The backlash against the Republican outrage campaign deepened here in Minnesota on Friday, when two things were revealed, and one rumor was running rampant.

First, as to "scripting" one only need read CNN right wing media whore Robert Novak's column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He has an entire Democratic conspiracy theory he puts forward, which defies not only the facts of the situation, but rational sense as well. He decided to interject race as an issue into the Minnesota US senate race, by dragging Alan Paige's name through the mud of his muckracking. For those of you who are not aware of who Alan Paige is, he is a former Notre Dame & Minnesota Viking football hero, who is one of the Minnesota Supreme Court justices.

Alan Paige was so furious about it, he did something Supreme Court justices rarely do, which is make a public comment about it. Here is what he had to say about the CNN/GOP commentator's column:

"Because of this week's extraordinary circumstances and the column's insidious use of race, Mr. Novak's comments require a response. Beyond the use of race, the column is, in its references to me, factually inaccurate," Page said.

The Novak column said, "According to Minnesota sources, he (Page) was eager to seek the Senate seat. But the DFL apparently did not want to risk running the African-American Page in an overwhelmingly Caucasian state, and Page was quickly discouraged."

Page said that, contrary to the column's claims, he "did not seek to be nominated to the Senate seat" and that beyond his friends and "a number of supportive citizens," he was not asked to be a candidate. Nor, he said, was he discouraged.

He also said the Novak column inaccurately said he "led the state Democratic ticket in recent elections." Page noted that judicial elections in Minnesota are nonpartisan and conducted separately from the political parties.

"I find it offensive and unacceptable that forces beyond my control have used me as a vehicle to interject race into Minnesota's political debate,'' Page said.


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Also, the Coleman campaign asked the Republican National Committee to pull the negative attack ad against Mondale it planned on running beginning yesterday. It seems that, despite the fact that NO media outlets locally or nationally are reporting it, the mood on the ground is that the Republicans are perceived by voters as looking every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Democrats in the wake of Senator Wellstone's death. There may be a consensus forming now that the intensity and volume of the shrill outrage campaign is directly related to how desparately the White House still wants to win here. Cheney was here on Friday, Laura Bush is here today, and the pres select will be here for a rally tomorrow, which will be given complete, uninterrupted coverage on the local TV news as "equal time" for the Wellstone memorial.

Anyone still wondering who is gaining the most from the Wellstone death? Despite the Minneapolis Star Tribune poll showing Mondale 8 points ahead of Coleman, it is the only one showing Mondale ahead. Every other poll has them locked in a dead heat.

Finally, the rumor mill is now suggesting that the outrage campaign worked perfectly for Republicans. The Republican outrage campaign, if it translates into actual votes on Tuesday, will benefit Coleman. Why? Because the pre-Wellstone death political climate gave the advantage to Wellstone in a dead heat, because of Wellstone's grassroots support--they tend to come out and vote more than Republicans. So on the ground, the media outrage campaign may well end up being the best effort the Republicans have been able to make in the entire two year long campaign by Coleman. Wellstone's death may well end up putting Coleman in office now, because of the depths of depravity the Republicans were willing to stoop when they began the moral outrage attack in the media.

It is now believed by many involved in independent grassroots politics in Minnesota, that if there was any conspiracy involved in the Wellstone death, it was the media strategy between local and national Republican party hacks, and the national right wing Republican talk shows, to come out of the Wellstone memorial on Tuesday night with guns blazing, long before Rick Kahn made his overwrought speech. In other words, many people on the progressive non-Dem party side, as well as the state DFL, believe that there would have been a Republican led media attack campaign against the Wellstones and Mondale no matter what happened at the Wellstone memorial, because that is just how bad a particular group of depraved Republicans want to win it, by any means necesary.

And as history has demonstrated, despite people's claims that they don't like negative attack campaigns, everyone also knows it gets cadidates elected, especially in tight races. So it seems that the Republican media strategy to attack the Wellstones and Mondale so vociferously before the crowd even got out of the arena on Tuesday night, may have worked brilliantly to the Republican's advantage.

The Republican media outrage campaign is now being viewed as one negative attack campaign that didn't even require tv ads, because the media uproar was created without spending a dime on advertising, and was the only way the Republicans could get away with going negative after Wellstone's death. The Republican led negative attacks have proven very effective with those people who hated Wellstone, most of whom likely wouldn't have come out to vote on Tuesday if Wellstone hadn't died, or if Rick Kahn hadn't spoken at the memorial.

The manufactured controversy may very well end up mobilizing all kinds of Wellstone and Democrat hating Republicans and Republican leaning independents to go to the polls and vote for Coleman out of spite, and to "demonstrate their disgust" with the Wellstone and Mondale campaign. And considering that the Wellstone and Democrat hating governor is leading the charge, there is some suggestion that there may have been some collusion between the governor & the Republicans in their media campaign. The governor is now the only political figure with a bully pulpit who can continue to attack Wellstone and the Democrats with impunity, because he isn't running, and no one believes any of his Independence Party candidates have a chance of winning on Tuesday.

Republican dirty tricks at it's most sophisticated, I'd say.