Camp Wellstone a hit

-- Bob Longmore

Over two days in February 2006 a group of 80-plus interested students packed a conference room in the Metropolitan State University Library to learn the skills necessary to get involved and make a difference in politics and public policy. The largest Campus Camp Wellstone, to date, was run by the Wellstone Action, a nonprofit organization whose mission is, “to honor the legacy of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, by training people to organize, educate and mobilize the progressive movement in our country.

Campus Camp Wellstone is an offshoot of the larger Camp Wellstone program held around the country. The campus version is a shorter and more focused version of the training.

Thomas O’Connell, a social sciences professor at Metropolitan State University, with the help of a student committee, brought this event to campus. When asked about the history of Camp Wellstone, O’Connell said that the question after the senator and his wife died was, "What can we do to carry forward the legacy of Paul and Sheila?"

"Students will learn that with a sense of enthusiasm and commitment they can make a difference," said O’Connell. Students will also learn the "knowledge of how to be effective in electoral politics." O’Connell said he has seen a big change in Metropolitan State University students over the last 20 years. "Students will respond to extracurricular activities and they are more involved with campus."

Although Sen. Paul Wellstone was closely associated with the Democratic Party, O’Connell explained that, "The aura is progressive, but it is deliberately nonpartisan. The skills learned can be used by independents, republicans, whoever..."

The event brought together students from Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC), Century College and the University of Minnesota. As all the students sat around anxious and hopeful, Elana Wolowitz, an education and advocacy advisor for the Sheila Wellstone Institute, took to the front of the room and at the top of her lungs said, "We don’t like microphones here, we like to yell." She spoke about the "movement building" that we are all charged with and that the goal of the weekend was for us to build "a long term strategy for a progressive movement in this country."

Each student in attendance stood and professed the cause about which they felt the most passionate and what they hoped to gain for the weekend of training. Each person gave a thoughtful and unique answer, clearly displaying there are innumerable worthy causes to motivate a person. This exercise displayed the fact that every person can bring a different perspective to a broad message.

Peggy Flanagan, a Minneapolis school board member and senior trainer for Wellstone Action, fired up the students with her vivacious personality. She motivated the people in the room by convincing them that ambition and intelligence are the basic elements needed to have power in our community, city, state and nation. She led the room in a call and response shout fest that crested with her standing on a chair smiling sincerely and the room buzzing like a starting line, with all the students ready to take over the world. She said, "Do we want power?" The students screamed, yes!

More positive energy and enthusiasm were delivered by Emma Greenman, a graduate student at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Dave McGonagle, deputy-training director for EMILY’s List in Washington, D.C. Among the topics covered were ideas of concise campaign message building, coalition building and campaign planning.

The students worked in groups to come up with real life strategies and concepts for campaigns. They created campaign commercials for both an imaginary candidate and an imaginary advocacy organization, and came up with brilliant and funny commercials which they acted out for the other groups. Students also created campaign schedules, budgets and scripts for campaign phone calls.

After such an intense day and a half of training, all the students seemed to be at a saturation point. With so much information to digest in such a short period, the students spoke about what they were planning to do to carry on the skills they had learned. Each person vowed to carry on the spirit instilled during the previous 28 hours, and to be active in their community, in politics or in their chosen social cause.

All the students filed out heavy with exhaustion, but lightened with optimism and hope in the goal Professor O’Connell relayed earlier as the impetus behind Wellstone Action. As each of those 80 students went in their 80 different directions, they, in their own small way, were now carrying on the Wellstone legacy, because they were going to be involved. As the late Sen. Paul Wellstone said, "The future will not belong to those who stand on the sidelines."