Not long after our parents' tragic death in the final days of their last campaign, my brother David and I sat down here in the Twin Cities with a number of our folks' closest friends and most steadfast supporters over the years.
We all agreed that we bore a shared responsibility to carry on their work to advance social progress and economic justice. Thus Wellstone Action was born.
Paul and Sheila Wellstone can never be replaced. But others can be taught to walk in their footsteps. That's the first order of business for Wellstone Action.
During three campaigns for the United States Senate and a Presidential exploratory campaign, my parents and the loyal core of volunteers and professionals who worked closely with them developed unmatched political organizing skills.
In the last campaign, 20,000 volunteers took part in one of the best-organized and most broad-based grassroots campaigns in U.S. history. Many of those volunteers were trained at "Camp Wellstone," where seasoned organizers taught them how progressives can win elections.
Our aim is nothing less than to jump-start a new generation of professional organizers and grassroots leaders who will run for office themselves. At this writing, more than 4,000 people have gone through our first camps.
One of the biggest lessons Dave and I learned from our parents' lives is that hard work and faith in the possibility of change can conquer despair. Certainly, there is little in the current national political climate to suggest that change will come easily, or soon. There is no indisputable progressive leader or any easy way to reverse America's relentlessly misguided course in the world. As Paul and Sheila's sons, the only practical response is obvious to us: organize, organize, organize.
Training organizers for political and issue campaigns is only one aspect of our plans for Wellstone Action.
We also envision a national network of hundreds of thousands of people who will continue to advocate for change on the kind of kitchen-table issues my parents dedicated their lives to: economic justice, health care (including mental health parity), and domestic violence prevention.
The Wellstone Action network operates by means of a powerful Web site, e-mail, a newsletter, and conferences. We focus on a limited number of winnable issues, running advocacy campaigns and partnering with organizations that share our views.
Wellstone Action also serves as a clearinghouse where concerned citizens can find out how to get involved in political and issue-based campaigns, participate in online training, and download public policy and training material.
My brother and I and our colleagues in Wellstone Action are convinced that, over time, hundreds of thousands of people will enroll in this effort.
We invite you to be a founding member of Wellstone Action. With your support, Wellstone Action will continue to organize Camp Wellstone training courses all over the country, and be a place where average citizens can take action and continue working on our parents' vision for a more just and sustainable world.
Sincerely,
Mark and David Wellstone