Local residents have fond memories of senator

By Dana Yost
and Rae Kruger
Independent Staff

MARSHALL — If you look closely at the green and white Wellstone for Senate signs on people’s lawns, you’ll see a local name at the bottom in fine print.
Tony Doom Supply Co. Inc. of Marshall makes the signs that Sen. Paul Wellstone used in his run for Senate this year. Doom and Wellstone had been friends since 1982, and Doom had grown used to getting calls from Wellstone or talking to him at political events.
However, on Friday — in the hours after the plane crash that killed Wellstone and seven others, including his wife and daughter — Doom was getting phone calls of another sort.
“People were looking at the signs or bumper stickers and seeing my name, and they were calling me,” Doom said. “They might have thought they were calling (Wellstone’s office), but they were getting me. And they were saying ‘please Mr. Doom, please tell me it’s not true.’
“And I had to tell them it was true. So today, I’ve had to grieve with people from all over the state who have been calling me.
“The last one I talked to was a woman from Minneapolis, who broke down on the phone. She just bawled and bawled. She told me how important he was to their community. I told her ‘I grieve with you, ma’am. We grieve together.’”
Many local residents grieved over Wellstone’s death Friday. Not everyone may have liked the animated senator’s liberal politics, but many saw him as a passionate lawmaker who was a champion of regular people and of issues important to southwest Minnesota.
“Well, at this point, it’s a sense of great loss,” said Jerry Schaefer of Ghent, a labor union organizer with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
Schaefer, who was the chairman for Wellstone’s southwest Minnesota campaign in 1990, knew Wellstone for about 20 years. He met the senator at a demonstration and shared similar views on hunger, poverty and war.
“Paul was a friend of mine,” Schaefer said. “I worked with him on things for a lot of years.
“I knew him when he was a professor at Carleton (College). I’m really devastated. There is a great sense of loss personally, for (Schaefer’s wife) Kathy and I.” Schaefer broke down as he talked about Wellstone.
“There was no question, anytime there was a cause on behalf of the people, he was battling, whether it was veterans rights, senior citizens, working people,” Schaefer said. “He took on all the tough causes. He advocated for the underdog all the time. I don’t see anyone out there to fill that void.”
Schaefer said he received calls Friday from people wondering how to get a Wellstone lawn sign.
“We’ll get them up,” he said.
One of the underdogs Wellstone fought for was the family farmer, said Paul Sobocinski of Wabasso.
Sobocinski also met Wellstone in the early 1980s, during the area’s farm crisis. Sobocinski was a member of the farm group Groundswell, and remembers Wellstone coming to the area to speak on farmers’ behalf. Sobocinski also has worked with Wellstone through Land Stewardship.
“The first time I met him was in Ivanhoe, on the courthouse steps (giving a speech for farmers),” Sobocinski said. “Paul Wellstone was a clear and distinct voice for the family farmer. He spoke up on our behalf and provided leadership.
“He had a passion for the family farmer, and for the economic situation that we’ve been facing.”
Sobocinski recalled that, in 1998, Wellstone led a series of meetings in the Midwest aimed at strengthening the market for pork producers. Wellstone also carried a packer-ban bill that was passed in the Senate, where he brought it to a floor vote even though the Senate Ag Committee had killed it.
“What he did so well in the Senate was be a voice of people under economic stress, a voice of farmers, workers and others who did not have a voice,” Sobocinski said. “He was not afraid to stand up to corporate America. Stand up and fight. That’s the kind of person I saw in Sen. Wellstone.”
Doom is the District 21A DFL assistant chairman and is well-known in state DFL politics. He often saw Wellstone at DFL events, including one last January on the day of the funeral for Doom’s former wife, and mother of his son. She died unexpectedly, and Doom’s son took her passing hard.
“And I was pretty involved in the grief process,” Doom recalled Friday. “I went from a memorial service in Fergus Falls to an open house at Wellstone’s campaign office.
“Paul asked me how I was doing, and I said I was grieving more my son, who lost his mother. Well, with all these people — elbow to elbow — and with the press there at the open house, Paul put his arm around me and bowed his head and, for 20 seconds, he prayed for my son.
“From there, I had to go into the bathroom and recover.”
Doom said Wellstone’s sincerity should never be doubted.
“Not if you met the person,” Doom said. “His human connections; he was so compassionate.
“So many people, you walk up to them and you can tell they’re a phony. With Paul, you’d walk up to him and know he was no phony. You’d say here is a genuine, compassionate person who cared about issues of importance to us.”
State Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy, was shaken by Wellstone’s death.
“It’s a terrible tragedy,” Vickerman said. “I’m in shock like everybody else. This is a great blow to Minnesota. He’s our senior senator.
“There was only one Paul. I don’t think there can be another Paul. He’ll never be replaced.
“At conventions he’d walk over and give you a great big hug. Paul was at Turkey Days in Worthington and he came up and I got a great big hug. He was a little short guy with a fire in his belly.”
Wellstone was adamant about the causes he supported and wore his liberal ideology proudly, even calling his autobiography, “The Conscience of a Liberal.”
“I didn’t agree with him on everything,” Vickerman said. “(But) the state’s gonna miss him, he was a strong person. He rattled a few cages, but they respected him.”
“With Paul, there was real, inspired debate on issues,” Schaefer said. “No matter what side you were on.”
Even with the disagreements on issues, Republicans understood that Wellstone’s commitment and passion were genuine.
“I’m still in a little bit of shock,” said state Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall. “I’ve worked very well with his office over the last six years.
“Certainly Sen. Wellstone and his wife worked hard for Minnesota. He was a very hard worker. He was honest and dedicated.”
David Sturrock, a political science professor at Southwest State who is also involved in the Republican party at the local and national levels, said Wellstone stayed true to his convictions even after 12 years in the Senate.
“He certainly learned the legislative process and how to use it to get things done,” Sturrock said. “But he was also still a rebel, and willing to buck the system and was never afraid to be in the minority.
“I don’t think his voting record changed very much. He was always true to what he was.”
Sturrock said Wellstone’s relentlessness drew people to him.
“He had unbelievable energy, which he could channel into his causes, issues and campaigns,” Sturrock said. “That rubbed off on a lot of people. He had an extreme ability to fire people up...
“He was still doing it after 12 years. That struck me. It’s a rare thing to have that kind of effect in one election, one time. And he was still (doing so).”
“We certainly lost a good man,” said Pat Mellenthin of Marshall, who is active in the local DFL. “This is a great loss for all of Minnesota.”
“He was a personal friend. It’s hard to get beyond the personal loss. Personally, we will miss the passion he had for what he felt strongly about.”
Mellenthin said Wellstone’s recent vote against U.S. military action in Iraq was an example of how he’d stand up for his beliefs, even when many others disagreed.
“I think it was a good example of Wellstone,” Mellenthin said. “Despite the political risk, he felt it was the right thing to do.”
She resented that people said that vote was against the military. Mellenthin’s son had served in Afghanistan, and is waiting to see if he’d go overseas. She was thankful that Wellstone remember these were people we’d be sending to war.
At the Women’s Rural Advocacy Program in Marshall, there was grief over the loss of Sen. Wellstone and his wife Sheila.
“This is a sad day for the battered women’s movement,” said Karen Brady, the program coordinator at WRAP. “(Sheila) was a strong supporter for us. She made many visits to WRAP. We had good contact with them. This is a sad day for the women’s movement.”
Sheila Wellstone understood the reasons behind battery, Brady said. “She got it.”
She recognized that class, race and other issues affected battery, Brady said, and she looked at those issues as important. She picked up on the issues before others did, Brady said.
“She and Paul were the biggest instigators in getting the Violence Against Women Act in place,” Brady said. “I’m not sure who will replace Sheila.”
Wellstone worked on issues at the core of Private Industry Council programs, said Juanita Lauritsen, executive director.
Wellstone was at the forefront of workforce issues, welfare reform and public assistance issues, Lauritsen said. He quickly grasped the issues, had the insight of one who had worked for years on those issues and was tireless in his effort, Lauritsen said.
PIC and Wellstone worked on issues of the common person, Lauritsen said. PIC works with retraining people who have been laid off from jobs, training people to move into jobs from public assistance and on other issues including day care access, transportation and others.
“This is devesting. No question,” Lauritsen said. “This is a major loss, not only for Minnesota but for the nation.”
His death has left her questioning if and how anyone can replace him, Lauritsen said.
“Who will fight, who will champion the issues? Who is there out there that will step to the table?” Lauritsen said. “That’s a major question. I’m sitting here and I do not have the answer to that.”