"We can do a sit down right here!" a fiery Senator Paul Wellstone exuberantly yelled from the center of the large group of students who had crammed into President Stanley’s well-furnished living room. The reception in Stanley’s home was the final event in a very busy Friday for the senator from Minnesota; he had participated in a panel discussion on juvenile punishment, excitedly socialized his way through a fine Aramark dinner in the Smith Center, bellowed a speech, and was concluding the day amidst a giant circle of students, asking what issues students were involved in and bestowing words of activist wisdom. And loving every minute of it.

The senator’s call to protest was in response to hearing of the Worker Support Committee’s attempts to encourage the presidents of the colleges to force Aramark to sign a non-intimidation agreement. If there were any question if the long day had worn the man out, it was quickly resolved. He was, as he had been all afternoon, all night, fired up. "We’ve got a rabble-rousin’ caucus over in this corner," he hollered through a gleeful grin, loud enough for Stanley to hear. Our college’s esteemed president stretched his head over the mass of apple cider sippin’ students and chided, "What’s the definition of a stupid president? Put Paul and Amy [Wood ’00, the student activist who had informed Wellstone of the WSC] together in your own living room!"

Stanley’s quip belied a long relationship between the two men. Wellstone is in the midst of serving his second term in the Senate, a seat he won in 1990 after teaching political science for 21 years at Carleton College. At Carleton, he shared a chilly campus with Stanley, who served as dean at that Minnesota school before his hiring as Pomona’s president.

The centerpiece of his visit was his talk at the Smith Campus Center. "Building a Progressive Politics: If Not Now, When?" was a sprawling and impassioned speech, criss-crossing through the disparate map of modern politics. All of five feet five inches, balding and sporting a short-cropped beard, Wellstone’s physical sight would never hint to the force he commands at the podium. Arms and hands in constant motion, fingers spread to capture diverging strands of thought into a web of succinct ideas, he was a powder keg of enthusiasm. This was a man who had given some thought to running for president, and knew he had the wares to pull it off. Yet he was endearingly scattered, discussing any and all issues that crept into his mind. Here was a professor who once had a tendency to get off track. As a politician it worked; he conveyed a passion and conviction that was too unfocused to be contrived.

In our current political climate, Wellstone is as "liberal" as they come. He was one of the few Democratic senators reelected after voting against the Welfare Reform Bill, and he has long been an adamant supporter of such big government programs as nationalized healthcare. Like any good leftist, he described the state of our country in dire terms and the possibility of our future in glowing visions. "How can it be," he asked, "at the peak of economic profit, that we cannot afford a good education for our children?"

Part of Wellstone’s appeal, and it appeared to be a wide one, given student comments following the lecture, comes from a passionate faith in the political process combined with am acknowledgement of how distant that process and its rhetoric is from the people it affects. "When I’m at the Town Talk Café people don’t ask me, ‘are you for the tough love of the free market or an expanded welfare state?’" he recalled in sarcastic tone, referring to a restaurant along his campaign trail. "People talk about their daughter, who has diabetes, whose insurance premiums are so high no small business will hire her." For Wellstone, politics is not just partisan debate, it is the stuff of life, the way we solve real problems and learn to live together.

Wellstone, however, was quick to note how totally contradictory this vision was from the way we have come to view politics, as a realm for the view divided from the many. "This is a sick, sick, sick system," he mourned. For Wellstone, we have lost sight of not only a commitment to equality, but a commitment to democracy. "We have a distorted pattern of power, and it’s frightening," he declared. "We don’t have a system where each person counts as one and only one vote."

For Wellstone, political reform is only possible through a three-tiered approach to progress: ideology, activism, and representation work in a symbiotic relationship. "Ideas matter," he told us. "I can say that here, right? This is a college." Yet he was quick to warn against ideology without the requisite attached action. "Ideas in action are what make solutions," he insisted. "You are more powerful, more credible," he insisted, "if you live the words you speak." The three components together are essential for progress. "They’re like the head, body, and legs of progress," he said, building an animal of radical change. Riding this beast of reform, "we can make our country a better America."

Packed amongst students at the President’s house following the speech, it was his turn to ask the questions. He inquired what issues students were active in, nodding in understanding as people informed him of the various issues affecting our campus: the Landrum shooting, efforts to unionize Aramark employees, and the Keck institute. It was here, talking back and forth with students, patting backs in agreement, offering tips and expressing outrage, that he appeared most comfortable. He joked with faculty, addressed students by name, and turned the discussion away from his views to ours. He asked if we too were convinced of the futility of public service, a rather effacing question coming from any senator. He nodded as students spoke of disconnection and powerlessness. "Well, if you feel powerless, here in this school, with this privilege, imagine how everyone else must feel," he said ominously.

Yet what was most surprising about this comment was that, crowded around that red wood coffee table, it didn’t sound bleak at all. Because there, that night, none of us felt helpless. What was most striking about Wellstone’s visit was that it was, despite the cliché, empowering. Huddled around in a circle, the word that kept creeping up among students was "inspiring." I heard at least one person tell him that he had convinced her to pursue a life in public service.

But he was quick to explain that policy work wasn’t the only route. "If you’re a painter, paint. If you’re a poet, write. Do what it is you excel in, and what you love doing," he said, turning these pursuits into distinctly political endeavors that bind us together and enrich us all. "We all do better when we all do better," he had said earlier in his speech, and it was in that living room when it became clear that this wasn’t just a commitment to the mutual benefits of equal opportunity, but a plea to connect our lives to the community around us.

"Politics is what we create, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine," he closed his speech saying, and the air in the Rose Hills Theater, the electricity in Stanley’s living room, and the lively buzz that stretched out into the night’s conversations were all colored by that idealism. Last Friday, we felt our works were important in the forming of this world. And it felt good.