This isn't really a NJ scenerio, as a well liked Dem replaced a looser Dem there.  Wellstone, seemed to be well liked.

So I ask you, does Mondale have less or more of a chance at winning this seat?

Mondale beat Reagan in 1984 in MN, despite the fact that EVERY other state sent Mondale packing.

If any Democrat can win the seat at this time, Mondale can.

[i]You realize what this means don't you?  The Democrats don't have any fresh blood, or up-and-commers if you will.[/i]

This may be a good trend.  First Lautenberg then Mondale; who's next?  Maybe Tom Foley?
Where are the Democrats getting their next generation leadership?

Good point.  They're gasping right now, trying to come up with viable candidates as the country moves ever so slowly to the right.  The Democratic message of big government, tax and spend liberalism isn't resonating with most of us...(Those morons over on the DU exepted or course!).

Since they ARE losing on the stump, they are employing all strategems possible to win and retain power in the senate.

This [politics] is war with Democrats.  They tried to steal the 2000 election, and they will do ANYTHING to win this one.  If they lose the senate, they are OUT of power, and THAT would be a total disaster for them...3 for 3.

No one hates America like a liberal...and this is our chance to quiet them down a bit.

Remember to vote on November 5!

Mondale will win Minnesota on the sympathy vote, just like Jean Carnahan did in Missouri.

Mel Carnahan and Wellstone were victims of "Democraticide"

I wonder how Sen.Torricelli avoided getting "into an accident?"

Personally, if I were a Dem in a tight race I would be looking over my shoulder wondering if the DNC was going to "replace" me next.

Yes.

Hopefully the Green Party candidate will pick up a few percentage points with people not wanting to vote for Mondale, and then Coleman would probably come out ahead....People just don't realize how liberal this state is....we have far too many people dependent on the state government to support them, and of course that is the strong point of the Democratic Party in this state........We have the second biggest population of Asians behind California, and we are getting thousands of Somalians up here, and now have the biggest population of them in the country, and Mexicans are now starting to flood in because of better wages up here.....You think they would stay in the warmer states, because winter is coming, and it really gets cold...........

Uuuummm....

What country are YOU living in? Seems to me we are galloping to the Left, GWB notwithstanding.

Frankly, I sincerely hope you're right and I'm wrong...

Agreed, except Coleman may still pull ahead depending on how people perceive good 'ol Fritz.  If anyone can get it, Mondale will get it.  He is still more moderate than Wellstone.  (that is, of course, like saying Pol Pot was a pretty nice guy compared to Stalin).

If the dems don't get the sympathy vote, a lot of the swing ("progressive") voters may go with Coleman.

Interesting.  Why do you think that Progressives would go with a GOP'er than with a more philosophically aligned DEM?

I'd like it to be true.......

Mondale is (I think) more than 70 years old. Young Demoncraps dont like really old politicians. I think they will go over to the "Independant" guy.

Mondale has (or she used to be) a REALLY HOT daughter. This is all I remember of his politics. He was a ghost. Inneffectual at best.

All this in mind,

[size=4]I REALLY DON'T CARE ANYMORE![/size=4]

I am just so unbelievably happy that Wellstone is no longer with us. He was an evil man that would have killed children with his own bare hands to avoid a knowingly unhappy end to his existance.

Honestly. Just think of how happy you would be if all gun laws were repealed. This is ALMOST how I feel now. The guy was a menace to the free world and no tear shall EVER be shed for him.

Oh, was I being kinda vague about my feelings?

LOL

What you said is true in almost all 50 states--too many people working for the state everywhere I look!  It's disheartening, because these people always vote for their own welfare, to the detriment of the state and the nation.  That's why spending (and hence taxation) are out of control.

I voted in my first election in 1968.  I am a political junkie who works just outside DC.  I am also a conservative Republican.

During my 28 year career in the Navy, I visited most of the world, most of which by our standards is VERY liberal.  Signapore and Taiwan are notable exceptions.  Most of Europe is long gone to socialism.

I can assure you that this country is basically conservative...IF you use as a yardstick the folks on the other side of the fence.  For example, you could visit the Democratic Underground, a site started up by the DNC after the traumatic 2000 election loss.  Take a quick tour through the DNC site.  Visit the more "progressive" site for the Democratic Socialist of America.  There you will find listed the 43 or so members of congress that are card carrying socialists.  Actually, those members are really in the minority.

Overall, the country may not be as conservative as we might like...but we damn sure aren't as liberal as a lot of the fringe element is.

Liberals LIVE for jobs in government.  Conservatives are largely successful businessmen who are playing at governing.  They mostly do it for altruistic reasons.  Libs do it because they have nothing else.  Politics is their LIFE!  We really are moving ever so slowly to the right.  This war has helped move the electorate.  I think the next election may prove my point.

Actually, it may not be that easy for Mondale.  First, rumours to the contrary non-withstanding, Fritz and wellstone were not man and wife.  It is possible that they had something going on, but that theory is as of yet unproven.

Another strike against him is status of Board member of a certain HMO (Wellstone flunkies will undoubtedly take issue with this.

Strike three is his backing for Social Security reform.

Of course, Democrats can't play by the rules, so he's allowed 4 strikes, but his likely backing for Pres. Bush on the Iraq resolution may be the nail in the coffin.

IMVHO, I think he'll drive more wellstone backers into the Green camp.  

What is Mondale's record on gun votes?

[size=4]Mondale Is Beatable[/size=4]
[b]Why Coleman can win.[/b]
by Ramesh Ponnuru, NRO

The instant conventional wisdom, formed before he has even formally entered the race for the late Paul Wellstone's Senate seat, is that former vice president Walter Mondale has it in the bag. Stories over the weekend helpfully suggested that Republican candidate Norm Coleman essentially pack it in — that he go through the motions of campaigning and live to run another year.

A closely related piece of conventional wisdom has it that Wellstone would probably have won the race had he not been tragically killed, along with his wife, his daughter, and six others, in a plane crash on Friday. One recent poll had him leading Coleman by six points. The further assumption seems to be that the Democrats will benefit from a wave of sympathy, much as Jean Carnahan did in 2000, when Missouri governor Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash in the middle of a Senate race.

We'll never know what might have been if Wellstone had lived, of course. But it's by no means a sure thing that Wellstone would have won. The last Republican polls taken before Wellstone's death had Coleman slightly ahead. And even the poll that placed Wellstone in the lead didn't show the senator above 50. In fact, no poll showed him cracking 50.

Neither does the Carnahan parallel show that Coleman has no shot. Jean Carnahan's candidacy had four things going for it in 2000. First, there was sympathy for a newly widowed woman. Second, there was the nasty tone of the race prior to Gov. Carnahan's death. The race drove both candidates' negatives up. When one of the candidates died, the other one was left with his high negatives in place and forced to run against a new candidate — his opponent's widow — with no such handicap. Third, Carnahan's death helped motivate the Democratic base to turn out. Fourth, the end of the campaign saw a lot of free media devoted to Democratic themes. All the wonderful things that Mel Carnahan had done received glowing coverage. (No doubt a genial conservative who died suddenly would get the same treatment.)

The fourth factor will be present in this race, too. The first won't, since the replacement candidate is not going to be one of Sen. Wellstone's surviving relatives. The second will be a smaller factor than it was in Missouri, because the Wellstone-Coleman race, while tough, was more issue-oriented and less personal. The third is hard to gauge, but presumably Wellstone alive would have been pretty capable of getting his left-wing base to the polls — and nobody considered him unbeatable until he died.

Oh, and one more thing: Even with all those things going for them, the Democrats barely won that Senate race in Missouri. They beat the Republicans by only two points.

How formidable is Walter Mondale as an opponent? The last time he ran for a statewide office in Minnesota was 1972. [b]When he ran for president in 1984, he barely carried the state[/b]. He is old, at 74; he looks it; and he legitimized the age issue by using it himself in 1984, when he was on the other end of it.

If he is forced to run a real, albeit quick, campaign, Mondale could also have some problems with his base. Yes, he's a liberal Democrat. But he's not a child of the New Left, as Wellstone was. The fact that he's on the board of an HMO won't endear him to Wellstone's core constituency. Mondale also co-chaired a commission that came out for Social Security reform, including both private accounts and an increased retirement age (according to an AP report from earlier this year). Mondale can also reasonably be asked to state his position on Iraq: Would he have voted for or against the war resolution? He won't want to be against the president on this. But if he says he would have voted for the resolution, the Wellstonites will feel betrayed.

The Democrats are waiting until the last possible moment to make Mondale their official candidate — no doubt realizing that the longer the campaign goes, the more vulnerable he is. To maximize the contradictions in the Mondale candidacy, Coleman needs to pack as much of a campaign as possible in the few days he'll have to run. That means challenging the elder statesman to as many debates as he can. It's a reasonable request, given the peculiar circumstances of this race. Mondale will no doubt get up to speed with today's issues. But it's hard to see him beating Coleman in debate.

I'll go out further on a limb: After the first polls on a Mondale-Coleman match-up have been done, the national Republican party will increase, not decrease, its commitment to Minnesota.

Indeed, the real question may not be whether Coleman should run a real race but whether Mondale should run at all. The attention he's getting now has to be flattering. Democrats are begging him to be the savior of his party. But does he really want to run the risk that losing this race will be his swan song? In the late 1980s, Mondale said, "One of the things I'm most proud of is that not once in my public career did I ever lose an election in Minnesota." He may be about to put that record to the test.

[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru102802.asp[/url]

Eric The(Historical)Hun[>]:)]

Coleman isn't exactly a right-winger.  He used to be a democrat.  He's got a lot of support from people who have seen what he has done as mayor of St. Paul as well as people like FIREARMS OWNERS which is a lot of the state of MN.  Most liberals are located in Minneapolis and Duluth/Northern MN.  

Also, look at our current governor:  "the Body Ventura".  Minnesotans are voters who will respond to someone who has a good message.  Norm Coleman needs to get his message out and the democrats have little time to revise their strategy.

Mongoloid isn't getting my vote.

I'm afraid he may be, I think there will be a large turnout of sympathy (do it for paul) voters.  BTW, I heard that if Mondale ends up not wanting to run, the dem's next choice is to dig up Humphrey and run him.