Countless second guesses follow Wellstone memorial

"Already a little uneasy about the length and the tone of the memorial service held four days after the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, master of ceremonies George Latimer grew more alarmed when Rick Kahn's eulogy veered into a startling plea to Republicans to "help us win this election for Paul Wellstone."

Latimer thought of his options. He was prepared to help speakers off the stage who broke down, but Kahn clearly wasn't rendered speechless. A corrective comment could be offered, but that would be presumptuous and unfair to a man who was clearly overwrought by grief. The quick-witted Latimer, former St. Paul mayor, ended up making what he calls a "feeble" stab at humor, noting that Kahn did call for "bipartisanship."

"Nobody gave me the job of editor, or director," he says now, adding that nobody else was in charge of the message that night

Therein was the essence of the problem -- many organizers and DFL observers agree -- after a long, painful year to think about it.

Whether the memorial helped tip the election in Republican Norm Coleman's favor, or even enabled the national Republican sweep of 2002, as some have suggested, might never be resolved. There is consensus, though, that there was a lack of dispassionate, centralized control over image, content and length of the event, intended as a public grieving and a "celebration" of Wellstone, his wife, their daughter and three campaign members who died in the Oct. 25 plane crash."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/4180995.html

While I don't dissagree with anything that happened, in reflection I think It should have never been broadcast. We were people who had just experienced a horrible horrible loss, you expected us to be rational?

I wish they had had it at a larger venue and that any converage of it had been limited to Cspan at least.

It doesn't matter what Rick or anyone else said. The Republicans would find something to get their undies bunched up and campaign while not campaigning.

This was the ugliest campaign I've ever seen in a nation where camagning is less about issues and more about smearing opposing candidates with feces.

Stomping on someone who just lost a best friend and members of that best friend's family is lower than the sludge at the bottom of an outdoor privy.

Pretty much the basic requirement for being a Republican candidate, don't you think?

You're right, of course. The memorial service could have been nothing more than a moment of silence and the Republicans would have found a way to distort it. It's because they're evil people.

I think the RNC, still smarting from the sympathy vote that went to the deceased Mel Carnahan in Missouri (so that he beat living incumbent John Ashcroft), was trying to find a way to turn the sympathy response around - from the moment the plane went down.

The nature of the Kahn speech, and a few other aspects to the Memorial, gave the spin meisters the ability to do it - slickly. The media echo chamber played the part well. Suddenly the victims of a tragedy, became the focal point of flipping the victimhood to the candidate (and his party) who had been 'subject to' the political tone of the Memorial.

The signs were there already.

There were trumped up reports that "Cheney had been asked not to attend!" Not included in most of those reports was the fact that it was the security required for a visit of a sitting Vice President (the active pres/vicepres detail is larger and more active, I believe than the scaled back detail of former pres/vice pres), was a concern - and that it would interfere with the public nature of the Memorial (remember that the public response was so large that many people viewed the Memorial from outside - weathering the cold to do so). Funny, but no big fuss was made this past September, when the VPres was requested NOT to attend the 911 services/memorial.... because of the (you guessed it) security detail and that it might hamper the participants (survivors and others) of the event.

If it had not been Kahn's speech, the hubub would have focused on the crowd's alleged "booing" of republican leaders (which reports from those there said were rather quiet, compared to how it was reported). Or it would have focused on anything that could be spun to try to washout/counter the sympathy vote. And whatever it would have been, the media would have played its faithful lapdog role to trumpet the message and attempt to 'upset the sensibilities' of the Minnesota voting public.

Kahn's was embarrassing. I'm not positive, but I think Kahn was behind me in a supermarket a week after the memorial ... I wanted to ask or say something, but didn't know what ... Kahn should have been yanked. Anyway, this is the first I heard this: "Richman says organizers did not realize until the day before the event that much of it would be carried live" ... perhaps a reason, but not an excuse.

An AFSCME friend related the following story after the Mondale-Coleman debate ... Mondale exited the building alone from the back door, alone; Mondale said something about wanting to go duck hunting ...

The old spin...
"Whether the memorial helped tip the election in Republican Norm Coleman's favor, or even enabled the national Republican sweep of 2002, as some have suggested, might never be resolved."

Jeez were people shocked? Doubt it...that was called by the Media. The media told us HOW we should have remembered Paul.

Never met the man, but listened and read his passioned speeches...Paul would have expected nothing less than a free-spirited unabashed celebration of Democracy and the Democratic Party.

Now if it were Joe Liebermann...then it would have been inappropriate...

I listened to the memorial via webcast and I was THRILLED listening to Rick Kahn. I think Rick Kahn should take over for McAuliffe. How DARE the GOP tell US what's appropriate??? Who cares what they think.