The Wellstone Effect

As plans are made for the Ted Kennedy funeral and health care rally, I encourage you to read this Salon piece from 2002 on the Paul Wellstone memorial that turned into an ugly partisan Democrat rally following that senator's death in the place crash. I was so outraged by the behavior of the Democrats that I sent my first ever political contribution to Norm Coleman's campaign the very next day.

That event backfired on the Democrats big time, and should something similar happen at the Kennedy memorial it'll kill the health care bill altogether (of course, that wouldn't bother me a bit).

Various sources are already calling for the bill to be renamed in Kennedy's honor (something Rush Limbaugh predicted back in March), and the crass attempt to use Kennedy's death to push a political agenda will come back to haunt them. Guaranteed.