Four years ago today, I was (more or less) your average American.  Two and a half years out of college, with a good job for someone my age, I was much more concerned with finding a real direction for my own life than I was in politics or current events.

Living in a heavily liberal area, it was only a matter of time before the waves of distrust, discontent, and disgust would come crashing on the shores of my consciousness, finally stirring my awareness.  But it wasn’t until I read the headlines of Kerry’s concession that it all really hit me as a tidal wave.

From that point on, I knew that there was no way I could go back to that bubble world in which I had been living.  I have made it my passion and my duty for the past 2 years to try to make up the learning I’d missed in the first 26.  For much of that, I owe the many fine authors here and at various other blogs and media outlets.

The one thing that becomes obvious after less than 5 minutes of reading any liberal or progressive blog is this : We need a champion.  A hero.  A shining light we can rally around.

As I meandered unknowing in my little self centered world 4 years ago, our last true hero died.
On October 25, 2002 our world grew darker as a shining light was extinguished.  At the time, I knew little of a man who, though I never knew of him while alive, would come to be a personal hero of mine.

After turning the last of the now tear-stained pages of Paul Wellstone’s Conscience of a Liberal, I realize that I have read nothing else that resonated with so much truth.  Nor have I read a more powerful indictment of our national priorities.

I’d like to share a few of his insights here.

Politics is not about left, right, or center.  It is about speaking to the concerns and circumstances of people’s lives.  One issue that matters greatly to people is health care; almoste veryone has had it affect their lives.  It certainly has mine, starting with my parents.

(snip)

I do not understand why we as a community – a national community – do not make it our goal that older Americans and people with disabilities be able to live at home in as near normal circumstances as possible for as long as possible.  This is a matter of dignity.  When you get older, wouldn’t you want to be able to stay at home, even in declining health?  The nightmare for older people is that they will be put in a nursing home, and lose all the independence, as well as their savings.

He also goes on to discuss the necessity of paying decent wages to those nursing home staff that are necessary, instead of making it a minimum wage job.  This is one of the recurring themes throughout the book : making sure those who care for those who need help, are fairly compensated.

When historians write about American politics over the past several decades, the ultimate indictment will be of the ways in which we have abandoned children and devalued the work of adults who take care of children.

Damn straight.  We need to stop looking at education as overhead in our governmental budget, and start considering it an investment in the future.  If we pay to give as many kids as possible a solid educational foundation, we will have a much more efficient (not to mention more satisfied) society, and will reap monetary rewards far and above what was originally spent when these kids start to bring their skills to bear in the workforce.

I’m just going to paste one more in here so I don’t violate any fair use laws, but this one cuts straight to the heart of a discussion many of us are really passionate about.

A progressive politics is a winning politics, as long as it is not organized in a way that is top-down and elitist.  It must respect the capacity of ordinary citizens and focus on workaday majority issues.

I have never understood arguments for the need for politicians to “move to the center” to get elected.  What is the operational definition of “the center”?  If what is meant is that you need to have more votes than your opponent, then I am all for being in the center.  But this is too obvious.

(snip)

So what is the center?  The empirical evidence is irrefutable.

[ note from ejmw : I am going to paraphrase this section ]

75% of voters think business has too much influence in Washington.
71% of voters agree that companies that lobby and contribute in return for government contracts are taking part in “legalized bribery”.
54% of voters agree that “the economoic boom has not reached people like them”.
61% of voters believe that a projected budget surplus should be invested in either education or health care.
18% of voters prefer an across the board tax cut.

The personal accounts he gives of the many constituents he talked to about various issues are often heartbreaking.  In reading his words it is obvious that this is a man who internalized every tear shed and every quivering voice, using them to steel his resolve and strengthen his will.

This is a man that fought for all of us, and had both a loving heart for the present and a clear eye for the future.

Keepers of the flames, can’t you feel your names?
Can’t you hear your babies crying?
But now the dreams and waking screams that
ever last the night
So build a wall, behind it crawl
And hide until it’s light
   – Metallica, Hero of the Day

Who are the keepers of that flame?  Where are they in a time when they are needed so desperately?

(lighthouse image borrowed from here: http://www.newpointcomfort.com/history/history_html/lh_history.html)

Update [2006-10-25 14:13:7 by ejmw]: Here is a great tribute to Paul. I found it through this dKos diary, so the site may be a bit slow as it’s probably getting hammered right now. But it’s well worth it, and bring your kleenex.