In 2006, I went Walzing across southern Minnesota in support of a “nobody” named Tim Walz. At the time, he was running an upstart, underdog congressional campaign as a plain-spoken progressive populist in what was then considered a solid-red rural district. He didn’t have a chance against the lobbyist-funded, Bush-backed GOP incumbent.
Except… Tim won! He did it the new “old-fashioned” way: By being himself, appealing directly to working class families, unabashedly confronting corporate power, and rallying volunteers in a door-to-door grassroots campaign.
Some Minnesota friends asked me to do a bit of stumping with him, and it was both exciting and great fun to team up with such a genuine, down-home Democrat. I later learned that while he was a first-time candidate, he came prepared—he had honed his political organizing knowledge by going through Camp Wellstone.
That was the unique, highly-effective, how-to school for progressive candidates and activists, created by the family and staff of my friend Paul Wellstone (the sorely missed US senator, joyful anti-establishment agitator, and grassroots strategist). Those Wellstone camps produced thousands of local people across the country skilled in the nuts and bolts of good, “litte-d” democratic politics. Sadly, Paul is gone, but we sure need to revive his camps! (Two great places to start: these resources from RuralOrganizing.org, and our friend George Goehl’s Fundamentals of Organizing.)
Here's a short piece about Walz/Wellstone that Susan DeMarco and I highlighted in our 2008 book, Swim Against the Current:
Walzing to Congress
Tim Walz is a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner who simply got fed up with Bush's war and autocratic arrogance, as well as with Congress's constant kowtowing to corporate interests. So this high school teacher, football coach, and twenty-nine-year veteran of the Army National Guard from Mankato, Minnesota, decided to take a stand by running for Congress. The political pros totally dismissed him as being hopelessly out of his league. How was this novice, this complete unknown, even going to break 20 percent against the well-funded, six-term incumbent in a rural district that George W. had carried twice?
But Tim went to school. In 2005, he went through Camp Wellstone's candidate program. One of his top staffers, Leah Solo, was also a Wellstone grad, having completed the advanced campaign management school. They put together a grassroots organization, and Tim's straightforward populist message began to resonate with voters. He didn't do focus groups or play games with words. He was true to himself. He also absolutely devoured the Bush-hugging incumbent in a televised debate. To the surprise of the cognoscenti (including the National Democratic Party, which had ignored him), Walz got 53 percent of the vote, becoming one of four Camp Wellstone grads elected to Congress in 2006.
Walz is not a pig in a poke, but a proven progressive in his years as a lawmaker and governor. Dare we risk being enthusiastic, rallying to push the democratic values and political potential of the Harris-Walz ticket?
Yes.
