My World: Wellstone Memorial

Tomorrow will be the day when Minnesota finally gets to have a second Senator back in Congress. It's been about 9 months since the election but a recount and several court cases have finally led to a Minnesota Supreme Court decision last week that Al Franken won the election by 312 votes.
This is the seat that was once held by Paul Wellstone. Norm Coleman, who lost the decision, won the seat when Paul Wellstone died in a tragic plane crash just 11 days before the election. When he died Wellstone was well ahead in the polls and would have most likely won a third term to the Senate.

Norm Coleman was able to use the tragedy to sneak his way into representing Minnesota in the US Senate. In my opinion this was a major travesty. We went from Paul Wellstone who was as honest a politician as you will ever find to Norm Coleman who would sell his vote to anyone for his own personal gain.

Coleman is currently under investigation from the FBI for accepting under the table money from a Minneapolis business man. So even if he had won the election chances are that he may not have completed a second term. Fortunately we will not have to worry about Norm any more.

I am not sure what kind of a Senator that Al Franken will be, I do own a couple of his books which I found very funny, but he can not be any worse for Minnesota then Norm was. I guess that only time will tell. This was a very personal election for Al Franken because he was a personal friend of Paul Wellstone before he died and felt very much the way that I did about seeing Norm Coleman desecrate that seat.

These pictures are from the Wellstone Memorial and Historic Site which is located near where the Wellstone plane crashed in northern Minnesota. Michelle and I stopped there on our way back from Orr, MN back in 2007. It was a very peaceful and serene place. I imagine that this is the type of place where I would find the spirit of Paul Wellstone.