ANALYSIS
FOR the second time, a fatal plane crash could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.
The crash that killed Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone yesterday eerily recalled the death of Democratic Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan two years ago when he was running a close race for Senate – and the sympathy vote made his widow, Jean, a U.S. senator.
It was a mystery last night what will happen next in Minnesota since this time the election is just 10 days off – in Missouri, it was 22 days away, giving Democrats time to regroup and get voters to cast ballots for Carnahan, knowing his widow would be tapped to replace him.
Wellstone’s wife also died in the crash.
Scrambling for a high-profile substitute to run against Republican Norm Coleman, some Democrats talked up former Vice President Walter Mondale, who’s 74.
If that happens, it would be the second high-profile 2002 race in which a Democratic blast from the past was called to try to save the Senate. In New Jersey, ex-Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 78, filled in when scandal-scarred Sen. Robert Torricelli (D) dropped out because he was losing big-time.
Republicans need a one-seat pickup to win the Senate.
Public polls showed Wellstone leading Coleman by 6 points or so, but before the plane crash, Republicans said private polls put Coleman ahead by a hair, and they expected President Bush to help boost him to victory.
Minnesota law says the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (the state’s version of the Democratic Party) must replace Wellstone by next Friday, although some Democratic strategists were suggesting the party could choose to put Wellstone’s name back on the ballot.
But state Attorney General Mike Hatch, a Democrat, said that’s illegal because Wellstone is deceased.
“A lot of people would like it to be Mondale, but how likely that is I don’t know,” said a senior Democratic strategist last night.
The former vice president – who lost 49 states and only won Minnesota by a slim margin when he ran for president against Ronald Reagan in 1984 – offers a “brand name” with more statewide recognition than other potential 11th-hour contenders.
Other possible candidates included Alan Page, a state Supreme Court judge and former Vikings footballer; former Secretary of State Joan Crowe; state auditor Judy Dutcher; and Hatch, the attorney general, who said he’s been approached but loves his current job.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, there was no way to assess how any of them might do against Coleman, or whether Democrats would benefit from a sympathy vote without Wellstone remaining on the ballot as Carnahan did.
For Republicans, the fatal crash posed a host of delicate political questions – starting with a frantic push to yank TV attack ads against Wellstone for breaking his term-limits pledge to serve just two terms.
Yet another question was the choice that outgoing Gov. Jesse Ventura, an independent, will make for an interim senator – and whether the interim appointment would hold through the end of the year and thus affect the balance of power in a post-election lame-duck Senate session.