Wellstone's death turned state into ground zero of U.S. politics

When Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane went down in a northern Minnesota bog, it turned the state into the ground zero of American politics.

Wellstone's death and its aftershocks have overshadowed every other campaign in the state -- and have rippled into campaigns far from Minnesota, where it's possible they could end up having subtle, or even decisive, effects on Election Day.

The Senate campaign has been transformed into something Minnesotans have never experienced before, attracting unprecedented national attention. For President Bush, who will campaign in St. Paul today for Republican candidate Norm Coleman, it has become a political priority. It's big enough to have brought former Vice President Walter Mondale out of political retirement.

"In terms of past elections in this state, the impact of this one will probably rank toward the very highest in significance," said Minnesota historian Hy Berman. "The stakes are high for a lot of races, but the highest are for which party is going to control the Congress. And there's no seat as big as the Wellstone seat."

Since Wellstone's death, the story has dominated cable news networks, nightly newscasts and talk radio. Much of the national political press corps has been camped out here and will stay for the duration. Locally, the story has crowded virtually everything else off the front page.

Much of the news has overflowed with fervid speculation about the Senate race. Berman ticked off the biggest unanswered questions: "What effect will the grief factor play in helping Democrats? We don't know. How much difference will the Republican backlash against the memorial for Paul have? We don't know. Maybe those two things will offset each other, maybe not.

"How much does it matter that the Republicans have made this a blitz state? We don't know. Will the continuous coverage all over the country have any effect in other states? We don't know, but people around the country had an unusual affinity for Paul."

Before Oct. 25, Minnesota's election was shaping up as one that had attracted a middling amount of the public's interest, even though it had some notable features that had attracted attention beyond the state.

The race between Wellstone and Coleman was considered one of a handful that would be vital in determining which party would control the U.S. Senate. And it had been neck-and-neck for months.

The three-way race for governor had attracted attention because it would demonstrate whether Gov. Jesse Ventura was anything more than a one-term oddity. There were a couple of U.S. House races that actually seemed competitive, a rarity most years. But that was about it.

The congressional races were dominated by tactical questions, such as: Will President Bush's historically high approval ratings create coattails for the GOP? Will the economy and worries about Social Security matter as much or more than terrorist threats and a looming war in Iraq? Will one party seize control of Capitol Hill, or will divided government continue?

Of the 34 Senate races up for grabs, truly competitive races had sprouted in only Minnesota and a half-dozen other states. Consequently, that's where both parties aimed most of their firepower -- and money.

In the House, where Republicans hold an 11-vote majority, fewer than 20 seats were considered truly competitive, among them Minnesota's Second and Sixth districts.

The result for Minnesotans is the most expensive congressional election in history, with spending in the Senate race topping $20 million. That translated into a campaign ad barrage unprecedented for a non-presidential election.

And most of those ads were unremittingly negative, often ending with a snarl: "Call (candidate's name here) and tell him to stop. . . " Wellstone's death froze those off the air for five days, but when the campaign restarted Wednesday, they immediately went back on the air (except in the Senate race).

Polls and campaign trail interviews showed that many potential voters were repelled by the ads, or simply tuned them out. Exactly which issues were engaging them and would prove decisive to determining their votes also was hard to discern.

Recent polls found that national issues were at least as important as strictly local issues. A recent Gallup survey found that the effort to fight terrorism and the possibility of a war with Iraq are uppermost in voters' minds, with the economy close behind.

Democrats nationally have tried to make the economy and Social Security the biggest issues, with little apparent success, while Republicans have stressed their support for Bush's stance toward terrorism and Iraq.

Republicans also are leaning hard on Bush's approval ratings. While they've slipped from the levels seen immediately after 9/11, they still are the best of any post-World War II president at his first midterm election. They hope his popularity will rub off on them.

The White House has swung into a campaign mode more reminiscent of the waning days of a presidential contest than a midterm election.

Bush's scheduled visit to St. Paul today is one of 17 cities in 15 different states he is visiting in a five-day period. His visit was immediately preceded by Minnesota visits by First Lady Laura Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Today's visit will be Bush's fourth campaign appearance for Coleman this year, reflecting in part the fact that he was the White House's handpicked candidate.

On Saturday, Coleman and Mondale continued their tightly compressed campaign at opposite ends of the state.

At one stop in northern Minnesota, Mondale was only 10 miles from the spot where Wellstone's plane crashed. In Duluth, Rodger Cragun told Mondale: "Fritz, I believe in saints, and you're one to replace Saint Paul."

In Fairmont, Coleman told several hundred supporters he had just landed in the same type of plane as the one that crashed with Wellstone aboard -- in similar cold and icy conditions. "We cried and we prayed," he said.

Meanwhile, the gubernatorial candidates crisscrossed the state, overshadowed by the Senate race, much as they were even before Wellstone's death.

And if the final result in the Senate race turns out to be exceptionally tight, it could spark a protracted legal battle -- and place control of the U.S. Senate in the hands of the lame duck Ventura.

Although the governor initially said he would appoint a Democrat to hold Wellstone's seat until the results of the election are certified later this month, he declared last week that the partisan turn of the Wellstone memorial so offended him that he would appoint an independent, probably unknown. Aides said they're genuinely unsure what he will do.

The potential for a meltdown in the courts looms because of the decision to throw out absentee ballots containing a vote for Wellstone. Although the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered counties to mail out new absentee ballots to any absentee voter who wanted one, if Coleman's victory margin is smaller than the number of discarded Wellstone votes, a lawsuit appears to be a virtual certainty.

The closest statewide election in Minnesota history occurred in 1962 in the governor's race, when Karl Rolvaag beat Elmer L. Andersen by 58 votes. The legal wrangling took five months. If that's repeated in this Senate contest, Ventura's appointed senator would serve into the early months of the next Congress.

"I just hope whatever victory margin it is, it's large," Berman said. "If it's not, it could be a serious mess, maybe a constitutional crisis. It may not be of the same magnitude as Florida, but it could disrupt things for a long time."

In nearly every aspect of the race "we're in uncharted territory," Berman said. "I mean, whoever heard of serious electioneering on the Monday before the election, much less a debate? That's supposed to be the campaign's quiet time. Completely uncharted territory."

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

-- Bob von Sternberg is at vonste@startribune.com.