Still no comments or statements from the family though, and when asked on the Sunday morning news shows, Daschle also refused to confirm that the Wellstone family had asked Mondale to run. This evening the DFL Party Chair did confirm the story about the meeting, and is supporting the story as it appeared on CNN.

It is beginning to look to me like there has been a lot of well orchestrated pressure put on the family to "choose" Mondale. The Minneapolis paper is reporting who exactly was at the meeting, which was five people, including David Wellstone, Sen. Wellstone's campaign manager, and his campaign treasurer. So now we know who "leaked" the Wellstone family wishes to the press--David Lillehaug, a party hack who headed up Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, who was at the meeting to help represent Mondale, presumably. The whole thing churns the stomach. The "conventional wisdom" now appears to be that the family shouldn't even be allowed to bury the dead first, and that "the choice" should take precedence over the funeral.

However, I will give kudos to Wellstone's opponent, Norm Coleman (whom I dislike on a personal level because of his prfound tendency towards crass political opportunism at every turn). He has really been decent through this. So decent in fact, that he is beginning to make the Democrats look VERY BAD. Which of course could definitely work against the Dems on Nov 5th, if they can't clean up the politicking going on about the replacement "choice". It got EXTREMELY tacky looking in Minnesota today in a *shudder*/stomach turning sort of way.

This is all beginning to look and sound very orchestrated from national party levels. In fact, it is beginning to look like this race will go down in history as the Senate campaign where the contenders were hand-picked by the national leaders, rather than the local people. Pathetic, really.