NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Time has taken a toll on the iconic Wellstone Green bus, but the late Senator's son, David, has launched an effort to revive it as a touring beacon of hope and healing and unity.
He has launched an ambitious automotive rehab project with the help of a lot of friends, including Benjamin Bus in Northfield, which is handling the mechanical part of the overhaul. Another Wellstone friend, Tim Schubert of Trobec’s Bus Service, has agreed to take on the bodywork.
"Public service is why he got into office, and I think people are not as excited anymore about politics, young people in particular," David Wellstone told KARE. "And I think we're very divided, and so I'm hoping this can be a way to bring people together and also excite folks about what politics can really be about."
While most remember the late Senator Paul Wellstone as a liberal populist firebrand, he also became known on Capitol Hill for reaching across the aisle on bipartisan issues such as mental health parity. It’s what led David Wellstone to move from building houses to working in the mental health field.
"I hope people can think about what my dad did, working on certain issues, where he could bring together bipartisan support, things like mental health, addiction, human trafficking," Wellstone remarked.
The 1968 Chevrolet school bus had already been converted into a camping bus by the time the Wellstone campaign bought it in 1990. It became symbolic of the upstart underdog Senate campaign of the Carleton College professor turned Democrat activist.
"I do remember even the Democrats, when he wanted to run, 'You're what?!' Talk about underdog! No one wanted him! They even thought, ‘Who is this wild guy’?"
The green bus was featured in Wellstone’s unconventional TV ads that helped propel him to an upset victory over incumbent Republican Rudy Boschwitz. It became a regular part of his rallies and campaign travel.
Those old wheels didn't hold up as well as the politician in it. KARE 11’s file video vaults include footage of the green bus undergoing emergency repairs while making a victory lap trip to Washington, DC in 1990.
"I think it broke down three times on that trip to DC. Paul Scott and Dick Miller were the drivers, and they both had some mechanical chops," Wellstone recalled.
"We're lucky we've got Benjamin Bus here, the Northfield company, that's got some really great mechanics on it. So, hopefully once they get it up and running, I'm going to be the driver. They're going to train me."
The interior is pretty much just as it was when Paul and Sheila Wellstone, their daughter Marcia, and five others died in a 2002 plane crash near Eveleth. Their sudden deaths sent shock waves through Minnesota and across the nation, and it came in the final weeks of Wellstone’s campaign for his third term in the U.S. Senate.
The interior will be cleaned up, to deal with the ravages of decades of storage in various places, but it will remain as a time capsule of how it looked during that ill-fated 2002 campaign. The photos and posters that were on the walls when Paul Wellstone used it as a rolling headquarters will remain.
The one change David Wellstone has in mind is adding a TV monitor that will show his father’s speeches on a loop.
"He was a wonderful speaker, and he spoke with conviction because he believed everything he was saying, and I would love to have that for people to see."
You can track the rehab project's progress on the Paul Wellstone's Green Bus Facebook page, which is run by a nonprofit of the same name.
Why now? Wellstone said the idea had been on his radar for some time, but he was moved to action by the public’s overwhelming response to a Star Tribune "Curious Minnesota" column explaining what had happened to the bus in the past 22 years.
"This bus seems to be resonating with people, and it cuts across party lines. When we towed this into town on a flatbed trailer, drivers were flashing their lights at us. We were driving through countryside with Trump signs in the fields."
He plans to drive it across the state, with stops that allow visitors to walk inside and ask questions. The venues he has in mind range from small town parades to homeless encampments.
"That's what the bus is going to do. It's going to touch people," the younger Wellstone remarked. "To me, there's the bus, but then there's how it's going to affect people. And I think that's the big thing."
You might say only a dreamer could look at that old bus in its current condition and see a teaching museum on wheels. But, then again, dreaming big runs in David Wellstone's family.