WASHINGTON – Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, the country’s most liberal senator who was in a close re-election race that could tilt control of the Senate, died in a plane crash yesterday while campaigning.
One well-known name now being mentioned as a possible replacement candidate is Walter Mondale, the former Democratic senator and vice president under President Jimmy Carter.
State law says Minnesota Democrats have the right to replace Wellstone on the ballot before the Nov. 5 election, and the state attorney general has said Wellstone’s name can’t remain on the ballot.
Wellstone’s wife, Sheila, daughter, Marcia, three aides and two pilots were also killed when the 11-seat, twin-engine King Air A-11 went down in freezing rain and snow near a small airport in Eveleth, Minn., 175 miles north of Minneapolis.
The 58-year-old opponent of the war in Iraq, champion of liberal causes and friend to the working man was on his way to the funeral of the father of a state lawmaker.
National Democrats were counting on him to win re-election to a third term to hold their one-vote Senate majority – and polls showed him to be ahead by 6 to 9 points.
But a victory by Republican challenger Norm Coleman, the former St. Paul mayor who was scheduled to debate Wellstone last night, could deliver control of the Senate to the GOP.
Once characterized as a ’60s protester who made it to the Senate, Wellstone won his seat in 1990 in a huge upset over Sen. Rudy Boschwitz after traveling the state in a beat-up school bus and running campy TV ads that featured the diminutive candidate running from scene to scene – like an out-of-breath used-car salesman – pretending he was looking for Boschwitz.
A former college professor, he proved to be a gregarious, well-liked senator who would talk to just about anyone – Senate page or elevator operator – without condescension or pretension.
Wellstone grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He was an avid wrestler in school, but revealed last spring he had multiple sclerosis.
Wellstone vowed to run for re-election despite the disease and a promise to serve no more than two terms.
He got his start as a politically rebellious professor at Carleton College in Minnesota, organizing protests to help the little guy and co-chairing Jesse Jackson’s 1998 presidential campaign in Minnesota.
Wellstone later tested the presidential waters, exploring the possibility of a left-wing Democratic run that he never made.
He took a trip to the poorest parts of America in 1997, evoking Bobby Kennedy’s trip in 1967 and perhaps prompting Bill Clinton to take a similar trip before leaving the White House.
Just a few weeks ago, Wellstone voted against authorizing war against Iraq, despite the advice of political experts who said the unpopular vote could cost him re-election.
After that vote, one Minnesota resident told Wellstone, “I’m not sure you’re necessarily right, but I’m voting for you because you’ve got guts.”
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, an independent, gets to name a replacement to fill Wellstone’s term, although it was unclear how long the interim appointment would serve – whether just to Election Day next month or until the end of the year.
Wellstone is survived by two sons, David and Mark, and six grandchildren.
FATAL FLIGHT
The Beechcraft is a twin-engine turboprop with an air-conditioned and pressurized cabin that seats 8-10 passengers.
* Max cruise: 300 mph
* Altitude: 35,000 feet
* Range: 1,500 miles
* Payload: 2,300 lbs
* Engines: Pratt-Whitney
* Builder: Raytheon