PUBLIC LIFE.(funeral for Senator Paul Wellstone as a political event)

The memorial service for Senator Paul Wellstone, held last Tuesday evening in the Williams Arena, on the University of Minnesota campus, was overlong, excessively partisan, unpretentious, emotional (without being maudlin), and, above all, egalitarian--in sum, an accurate reflection of the man being memorialized. The hall was filled with political dignitaries, the sort of people who usually deliver the eulogies on such occasions, but only one politician, Senator Tom Harkin, of Iowa, was invited to speak. Much of the evening was devoted to remembrances of others who had died in the plane crash with Wellstone--his wife, Sheila, and his daughter, Marcia, and three campaign staff members--which were delivered by personal friends. There was none of the glitz and few of the easy tears that have come to mark such public events. The frankly political nature of the service was much debated afterward. But the most striking aspect of the evening was the crowd: an estimated twenty thousand people, who had come to pay their respects, and who responded aerobically to the oratory; every round of applause, and there were dozens upon dozens, seemed a standing ovation.

Such crowds--indeed, crowds of any sort--have almost disappeared from American public life. Most political events, particularly in this election year, consist of a candidate, a microphone, and a few television cameras. Often, there will be more people standing behind the candidate--police officers, students, veterans, anyone who might seem evocative or picturesque--than in front. One can travel about for days, watching politicians at work, without setting eye on a voter who has appeared voluntarily, out of curiosity, or merely out of a sense of citizenship. Politics has become a boutique trade; at times, it seems more private than public--democracy without people.

A common explanation for the withering of public life is the absence of "conviction" politicians, the current term of art for those who, like Paul Wellstone, have ideological beliefs, and there is some truth to that: bolder ideas make for bigger crowds. The examples of Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan are often cited. But some of the most compelling American politicians come from the middle of the spectrum--Theodore Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and, most recently, John McCain--all of whom campaigned on strong, but ideologically indefinable, beliefs. The common thread is a robust sense of American destiny, a willingness to set ambitious goals and to sound important themes in a grand rhetorical style, and, notably, an intense desire to engage the idealism of young people. The absence of such appeals in recent elections has been striking, and it is no accident.

"We have tactical elections," the pollster Stanley Greenberg told the Washington Post last week. "We don't have big elections, because there is every prospect that you can win by thinking small." The ...