Posted on 08/20/2002 3:44:23 AM PDT by TroutStalker
WASHINGTON - For Jim Talent, facing one opponent named Carnahan in Missouri will be tough enough. But he might be facing two. Talent, a Republican, is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan in one of the tightest and most closely watched Senate contests in the country. In the split Senate, Missouri's is one of a handful of races that could determine which party wins the majority. Hovering over the campaign is the memory of Carnahan's late husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash three weeks before the 2000 election. The question becomes whether the lingering sympathy will mean Talent must battle both Carnahans. Mel Carnahan was running for the Senate when his plane crashed, also killing the Carnahans' son Randy and aide Chris Sifford. While many Missouri voters would have voted for Carnahan had he lived, some Democrats believe that momentum was shifting toward his opponent, incumbent John Ashcroft, at the time of the crash. But the tragedy may have influenced many voters, and Carnahan defeated Ashcroft. Jean Carnahan was then appointed to the seat for two years. Now she's running on her own. Talent has to find a way to delicately undercut a 68-year-old grandmother who has been the object of bipartisan compassion. "Sympathy is a factor, but I don't know how much of a factor it is in the campaign," Talent said. "I think the people still feel sympathy. I do. I knew Mel for 15 years. But I just think people view the election as about what we're going to do in the future rather than what happened in the past." Aside from any emotional pull, Carnahan is a candidate whose roots are deep in rural GOP-leaning Missouri. And in the Senate, she has compiled a fairly centrist voting record for a state that historically tracks toward the political middle. Carnahan said she hopes voters judge her on her merits. But she knows she can't erase the plane crash from the political conversation. "I think it will always be one of those things that is attached to me," Carnahan said. "I can't run from it. It's just always there. It's something I certainly shouldn't rely on. I don't want to rely on it." She generally avoids mention of her husband when she campaigns. In a 14-stop bus tour of Missouri last week, she invoked the memory of Harry Truman, not Mel Carnahan. The closest anyone came was Democratic state Sen. Mary Bland, who, during the senator's appearance in Kansas City, said that she "was the quiet spirit of her soulmate." Democrats say that after nearly two years on Capitol Hill, Jean Carnahan has established her own political identity and will be elected in her own right. Focus groups have said that while sympathy played a role in 2000 when voters elected her dead husband, she has got to prove herself this time. Voters "may consider the circumstances that brought her to this position," said Joe Carmichael, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, "but I don't think the race really has anything to do with Gov. Carnahan. I think it's got to do entirely with her and her record." Republicans are pondering how to handle the issue. "People remember," said Woody Cozad, former Missouri Republican Party chairman. "Whether they vote on the basis of sympathy? Immediately after? Yes they do. Two years later? We'll find out." Talent has used polls and his own focus groups to gauge the proper political tactics to use against someone whose personal loss left such a vivid impression on Missouri politics. Lloyd Smith, Talent's campaign manager, said the campaign decided that it could draw contrasts with Carnahan so long as it didn't do it in a "meanspirited" manner. "We wanted to make sure we didn't alienate people before we got to the issues," Smith said. "You have to be extremely careful and extremely accurate." Even under the best of circumstances, male politicians often have trouble finding the right tack to take against female opponents. Attack-style politics generally turns off women voters, and Talent needs to do better among women than he did when he unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2000. He lost by only 21,000 votes. But running against Carnahan "raises the stakes," said Robin Gerber of the University of Maryland's Academy of Leadership, where she is an expert on women in politics. With the anniversary of the plane crash falling in mid-October at the height of the campaign, just weeks after the one-year commemoration of Sept. 11, "it's impossible to think that the electorate is not going to have some element of sympathy, of empathy, in the same sense that all of us felt stricken," Gerber said. But whether or not the late governor's name comes up, Jean Carnahan's presence serves as a reminder. And former Missouri Republican Party Chairman Tom Fowler said that Talent needs to be careful. "Anytime you have someone who has a tragedy in the family that we all know, you have to make sure that you tiptoe lightly around those areas," he said. But Talent is not without resources. Several partisan and independent political analysts said his best strategy would be to emphasize his experience, which he has been doing. He is a former congressman who served for eight years in Washington and eight years before that in the Missouri General Assembly. He has been involved in issues like welfare reform, education and small-business development. Carnahan never held public office before her appointment to the Senate. "I would argue that is a terrific way for Talent to go after her because he doesn't need to be meanspirted in raising that question," said Stu Rothenberg, who publishes a nonpartisan political newsletter. "Has she found her niche? Is she having a big effect? What has she sponsored? How much is she a player? Usually that's really hard to document, but it's an ideal attack on an incumbent." Several close observers said that also might be a way for Republicans to bring up an issue that created some buzz earlier this summer when independent political analyst Charlie Cook questioned whether Carnahan was in over her head. Democrats, however, dismissed that line of attack. "To make it stick with the public, (Talent) has got to have some facts," Carmichael said. "He doesn't have any ammunition." GOP consultant Kim Alfano said Talent could develop a message of experience that trumps sympathy. "This is a serious time," she said. "This is not a time to be nostalgic or wistful about the job. There are serious things going on in Congress and in the Senate. We are at war. You need people who are experienced and can do the job in a time like this. That doesn't say anything bad about Mrs. Carnahan." Republicans also have the added incentive of anger at Carnahan among their hard-core supporters, which could boost turnout. She refused to vote to confirm Ashcroft as U.S. attorney general, despite what was universally viewed as his gracious concession in the Senate race. In the end, however, political experience, sympathy and pique may take a backseat to political geography. Fowler, a bank executive in Springfield, said any Republican who runs statewide needs to do well in southwest Missouri -- and that's particularly crucial for Talent since Carnahan is from Rolla. "If you are not from here, you've got be here a lot," Fowler said. "I think that's going to be the key in this race to neutralizing the fact that Mrs. Carnahan is from out-state Missouri. He needs to get around to areas other than St. Louis where he is well-known." Republicans said they're optimistic because Talent appears to be spending more time there than he did two years ago. Wayne Fields, who teaches political rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis -- and whose family is from rural Missouri -- said Talent might have a hard time cracking the political code because he looks like the suburban St. Louis lawyer that he is. "He looks like Ladue," Fields said, referring to the affluent St. Louis suburb. "He's out of touch with their reality." Carnahan, meanwhile, has the right accent, Fields said, and "she looks like all of my aunts." Kevin Murphy of The Star contributed to this article. To reach David Goldstein, Washington correspondent, call (202) 383-6105, or send e-mail to dgoldstein@krwashington.com.
They know that the widder carnahan has been over her head just trying to figure out what she's supposed to do in the Senate, that she has no class and her only claim to fame is her dead husband. For that reason, her fellow democRATs in the press will pull out the "pity the poor widder carnahan" angle at every chance, because they know it is the only way she can get elected.
Not only do the dead vote repeatedly in Missouri, but the rotting corpse of ole Mel Carnahan is out and about campaigning for his widder.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
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