellstone was the only Democrat to vote against President Bill Clinton’s welfare-reform bill. ![]() senator from Minnesota, he voted against the Gulf War. Paul Wellstone didn’t mind taking unpopular positions.
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