If Mondale is nominated by the DFL, it might be safe in terms of conventional wisdom, but not in terms of non-conventional wisdom, which is where the Wellstone for Senate campaign is going to be coming from. Mondale is anathema to everything that Wellstone stood for, and I doubt you would get the votes for him from the CURRENT Wellstone faithful, ie the youngest, best, and brightest of the DFL party, to come out and vote on election day. They would see it as a betrayal of their progressive values. You might be able to get Mondale to squeak into office, but he wouldn't have grassroots support that Wellstone has. Wellstone has 30 something campaign offices state wide, and had 10,000 volunteers already recruited for getting out the vote on election day. Even the Minnesota Republicans admit now (rather quietly) that they pretty much figured Norm had already lost the campaign. Wellstone was gaining in the polls steadily, and his vote against Bush on Iraq seemed to be making a significant difference in pulling support from disgruntled progressives back from the Green Party to Wellstone.

Nobody in the DFL party owns that grassroots infrastructure but Wellstone. No, the DFL will have to be much more unconventional than that, despite the conventional wisdom both in among the Minnesota and national conventional punditry.

The only sure bet here is if one of Wellstone's sons steps in. However, I have no idea if either of them are willing to serve. I haven't heard any of the buzz yet--we've kept to ourselves, except for at the vigil last night, since we've heard the news. But we are on our way to anti-war demo, and friends of the campaign are now starting to drift back into town for the funeral, so we'll see what happens. And I already sent an email to the Senate office via Wellstone's Senate website, saying I would support either of his sons. So, you never know what could happen--it would take a small miracle to get one of his sons to step in, considering they lost almost the whole family, but you never know. People's strength emerges in strange ways in these sorts of crises. Maybe we will see a Wellstone carry on yet. That is the scenario I'm praying for anyway.