Looks like Mondale

Mondale Likely To Yield to Pleas To Run for Senate

By David S. Broder and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 27, 2002; Page A01

ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 26 -- Former vice president Walter F. Mondale is likely to yield to pleas from Democratic leaders and step in for the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone in Minnesota's critical Senate race, several party officials said today.

With control of the Senate possibly at stake, a family source said Wellstone's two surviving sons will soon make it clear that they hope Mondale will succeed their father. One of Mondale's former aides, who has spoken to him several times since Friday, said the former vice president was still discussing the abrupt change in the political landscape with his wife, Joan, and his son Ted. But the former staffer added: "There's a good chance he will do it. He's often said that the best years of his political life were the Senate years."

Amid those signs, Democrats huddled here to pore over election laws, review procedures and make plans for substituting a new name -- preferably Mondale's -- on the ballot before the Thursday deadline. The campaign to draft Mondale, 74, gained considerable steam even as investigators continued to probe the Friday plane crash that killed Wellstone, his wife, his daughter, three campaign aides and two pilots. A leading labor leader, who attended a morning strategy meeting at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) headquarters, said afterward of the Mondale candidacy: "This thing is further down the line than I had expected." Another attendee said Mondale is "the clear consensus choice" of party leaders. Several close political associates of the former vice president said they expect him to accept.

In Washington, Senate Majority Whip Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) was encouraging labor leaders and party activists close to Mondale to contact him and urge him to run. "We're pulling out all the stops," a Democratic leadership aide said. "We'd like to have him in Sunday [today]."

Republican nominee Norm Coleman, a former mayor of St. Paul who was picked by the White House to run against Wellstone, remained secluded. Candidates of both parties pulled their ads off the air and suspended campaigning out of respect for Wellstone.

This race was one of the Republicans' top targets in the drive to reverse their one-seat deficit in the Senate, but they conceded it would become more difficult if Mondale were the substitute candidate.

If Mondale runs, he would be the second former Democratic senator to enter the campaign under unusual circumstances -- with a good chance of winning. Former senator Frank R. Lautenberg jumped in a few weeks ago when New Jersey Sen. Robert G. Torricelli begged out over ethical questions.

Democrats in Washington expect Mondale to be drafted into the race shortly after funeral services for Wellstone. Funeral arrangements had not been made tonight.

Gov. Jesse Ventura, an independent, threw a possible monkey wrench into that prospect by suggesting that whoever he appoints to fill Wellstone's seat in the current Congress could serve until a special election in November 2003.

Arriving at the state Capitol this afternoon in a warm-up jacket, Ventura quickly rejected a suggestion from DFL Chairman Mike Erlandson to delay any appointment until after the Nov. 5 voting -- when, presumably, he would be under pressure to select the person the public had endorsed.

The governor said: "They should trust me. I'll be fair. But I have to fill the position. Suppose Congress calls a special session -- if there's a war in Iraq or a new terrorist incident. I've got to have a senator there."

Others disputed Ventura's suggestion that his appointee could serve until a special election a year away -- a move that would all but obviate this year's election -- and said the governor need only to focus on finding someone who could serve until the winner on Nov. 5 takes office.

Later today, Ventura said he would likely appoint a Democrat because Minnesotans had elected a Democrat for the term that runs through January, the Associated Press reported. Ventura also said he would favor someone who doesn't plan to run for the office. "I don't want it to become political," he said, according to the AP.

While Ventura weighed his options, speculation about Mondale built steadily. Albert Eisele, Mondale's vice presidential press secretary and now the editor of the Hill newspaper, said that while he had not spoken directly with his old boss, "the odds are pretty good that he will do it. I am sure he is getting enormous pressure, and he has a strong sense of party loyalty. This also presents an opportunity for him to take the sting out of his defeat in 1984," when Mondale carried only Minnesota and the District in his bid to deny Ronald Reagan a second term.

One Democrat who has spoken with Mondale said he is weighing the huge lifestyle sacrifices he and his family would make to move back to Washington. But D.J. Leary, a veteran Democratic operative, noted that Joan Mondale has many friends in Washington and that Mondale himself saw the impact his mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, had when he returned to the Senate after failing to win the presidency in 1968.

Mondale has been practicing law here and lecturing at the University of Minnesota since retiring as ambassador to Japan in 1996. He served two terms in the Senate before being selected by Jimmy Carter as the vice presidential candidate in the 1976 election.

At a morning news conference, Erlandson made it clear that the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party will try to convert the election into a testimonial to Wellstone's memory. "We will do what Paul would want us to do: elect Democrats up and down the ballot," Erlandson said. He said the massive voter-turnout effort Wellstone had planned, using his army of youthful volunteers, would go ahead. "I fully expect the Green Bus [Wellstone's traditional campaign vehicle] will lead us to victory on Nov. 5."

Republicans say Coleman will be sidelined until the funeral takes place and a new Democratic nominee starts campaigning. "Out of respect for the recent tragic events, the Coleman office is closed. The campaign has suspended activities," says a somber recording at his campaign headquarters.

A top White House official said Mondale would be tough, if not impossible, to beat. Other Republicans were hoping Mondale would forgo a run. Ventura has the authority under state law to appoint a replacement for Wellstone who would hold the seat at least until the Nov. 5 results are certified. But Ventura said he had been told his appointee might serve for a full year, until a special election in 2003 that he said would offer "a fairer test" to both parties.

Other election officials said, however, that once the vote is official, the winner would take office and get a leg up as far as seniority goes on other freshmen senators for prime committee assignments. The incoming senator would also play a crucial role in the post-election, lame-duck session of Congress, which is expected to finish the budget and perhaps finalize a new Department of Homeland Security and provide terrorism insurance to businesses. If Coleman wins, it's possible Republicans could control the Senate for the remaining two months of the 107th session.

Ventura said he will decide as early as Monday if he will appoint a stand-in. Democrats want Ventura to hold off and allow the winner to take all come Election Day.

Democrats have until Thursday, four days before the election, to name a new candidate. Once they do, election officials would prepare 3 million new supplemental ballots and blot out the names of the Senate candidates on the original one. Absentee votes would count for Coleman but not for Wellstone, according to state law.

Voters who cast absentee ballots for Wellstone would be permitted to go to the polls on Nov. 5 and vote for the new Democratic nominee.

If Mondale decides not to run, national Democrats see Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page, a former National Football League star with the Minnesota Vikings, as an attractive candidate because, like Mondale, he would be drafted to run and would not be seeking office for political reasons. One strategist worried that if Attorney General Mike Hatch or another rising star in Minnesota politics sought the nomination, it might look like politics-as-usual and detract from the grass-roots movement to win the seat for Wellstone.

As the political maneuvering continued here, 175 miles to the north, at the crash site near Eveleth, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators slogged through an area approximately 300 feet by 190 feet where the plane crashed Friday morning.

"There was evidence of an intense postcrash fire," acting NTSB Chairman Carol Carmody said at a briefing near the site this afternoon. She said the fuselage was destroyed.

Carmody declined to "analyze or speculate about the cause of the accident," saying that the investigation is in the fact-finding stage. There was no cockpit voice recorder on board, she said.

Investigators expect to be on-site at least three or four more days. Carmody described the scene as "extremely difficult'' to reach, in very marshy, wet terrain. Authorities used large half-track vehicles to get there.

At midafternoon today, authorities said the smell of fuel still lingered at the site. The bodies were recovered and taken to Fairview University Hospital in Hibbing, about 30 miles from the crash site, where postmortems will be concluded on Sunday.

 

As an aside, here are some "Strom Facts"

Strom Facts
Þ James Strom Thurmond was born on December 5, 1902 in Edgefield, South Carolina

Þ He has been alive for almost half of the entire history of the United States

Þ Theodore Roosevelt was president when Strom was born

Þ He has been alive during the terms of 18 (out of 43) U.S. Presidents

Þ He was 14 when Lenin took power in Russia and John F. Kennedy was born

Þ He was 17 when women were granted the right to vote

Þ He's old enough to be George W. Bush's or Bill Clinton's grandfather

Þ He is one of few living politicians to have received votes from Civil War veterans

Þ He was 24 when the first movie featuring spoken dialogue (The Jazz Singer) was released

Þ He won an election 18 years before Bill Clinton or G. W. Bush were born

Þ He was elected state senator in 1933, the same year that Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany.

Þ He was 42 when the U.S. dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima

Þ He was elected governor of SC in 1946 (The same year W and Clinton were born). He was governor from 1947 to 1951

Þ In 1954 he was a successful write-in candidate as U.S. Senator, after an extensive government and press sponsored campaign to teach the semi-literate South Carolina populace how to write his name.

Þ He is the oldest sitting and longest serving senator in U.S. history.

Þ He has been a senator for one fifth of the entire history of the United States

Þ He has been a senator through the terms of 10 U.S. Presidents. He was older than 9 of them.

Þ When he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, there were only 48 states in the union

Þ He holds the record for the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history at 24 hours and 18 minutes, in opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act. He began his filibuster by reading the texts of the election laws of all 48 states.

Þ In 1897, Strom's father Will shot and killed a political foe who called him a "low, dirty, scoundrel". He was acquitted after pleading self-defense

Þ He was rumored to have been sexually involved with the only woman to ever receive the death penalty in South Carolina

Þ He's old enough to be Bob Dole's father

Þ Mark Twain was still writing when Strom was born

Þ A dozen senators have died in office since Strom Thurmond turned 70

Þ He was 52 when Bill Gates was born

Þ He was 78 when the IBM PC was introduced in 1981

Þ He served as a senator alongside George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush

Þ He was 32 (and already a state senator) when Elvis Presley was born

 

Newt's Back and better than ever.
_____________________

GOP Takes Aim at Mondale in Minn. Race
Ex-Vice President's Record Already Under Fire in Battle to Replace Wellstone

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 28, 2002; Page A06


ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 27 -- With former vice president Walter F. Mondale likely to carry the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone's torch into the Nov. 5 election, Republicans today took aim at the popular elder statesman in what is likely to be a remarkable, and remorse-filled, one-week Senate campaign.

At the behest of the Wellstone family and party leaders, Mondale is likely to accept his party's nomination Wednesday, launching his first run for public office in 18 years, according to Democratic officials. That's when a new, unusual and high-stakes campaign to replace Wellstone will begin officially.

Two days after Wellstone, his wife, daughter, three campaign workers and two pilots died in a plane crash, Republicans today started to raise questions about his likely replacement on the ticket, the 74-year-old Mondale, who would enter the race with a good chance of winning.

"Walter Mondale chaired a commission that was for the privatization of Social Security worldwide. He chaired a commission that was for raising the retirement age dramatically. He has a strong record of voting to raise taxes," former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I think that what you'll see on the Republican side is an issue-oriented campaign that says, you know, if you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize Social Security, Walter Mondale is a terrifically courageous guy to say that," Gingrich said.

Bill Walsh, a state GOP spokesman, told the Associated Press: "The voters will have a decision between the past and the future. Walter Mondale is clearly the past." The Republican candidate is Norm Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul.

Democrats criticized Gingrich and Walsh for going after Mondale before Wellstone and his family members have been buried and before the former two-term senator has announced his candidacy.

"The family hasn't had a chance to grieve and lay the dead to rest, and my Republican friends are on national television criticizing a potential opponent," said Mike Erlandson, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. "It's inappropriate."

In a high-stakes election that could determine control of the Senate, Republicans conceded in private that Mondale -- a two-term senator before becoming Jimmy Carter's vice president in 1976 -- will be tough to beat with emotions running so high among Minnesotans.

Republicans need to pick up one seat to recapture the majority they lost when Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) bolted the party last year. Before his death, Wellstone was clinging to a very small lead over Coleman and was considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) will meet Wednesday to formally pick Wellstone's successor, which by all accounts will be Mondale unless he has an unexpected change of mind.

Gov. Jesse Ventura, an independent, has the authority to appoint a temporary replacement for Wellstone, but the stand-in would step aside once the Nov. 5 results are certified. Ventura is expected to make his decision early this week.

The winner of the Nov. 5 election will likely be seated before the lame-duck session of Congress begins and therefore play a role in budget negotiations and other legislative matters, possibly final approval of a new Department of Homeland Security.

Mondale is expected to make his campaign more about Wellstone's legacy of fighting for the little guy than his own remarkable political career, which included a failed run for the presidency in 1984 and ended in 1996 when he stepped down as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Japan.

"It would be the greatest tribute to Paul Wellstone's memory if somebody of the stature and purpose and statesmanship and honor of Walter Mondale would pick up the torch and carry it through Election Day and on into the Senate," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

Republicans said they have to make the election about Mondale and his record, not the Wellstone legacy, a difficult task with memories of the late senator so fresh in the minds of voters and so little time to mount a campaign.

Moreover, any attacks on Mondale might be seen as unseemly and inappropriate, local political observers say. This will force Coleman, an attack dog before Wellstone's death, to temper his bark and bite on the campaign trail.

Political operatives said they expect Coleman to use a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, with state and national GOP leaders picking apart Mondale's record while Coleman focuses mostly on a more positive campaign centered on his agenda.

For now, Coleman is boxed in by his pledge to suspend political activities and the unseemliness of campaigning before Wellstone is laid to rest early this week and memorialized publicly Tuesday evening.

Even after the funeral services, Coleman would be in the awkward position of calling into question the record of one of Minnesota's most revered politicians standing in for a recently fallen senator.

Coleman today promised a vigorous campaign but only after the state has had ample time to mourn.

"Walter Mondale is a good man," Coleman said, declining further comment on his likely opponent. "There will be a campaign, but now is not the time."

 

Ref--

I'll agree with you on Gingrich.

 

Whether you think it's OK to go after Mondale or not, looks like Newt exaggerated his facts.
_________________
Gingrich Accusations Come Under Scrutiny
Social Security Accusations May Be Inaccurate

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, October 28, 2002; 5:18 PM


Leading the GOP charge against likely Minnesota senatorial candidate Walter Mondale, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused the former vice president Sunday of supporting Social Security privatization and raising the retirement eligibility age, but it appears the allegations are false.

Gingrich, who now runs a political consulting firm in Washington, suggested during an appearance on "Meet the Press" that Mondale supported Social Security privatization and raising the retirement eligibility age. Mondale is the likely ballot replacement for Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash on Friday. Wellstone had made opposition to privatization or partial privatization of Social Security a major platform issue.

"Walter Mondale chaired a commission that was for the privatization of Social Security worldwide," Gingrich said. "He chaired a commission that was for raising the retirement age dramatically. He has a strong record of voting to raise taxes. . . . think that what you'll see on the Republican side is an issue-oriented campaign that says, you know, if you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize Social Security, Walter Mondale is a terrifically courageous guy to say that."

Apparently, the commission he was referring to was one sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank that seeks solutions to emerging global problems. CSIS's Commission on Global Aging, which issued the report last year, recommended raising retirement ages and converting "social protection schemes from pay-as-you-go to market based financing" in major industrialized countries around the globe as a way to deal with the crisis of depopulation and aging population crises.

But Mondale, who served as the co-chairman of the commission, dissented from the majority position that supported raising retirement ages and privatizing government retirement programs. Mondale co-wrote the commission's dissent with six other Americans:

"Although we support the Commission's role in providing leadership in the global aging debate, we are strongly opposed to some of the Commission's findings and recommendations... Some of the Commission's findings and recommendations could be interpreted as mandates to fundamentally change Social Security and Medicare... Population trends should not be an excuse to renege on this commitment. Rather, we should rededicate ourselves to finding creative ways to meet the commitment, particularly because the United States does not face the same demographic challenges as other nations."

The dissent continued: "We do not support the Commission's findings and recommendations that might result in the dismantling of social insurance programs and their replacement with funded schemes. Funded systems are not immune to financial and demographic fluctuations, as the recent stock market performance clearly demonstrates. Funded systems should remain an important supplement to existing guarantees, but they should not replace those guarantees."

Reached on his cell phone this afternoon, Gingrich's spokesman, Rick Taylor, said: "I wasn't aware of the dissent. But I haven't had a chance to talk to the speaker about it." Taylor said he would seek an explanation and call back later. As of late Monday, Taylor had not called back

With Election Day a little more than a week away, supporting privatization could be seen as a strong argument against Mondale given that it might damper enthusiasm from liberals - Wellstone's base. And, Gingrich was not the only one pursuing the line of attack on Sunday. Romesh Ponnuru, a writer for the conservative National Review, said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: "[Mondale] is a major advocate of President Bush's position on Social Security, which is something that I think, once it becomes more public, is going to alienate Wellstone Democrats."

CSIS spokeswoman Paul Hewitt said of Mondale: "He pointedly disagreed. He had his own point of view."

Hans Reimer, senior policy analyst for the liberal Campaign for America's Future, was more forceful: "Republicans are lying when then say Mondale supports privatization, just like they are lying when they claim to oppose it," he said.

One high-ranking Republican, who asked to remain unnamed, defended the Gingrich assault, arguing that he got the gist of it right.

"He is associated with groups that have called for this," this person said. "He's going to have to answer for it. What are his positions on Social Security?"

But Republicans probably aren't lying when they say this race won't be a cakewalk if Mondale decided to get in it.

After Wellstone's death, Republicans initially were giving former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman little chance to beat Mondale, if he is indeed the candidate. But Republicans operatives got their talking points together over the weekend, and by Monday were strenuously making the case that this race would not be a cakewalk for Mondale.

A poll done over the weekend by the Public Opinion Strategies for the National Republican Senatorial Committee put the race at 45-43 percent in Mondale's favor-numbers that are within the margin of error.

Republicans were busily reminding reporters about Mondale's political record, which included his landslide loss to Reagan in 1984. Mondale lost every state but Minnesota, which he only carried by about 4,000 votes out of more than 2 million casts. Given that he hasn't run for public office since the, there's little to suggest he can trounce Coleman.

"I think that's a significant point," said NRSC spokesman Dan Allen. "The last time he was on the ballot was 1984, and he didn't win overwhelmingly. There's been a whole generation since then who has never had the opportunity to vote for him."