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Republicans criticise service Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3398117.htmlhttp://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3398117.html
Republicans decry service as partisan
Kavita Kumar, Dane Smith and Patricia Lopez
Star Tribune
Published Oct. 30, 2002 REAX30
Though it was billed as a memorial service, many irate viewers and Republican leaders said the gathering for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and five others degenerated at times into a blatant political rally.
"What a complete, total, absolute sham," said Vin Weber, a former U.S. representative from Minnesota. "The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone's memory totally, completely and shamelessly for political gain. To them, Wellstone's death, apparently, was just another campaign event."
Many Republicans said the tone of the service was inappropriate, while other observers said it was a fitting tribute to a senator who dedicated his life to championing many Democratic issues.
"To have a somber hour memorial with an organ playing just doesn't seem it would be fitting for Paul and Sheila Wellstone," said Lilly Goren, chairwoman of the Political Science Department at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. "I don't know that it was excessively partisan, but it was partisan in the tradition of Paul Wellstone."
Republican political analyst and lobbyist Sarah Janecek, who attended the service at the University of Minnesota's Williams Arena, said: "I lost a lot of respect for my fellow Democrats." Janecek, who also co-authors the newsletter Politics in Minnesota, added: "I think it's so overboard that it will backfire."
Some critics pointed out that DFLers had agreed to a moratorium on campaigning until after Tuesday night's service. Also, some said it amounted to a more than three-hour-long free televised campaign ad.
Not all Republicans were critical of the service.
"This was their event," said former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. "They can do what they want. We're here tonight to say goodbye to a friend. That's all I'm thinking right now."
State DFL Party chair Mike Erlandson defended the service, saying the speeches were genuine and sincere.
"If my Republican friends want to look at this as a rally they can do that," he said. "It was a rally by some people not schooled in public speaking about some very special people."
State House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said it was disrespectful that the crowd cheered when former President Bill Clinton, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., appeared on the big monitors and that the crowd jeered when U.S. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and former GOP Sen. Rod Grams of Minnesota were on the screens.
"Paul Wellstone needed to have a memorial service as tribute to a . . . wonderful life, not a political rally," he said.
A speech by Rick Kahn, one of Wellstone's closest friends, shifted the tone of the event from memorial service to full-throated, foot-stomping, fist-pumping political rally.
He urged the crowd to "stand up for all the people he fought for . . . for working men and women . . . for all those who lack the strength to stand up on their own." His words brought thousands to their feet.
TV cameras then panned to a beaming Walter Mondale, Wellstone's likely replacement in the U.S. Senate race, which brought more cheers.
"If Paul Wellstone's legacy comes to an end, then our spirits will be crushed and we will drown in a river of tears," a clearly emotional Kahn said.
"We are begging you, do not let that happen. We are begging you to help us win this Senate election for Paul Wellstone."
In a move that brought gasps of delight from some and stony silence from a few, Kahn then began urging select Republicans to drop their partisanship and work for Wellstone's replacement.
He singled out some by name. To U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., Kahn said, "You know that Paul loved you. He needs you now. . . . Help us win this race."
Afterward, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said that Kahn was swept away by emotion and that Republicans should understand and not get angry.
"I've known Rick for 12 years," Harkin said. "To him, his whole life was Paul Wellstone. I know Rick feels that something very unfair happened. So I hope Republicans will find it in their heart to understand the emotion of this young man."
If the situation were reversed and Wellstone had been at such a memorial where a young man made such a request, Harkin said, "I think Paul Wellstone would have walked up to him and hugged him and said, 'You fight for what you believe in.' "
An unapologetic Kahn insisted afterward that his request was reasonable.
The Republicans he named, he said, "were dear friends of Paul's. Can they not one time, just one time, step forward for Paul and honor that friendship? Why can't they do that? One time, for one week. That's what we're asking. That they go out there and say Paul Wellstone did this wonderful work and we need to keep his legacy alive by sending his successor to his seat."
It was during Kahn's speech that Gov. Jesse Ventura and First Lady Terry Ventura got up shaking their heads and walked out. Lott also walked out during the service.
Ventura spokesman John Wodele, who wasn't at the service, said it would be "inappropriate to assume [that political rhetoric] was why he left." But of Kahn's speech, Wodele said, "It's too bad. I'd better not say anything else."
The speech provoked scores of calls to GOP headquarters and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Norm Coleman's campaign, said Bill Walsh, the state party's deputy executive director.
"They overplayed their hand, and our phones are ringing off the hook," he said. Many callers were offering to contribute money, Walsh said.
Carol Pegelow of Forest Lake, who watched the service on TV, said she sells funeral urns for a living and knows a little bit about grieving and what memorials are supposed to look like. And she didn't like what she saw.
"It was just too dragged out. It should have been for Paul's death, not for these people to get votes. This wasn't a memorial," Pegelow said.
Mark Kulda, managing editor of WCCO-TV, Channel 4, said the station received dozens of calls during the service. When asked whether he thought stations were giving free air time to Democrats, he said, "When this event was organized, it was organized as a memorial service. In our mind, it was entirely appropriate to broadcast a memorial service."
Scott Libin, news director at KSTP-TV, Channel 5, said the station was in a difficult position and couldn't respectfully stop coverage in the middle of the service when it went from "eulogy all the way to political pep rally.
"I don't think we could responsibly decide in advance not to cover this and I don't think we could courteously leave it while in the middle of it," he said.
When asked what the station might do to address complaints, he said the station probably wouldn't worry as much about over-covering a reported visit from President Bush on Sunday to garner support for Coleman.
Said Weber: "I'm urging all my Republican friends to demand equal time from the stations since this was NOT a memorial to Paul Wellstone. It was just a political event."
Richard Kobs, an Eden Prairie resident and a former Republican Party county chairman, said, "I am so absolutely disgusted with the political diatribe I've heard. . . . I think it's totally unjust when [Democrats] said there was a moratorium on this [campaigning] until tomorrow."
Walsh and other Republicans carefully refrained from panning the entire service. "I really think a lot of it was good and well done . . . voters are going to have to decide."
Still, he said he knew that the service became more than just a remembrance for the dead when he got a call from a reporter "who wanted some Republican response to the memorial.
"I said [to the reporter], 'Do you realize what you just said?' "
-- Staff Writers Chuck Haga, Rochelle Olson and Mark Brunswick contributed to this report.
-- The writers are at kkumar@startribune.com.
@startribune.com.
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