Posted on 11/06/2002 9:56:57 PM PST by JohnHuang2
T. PAUL, Nov. 6 — Ten days ago, as he appeared on the Sunday talk programs with tears in his eyes, Norm Coleman looked like political toast. The opponent Mr. Coleman had spent two years attacking had just been killed, along with his wife and daughter, in a plane crash, and Mr. Coleman, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, faced instead a beloved state icon for a whirlwind six-day campaign.
But at noon today, the most extraordinary period in Minnesota's political history culminated with a triumphant Mr. Coleman, 53, surrounded by 400 supporters in the rotunda of the state Capitol, continuing the positive, future-oriented message that had apparently cinched his victory over the beloved politician, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale.
"I won't forget how fragile life is and that the future is always now," Mr. Coleman said, invoking the Jewish wedding ceremony, in which a glass is broken as a symbol of remembering tragedy amid celebration. "I am here today at a time of almost indescribable joy, but also in a time of sadness."
Of his predecessor and former antagonist, Senator Paul Wellstone, Mr. Coleman added: "His legacy will be the standard he set for passion and energy. I will carry on that torch of his legacy."
With a laborious hand count forced by the last-minute candidate switch, both candidates adjourned their election-night parties around 3 a.m. and awoke from naps a few hours later to find Mr. Coleman, the former mayor of this capital city, leading Mr. Mondale by two percentage points, the gap larger than the number of votes outstanding. Nearly 24 hours after the polls closed, with a handful of precincts left to report, Mr. Coleman was ahead by 53,000 votes; Mr. Wellstone received 13,635, mostly absentee ballots cast before his death on Oct. 25.
In part, Mr. Coleman's remarkable resuscitation can be attributed to the Republican sweep of close contests across the country, as well as the growing conservatism of the sprawling suburbs in what once was a farmer and union state. But he also received an inadvertent boost from the opposition, when the politicalization of a televised Wellstone memorial service energized the Republican faithful just as the crash had done for Democrats.
Mr. Coleman, a former Democrat who lost his 1998 bid for governor to Jesse Ventura, successfully navigated difficult terrain this week with a steady, tireless effort emphasizing his new themes of "the future is now" and "changing the tone in Washington." He was helped by a string of high-profile Republican visitors, as well as far-away pundits who raised questions about Mr. Mondale's age, 74, and his 22-year hiatus from elective office, then criticized the former vice president's aggressive, partisan performance in a debate just hours before the polls opened.
"There was some sort of a national tidal wave that Minnesota was not an anomaly of, we were part of," said Mike Erlandson, the state Democratic chairman. As for the memorial service, he added: "There is no question there were some regrettable words uttered in that speech. It allowed the Republicans to make something out of nothing."
Born in Brooklyn, Mr. Coleman moved to Minnesota 27 years ago when he was recruited to work in the attorney general's office. As mayor he helped revive this blue-collar city by creating 18,000 jobs and bringing the National Hockey League back with a new arena.
He split with the Democratic Party in 1996 over abortion, which he opposes, as well as welfare and business issues. Tapped by the White House to challenge Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Coleman benefited from several campaign visits by President Bush. Married to an actress, Laurie, who lives part-time in Los Angeles, Mr. Coleman has two children, Jacob, 16, and Sarah, 13, who starred in some of his television commercials, assuring voters that her father made good on his promises.
Accompanied by his father and his wife, who flew around the state with him over the last several days, the senator-elect acknowledged the closeness of the contest with a call for unity. "Whether you were carrying a Mondale sign or a Wellstone sign or a Coleman sign, I want to be dedicated to making you all proud," he said.
Mr. Mondale, who represented Minnesota in the Senate from 1964 to 1976, said he called Mr. Coleman this morning and "told him what I really believe, that the Senate is the best job in America, and I think he'll love it." Then he returned to the Radisson Riverfront Hotel where he had conceded a crushing defeat in the 1984 presidential contest, and announced his reretirement from politics.
"Obviously, the end of my last campaign," Mr. Mondale told the sparse crowd of supporters who reconvened in the basement ballroom at 9 a.m. In a gracious speech, he accepted full responsibility for the defeat and said he had no regrets.
Then he returned to life as a private citizen, taking his Rottweiler, Michi, for a walk. By noon, the architects of the failed 1984 bid who had reconvened for Mr. Mondale's five-day campaign were at the airport, headed back to their lives in Boston, Washington and Los Angeles.
"I think I'm going to look back a few days from now or a few years from now and say, `What was this?' " said Marty Kaplan, a Hollywood screenwriter who revived his 1984 speechwriter role this week. "It was living in a different universe: from acceptance speech to concession speech in six days."
Mr. Mondale said he accepted the last-minute nomination out of duty to party and to Mr. Wellstone's memory, to Minnesota and to country. But his politician's eyes were soon twinkling as crowds once again chanted his nickname, "Fritz, Fritz, Fritz."
After wading slowly into the campaign with scripted town meetings, Mr. Mondale began throwing up his arms in a victory salute, charming audiences with one-liners and a grin that said, "I can't believe I'm back."
He countered questions about his vitality with a vigorous performance at a debate on Monday, and floated through Election Day giddy on the energy of the young volunteers jumping up and down on street corners waving Mondale signs.
"There's a rhythm in politics, it takes a while to get all of that subtly back," he said Tuesday as he rode from a church to a law office to check on get-out-the-vote efforts. "I've got grandchildren. This is new for them. If I could, I'd like to infect them."
After landslide losses to Ronald Reagan and George Bush in 1980, when he was vice president, and 1984, when he headed the ticket, this race amounted to strike three.
"I want to say a word to the young people who gave their full hearts to this campaign and are now seeing defeat," he said as weepy young volunteers still wearing their green Wellstone T-shirts surrounded him on stage. "It's important for you to know that your ideals are often tested more in defeat than in victory. You will be needed now more than ever. You are our future."
Quoting the Wellstone campaign song that became the theme of last Tuesday's memorial service, and the small green button has worn on his lapel since then, Mr. Mondale added, "Stand up, keep fighting."
Uh huh.
And as Dave Letterman pointed out tonight, with Tuesday's loss Mondale has now had his a$$ kicked in all 50 states! <|:)~
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