The Green Bus, Brian Bakst and a New Book
By Rochelle Olson
If it’s Friday, it’s time for Politics Friday on MPR with Brian Bakst. ‘Tis I among his esteemed guests this week. Tune in at noon to hear Bakst and I settle old scores stretching back to our time together at The Associated Press before the turn of the century.
So all of you remember the Wellstone bus, I’m sure. I rode on that thing during the 1996 campaign. Not terribly comfortable but relatively entertaining and the feisty senator excelled at working a crowd. Wellstone also ran the tightest ship with the best advance crews I’ve seen to date. So Dave Wellstone, Paul and Sheila’s elder of two surviving sons, pulled the bus out of open-air storage on his friend’s Kenyon farm. Wellstone has some ideas about how to use the bus and it’s already got a date to roll in the Harding Days parade next July 5. You’ll have to read my story to learn more. Fair to say every onlooker all but stood at attention when the driver hitched his pickup to the flatbed and backed it out hundreds of yards down a gravel road.
Wellstone was uncharacteristically emotional at the bus déménagement. (According to him, he doesn’t cry much.) It was an oddly solemn moment for all involved because the world has moved on since October 2002. We’ve all endured losses, reckonings, passages and fundamental changes in the directions of our lives. And those of us who knew Paul and Sheila Wellstone surfed our own memories, older still at nearly three decades for me.
I also wrote about the strategy behind the tightly controlled access to Gov. Tim Walz. If Harris-Walz lose, he’ll return to Minnesota and a press corps that is not happy about having been denied interviews and access from August through November. That first news conference back at the Capitol will be a doozy as reporters release the hounds that have been kenneled for months. In the meantime, Walz will have plenty to handle in a debate Tuesday with Sen. JD Vance. Remember that Saturday Night Live is back this week. Will they or won’t they do political skits? Will someone play Walz? I’m still betting on Mikey Day. But he could do Vance as well.
SCHOOL LUNCH: D.C. colleague Sydney Kashiwagi reports that Minnesota Democrats, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Tina Smith, reintroduced a bill to prevent schools from taking action against students with unpaid lunch debts called the No Shame in School Act.
EMMER on WALZ: U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer shared his highly critical thoughts about Walz with Fox News. Among his comments: “I didn’t realize that Tim Walz and I are around the same age. He looks so much older,” the 63-year-old Emmer said about the 60-year-old Walz. In related news, everyone tells me I don’t look a day over 23. Does this mean Emmer is prepping Sen. JD Vance of Ohio to mock Walz’s appearance in their debate Tuesday? Trump’s done it to opponents. Maybe I’ll add that to my bingo card right between “dystopian hellscape” and “eating cats and dogs.”
DEENA DEBUT: As promised, Deena Winter is a staff reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune. Read her story about former City Council Member Lisa Goodman’s return to Minneapolis City Hall. Goodman is now the director of strategic initiatives for the Office of Public Service. During her 26-year tenure on the council, Goodman was a love-her-or-hate-her character and, of course, Winter asked her about that reputation. “In my real life, outside of my public persona that people want to give me, I am this really kind, loving normal person,” Goodman said in an interview. She’ll work with deputy city Public Works director Brett Hjelle, who got his start as a super savvy aide to Council Member Sandra Colvin Roy. Goodman will be paid $165,538.
