I worked as an intern on the now infamous 2002 Wellstone campaign. This week, KE04 moved in to the old WFS headquarters in St. Paul. This provided me with a chance to go back after nearly 2 years and face it all over again. Below are my reactions:
Coming back to a place with so many powerful memories is damn hard. While people around the country loved Paul for what he did, there is a different set of emotions that come when you are a part of the campaign team. While I wasn't staff, I put in very long hours working on the various tasks that interns are given. The kind of things that are too important for a volunteer to do, but that dont meet the level of needing a staffer. This kind of closeness leads to a different perspective, and a very different reaction to the events of October 2002.
When I heard that the KE campaign was using the old Wellstone headquarters, I was at first very excited. I think more at the fact that this gave me an excuse to go back to a place that held so much meaning for my life. I have driven past the building whenever I was able over the last two years. Sometimes with a fondness, a smile to remember the good times. Sometimes with tears in my eyes as I thought about that cold day in October.
Upon returning today, I was struck first by the fact that the overhang was repainted, blue, it used to be green. As I walked up the stairs (it was on the second floor) there were photos of Kerry, and some signs. When Wellstone was there, it was a wall of volunteer names.
The office, which was always alive during the Wellstone days, always a mess, and chaotic, seemed sterile. The office now featured many closed doors and sealed off areas, a big change from the Wellstone office. I was immediatley dispatched by disinterested looking staffer, and given a form to fill out so they could bombard me with requests to volunteer. What struck me then and there was that it really felt as though the KE campaign were trying to harness a grassroots feeling for a corporate campaign. The result was a feeling of astroturf, very ackward, it just didn't seem to fit. Like Dukakis in an army helmet, or Al kissing tipper, I envisioned Kerry getting excited flailing his arms as he rallied the base to fight. It was almost laughable, if it weren't so tragic.
I walked out after that, and the more I thought about it, the more I became angry. I found that I really resented the fact that Kerry's campaign had moved in there. I resented that they had hijacked the Wellstone legacy like so many Bush supporters hauling around Reagan's. I was struck by the fact that Kerry is no Wellstone, in fact the biggest problem with a decision to put the KE headquarters in that building, is the fact that this becomes abundantly clear, very quickly.
Not that Kerry should be Wellstone, but that Kerry seems very small in his shadow, which looms large here. While we embrace the comprimising logic behind ABB (which I understand) I was struck by how not okay I am with it. I am still a pro-Kerry voter I understand that he is a compromise. For me however, accepting his candidacy is a lot like accepting that Wellstone is gone. I don't like it, but it is the reality I live in.