Running for the U.S. Senate has been a revelation for Ann Wynia.
She has learned of the rigors of working a 12-hour shift in a factory. She has heard health care horror stories. She has been awed by the commitment volunteers make to her campaign.
But one of the more unsettling insights was what she learned about herself: that she is perceived as, well, "not charismatic" is the polite way to put it.
"When I first started reading how boring a person I was, it was very disconcerting to say the least," Wynia says as she rides in a minivan across the pockmarked landscape of the Iron Range.
She seems both amused and annoyed at her portrayal as dull. It is not the way she thinks of herself - who does? - but she has come to accept that it is the way she is seen by others.
In truth, Wynia's record of consensus-building and putting policy ahead of headlines has made her an accomplished political leader, but a gray one. She neither causes DFLers' hearts to palpitate, nor raises Independent-Republicans' blood pressure.
Her campaign slogan - "Straight Talk. Real Solutions" - reinforces this image. It is a slogan meant to instill confidence, not stir emotions.
Despite the lack of sizzle or imagination in her campaign, Wynia, the DFL endorsed candidate, has inspired a devoted following. She has mobilized a coalition of labor unions, feminists, abortion-rights activists and environmentalists, and has efficiently disposed of her rivals.
In short, the campaign has operated with a quiet resolve that friends say is the essence of Wynia's character.
Ellen Sampson, a Minneapolis attorney and longtime friend of Wynia's, uses the word "stubborn" in an admiring way to describe Wynia's determination. To illustrate, she describes a scene in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where their families had taken a camping and fishing trip about 10 years ago.
While they were canoeing through a shallow, weedy area, a northern pike that Sampson's young son had caught slipped off the stringer dangling from the canoe. While Sampson tried to comfort the boy, Wynia leaped from the canoe into knee-deep water on the improbable mission of recapturing the fish.
"There she was flopping around in this marshy mess, knowing that the fish probably hadn't gotten far," Sampson recalled, and after several minutes of searching, "she hauls out this fish" with her bare hands.
Wynia (pronounced WIN-ee-ah) applied that same persistence to her 13-year career in the Legislature, which she capped by becoming House majority leader. Despite her status as a power broker, Wynia is an unfamiliar name to most Minnesotans. That's because she is rare among ambitious politicians in that she never craved publicity, never demanded public credit.
"One of the things that distinguished Ann in the House was the fact she was so businesslike," said Paul Ogren, a former DFL legislator. "There was a lot less puffery and a lot less apparent politics at play in the work she did. She seems to have less ego invested than just about any politician I've ever known."
Compounding Wynia's image problem is that she is forever being measured against the yardstick of Sen. Paul Wellstone, whose speeches are loud and passionate.
On her best days, Wynia, 51, is average in front of a crowd. Her speeches typically end on a note no higher than they began.
But when she is off the stage, moving through a crowd, greeting people one on-one, Wynia excels.
Whether she's ambushing factory workers outside a plant gate in Grand Rapids at 5:45 a.m. or shaking hands with scientists while touring a high-tech research facility in Duluth, Wynia displays a gift of being able to converse with anybody about anything. And although she is every bit the academic - she teaches American government at North Hennepin Community College and lives in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood in St. Paul favored by university types - she demonstrates that she is comfortable in any setting.
She looks at ease even when she invades the all-male-locker-room-smelling Steelworkers hall in Keewatin to congratulate workers on the end of a yearlong labor dispute at the National Steel plant.
"I think it comes from a real genuine warmth," said Colleen Nardone, a Wynia volunteer from Grand Rapids. "You can't fake that."
Nardone became a Wynia loyalist when she met her about 15 years ago at a seminar on peat development. Nardone, a DFL activist, occasionally would cross paths with Wynia, although often after interludes of three or four years.
"She always recognized me and made time to stop and visit with me," Nardone explained. Wynia is a different breed, a notch above most other statewide politicians who, Nardone said, judged her by whether she could help them.
Wynia's skill at striking instant friendships won her the support of her rural DFL colleagues in the Legislature, who often were amazed at how warmly she was received when she campaigned with them in their districts, said Paul Cerkvenik, a former top House DFL staff member.
Cerkvenik attributes it to her upbringing in rural Texas. Raised in a farmhouse near Coleman, in central Texas, Ann Jobe had an idyllic childhood. Along with three brothers, she spent her days exploring a nearby creek, playing school - guess who was the teacher - and entering science fairs.
As she describes the "sense of absolute safety and security," her girlhood takes on a soft focus. But it wasn't always "Donna Reed." Her scientific bent once led her to bring home some road kill so she could watch maggots hatch.
Although she grew up on a farm, her parents rented out the land and ran a Buick dealership in town. It was a family steeped in Southern Baptism - church three times a week - and politics. Her grandfather was a delegate at the 1944 Democratic National Convention, and her father was a county chairman for the party. On election nights, Wynia watched her father tally returns on a huge chalkboard in the town square.
While she followed politics closely, there was no ambition to hold office. That simply wasn't an option for women. Wynia remembers that at age 11, before ballots were printed by machine, she helped her father prepare ballots by writing in the names of all the candidates. It seemed to take weeks, and in all that time Wynia came across the name of only one woman.
"For me to remember that, that tells me it must have been pretty important to me," Wynia says, pronouncing "important" as impordand, a remnant of her Texas accent.
When she was in her teens, the car dealership collapsed along with the farm economy, and the family moved to Arlington, Texas. That's where Wynia went to college, paying her tuition by washing test tubes and petri dishes in a hospital pathology lab after class.
She earned good grades and a scholarship to attend graduate school. She got her master's degree in government at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which proved to be a gateway to Minnesota. While at the school, she met and married Gary Wynia. They moved to Minnesota in 1969 when he took a job teaching political science at the University of Minnesota. Wynia was hired as an instructor at North Hennepin, a position she has held ever since.
Despite coming of age in the 1960s and attending a college where the counterculture movement was very much alive, Wynia never participated in a rite of passage common to her generation: She never inhaled.
She is initially reluctant to admit to this law-abiding streak, explaining that she fears being labeled a nerd. It wasn't that she consciously avoided marijuana, she says. It was just that the crowd she hung around with didn't smoke it, so the opportunity never arose.
Upon her arrival in Minnesota, Wynia immediately plunged into politics, joining the League of Women Voters and the Minnesota Women's Political Caucus, attending precinct caucuses, volunteering for DFL candidates.
"It's what a good citizen should do, if you care about your country," Wynia said of her involvement.
She did not plan on running for office, but when her district's House seat opened in 1976, and neighbors encouraged her to run, she needed no extra prodding. She won easily in the predominantly DFL district.
In the Legislature, Wynia at first immersed herself in the minutiae of insurance and banking policies, sponsoring more than 30 bills in those areas.
"I think of myself as a nuts-and-bolts person who tries to get something done," she said.
She became chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Committee, which oversees roughly a third of all state spending. It was in that position that she sponsored and helped to pass the biggest bill of her career - the Children's Health Plan.
That program provides low-cost health insurance for 30,000 children in poor, working families. It was the forerunner of the Minnesota health reform program, MinnesotaCare.
In 1987, she was elected majority leader by her DFL colleagues, a tribute to her style of seeking consensus and listening rather than ruling. When she continued that style as majority leader, some misinterpreted it as indecisiveness, said Cerkvenik, who was a legislative strategist for the DFL caucus.
"It's not a hesitation on her part to make decisions," he said. "It's a style of decisionmaking that includes a lot of patience, thought and consultation. She's a lot more practical and pragmatic than ideological."
House Independent-Republicans say Wynia was reasonably fair to their minority caucus, not unduly partisan, and likable on a personal level. Their beef with her centers solely on her politics. They say she never met a tax increase or spending bill that she didn't like.
"She's typically on the liberal cutting edge of issues," said Bill Schreiber, who was House minority leader when Wynia was majority leader.
That is the battlefront Wynia must constantly defend. She does advocate a more active role for government. For example, she supports universal health care and a Canadian-style, government-run health insurance program.
But she also supports a popular Republican proposal to give the president line-item veto authority, a power Wynia says would help trim pork-barrel projects from the budget. In addition, when she left the Legislature in 1989 to become the state human services commissioner, Wynia helped initiate what is now a popular welfare reform program to wean recipients by allowing them to earn money by working while still on welfare.
The campaign is constantly on guard against attempts to label her an "ultraliberal." To that end, and to reassure voters that Wynia is not to be feared when it comes to taxing and spending, her campaign aides drop this tidbit: Wynia is so frugal that she washes her plastic sandwich bags and reuses them.
For relaxation, Wynia listens to country music, fishes and skis. She's a member of the Hot Flashes, a group of DFL women politicians who take an annual ski trip. For exercise, she walks a few miles in the morning with friends.
While Wynia is going full bore in the Senate race, she is coping with a personal crisis at home. Her husband of 27 years learned in January that he had a malignant brain tumor. He underwent surgery and is receiving cancer treatment.
Gary Wynia's illness caused his wife to put her campaign on pause during the critical period before the precinct caucuses in March. But at his insistence, she resumed her campaign for the DFL endorsement.
With the feminist community split between Wynia and another DFL candidate, state Sen. Linda Berglin of Minneapolis, Wynia branched out and won the AFL-CIO endorsement. With Wynia leading in endorsements, money and delegates to the state DFL convention, Berglin dropped out, allowing Wynia to coast to an easy first-ballot endorsement.
Now, facing a challenge in the DFL primary from Ramsey County Attorney Tom Foley, Wynia said people should judge her by her campaign, which she says reflects a competence that would be a hallmark of her Senate office.
Thus far, the campaign unquestionably has been a great success. There was one stumble, when American Indians took issue with Wynia for dubbing her campaign motorhome a "Wyniabago," usurping the name of a tribe. Wynia immediately scratched that nickname and replaced it with the pedestrian "Ann Van," then took a few hits for being too politically correct.
But otherwise, the campaign has succeeded in raising plenty of money, thanks in part to no self-imposed restriction on accepting political action committee money. And the campaign has built a wide network of supporters around the state, particularly in key primary areas such as Duluth and the Iron Range, where turnout is always heavy in DFL primaries.
A recent two-day swing through that region ran flawlessly, as Wynia reconnected with her many volunteers, drew new faces to a small breakfast and a larger bean feed dinner, attracted lots of local media coverage and raised more than $11,000 at a single fund-raiser.
Advocates universal coverage, same benefits as those provided to members of Congress, patient choice of provider, limits on co-pays and deductibles and a single-payer option for states. Believes these goals can be reached "within the framework set out by President Clinton." Would require employers to contribute to the cost of employees' health care.
U.S. military: What role should the military play in Bosnia, Rwanda and other countries torn by civil strife? In general, what role should the U.S. play in the post-Cold War era?
Believes U.S. must maintain a "credible military deterrent" but action in most conflicts "should be taken in close consultation with our allies and other nations in the affected region. With respect to Rwanda, I support the humanitarian efforts there, but feel we were too slow in reacting to the tragedy." In Bosnia, supports arms embargo, but does not support deploying U.S. troops as "peace keepers." "Military intervention should be consistent with American national interest and undertaken only when there is the plan and resolve for successful execution and termination of involvement."
Welfare: What changes in the welfare system, if any, would you support?
Advocates financial incentives for welfare recipients to take jobs, as well as providing funds for child care and health care. Suggests a nationwide child support collection network. Advocates educational programs for youth to encourage them not to have children until they're ready.
Economy: What should the federal government do to spur the U.S. economy, both in the short term and long term?
"Getting control over federal spending to eliminate the deficit is one of the significant contributions the federal government can make to lower long term interest rates. One test of any proposed federal spending ought to be whether it helps create a better and more secure economic future. To that end, I believe pre-school education programs which enable children to succeed in school, increased achievement expectations for students at all levels, and investments in basic applied research merit special attention because of their impact on the productivity of the work force and the consequence for innovation by American industry."
Agriculture: The 5-year Farm Bill will be on Congress' worklist next year. What changes, if any, would you make in the amount of money spent on farm support? Are there any farm programs that should be eliminated?
Advocates wider use of ethanol and and development of new alternative uses for farm products; promotion of local farmer-owned co-ops; continuation of conservation programs such as the Wetlands Reserve and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to keep erodable lands out of production; promotion of sustainable agricultural practices; revising the system of milk marketing orders to put Minnesota dairy farmers on an equal footing with competitors; increasing the fees charged for grazing livestock on public lands.
Urban issues: What role should the federal government play in the revitalization of cities? Specifically, what should Congress do about the increasing need for housing for the poor.
Advocates promotion of home-ownership opportunities (including cutting the deficit to keep interest rate down); more resources for crime prevention and community policing; coordinating federal business development services and programs with local governments to create "one-stop shopping" for entrepreneurs; using federal money for low-income housing using privately owned, widely dispersed apartment and single family homes.
Federal deficit: How would you cut the deficit? Would you be willing to cut entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare?
Would give the president the line-item veto, reduce the number of congressional committees and rotate chairmanship; seperate current operating expenditures for long-term capital spending; eliminate or limit the filibuster "which permits members to hold legislation hostage in exchange for pork." Did not say whether she would cut entitlements, but said public must be educated about "the real dimensions of the problem and where federal dollars really go."
Crime: Should repeat, violent offenders be locked up for life? What policies would you pursue regarding the increasing availability of guns?
Would give repeat, violent offenders "first claim on prison space" and not allow them to plea bargain to escape longer sentences. Would increase prevention efforts, especially those targeted at juveniles. "Strategies include jobs, programs, extended hours for schools and community centers, community policing, and drug prevention and treatment programs, as well as the early intervention with young children at risk." Would give prosecutors access to arrest records for violent juveniles, an enhanced computer network for police to identify repeat patterns of crimes and offenders. Supports provisions in current crime bill, which bans 19 specific military-style assault weapons and ban on youth owning handguns.
Family: How do you define family values and how far should the federal government go in its attempts to strengthen those values?
"To me, public policy which reflects `family values:' enables adults to earn a wage which supports a family; allows family members to care for one another during times of serious illness; focuses responsibility on parents - regardless of marital status - to financially provide for their children; sets expectations that family members will be protected from violence in the home; provides all families with access to health care and supports efforts care for a disabled or elderly member in the home and community."
Nuclear: Minnesota just emerged from a struggle over the storage of nuclear waste, a struggle engendered by the federal government's foot-dragging on its promise to develop a national waste storage site. What would you do to speed this process?
Believes government must stay focused on developing a single repository site. Advocates release of trust funds paid by utility customers to pay for future waste storage and giving that money to states to ensure any temporary storage facility is safe.
Leadership: What special qualities of leadership do you bring to the office you are seeking?
"I've always felt that one of my greatest accomplishments was being elected by my colleagues as the majority leader of the Minnesota House and, perhaps more important, being reelected to that post. Serving successfully as majority leader requires an ability to work with a diverse set of personalities and people representing vary political perspectives - liberal, conservative, urban, rural and suburban . . . it's time for more consensus-building and problem-solving, and less partisan bickering and game playing, on the floor of the U.S. Senate."