By KATHERINE HUTT SCOTT
Gannett News Service

Mondale bio

WASHINGTON - Twenty-six years after he gave up his Senate seat to seek the vice presidency, Walter Mondale is poised to run again for the Senate.

Sen. Paul Wellstone's death Friday in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minn., has made Mondale a likely substitute for Wellstone on the ballot. Under state law, Wellstone's name must be replaced on the ballot by Thursday. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota is expected to name Mondale on Wednesday.

And Minnesota's senior statesman may have a joyous homecoming.

In a speech last month to the Senate, the former Democratic vice president and unsuccessful presidential candidate called his years there "the happiest of my public career."

The Senate was a good fit for Mondale, a traditional liberal Democrat with a keen interest in domestic issues, said Homer Williamson, a political science professor at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

During his 12 years as a senator, Mondale served on committees with jurisdiction over children and youth, equal education opportunity, nutrition and human needs, aging and Social Security financing.

"He got to serve on the kinds of committees he was interested in to try to change policy and help people," Williamson said.

Mondale, appointed to the Senate in 1964 to fill the term of his mentor Hubert H. Humphrey who became vice president, served through 1976 when he resigned to become Jimmy Carter's vice president. In his years as senator, he compiled a left-of-center voting record that rivaled those of the most liberal members of Congress, such as Humphrey and the Kennedy brothers. Mondale was an outspoken advocate of civil rights legislation and of expanding insurance coverage to cover mental health. He brought the issue of affordable housing to national attention. He led an investigation into the FBI's abuse of civil liberties under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership.

"(These issues) go to the very core of his values, which is that government is about the improvement of people's lives," said David Lillehaug, Mondale's executive assistant when he ran for president in 1984 and now a lawyer representing the Senate campaign of Paul Wellstone.

Another reason Mondale liked the Senate was that most of the Senate liked him, Lillehaug said.

"Behind closed doors, he was one of the funniest people we knew," Lillehaug said.

However, political science professor Charles Jones of the University of Wisconsin recalled that in 1975, Mondale was considering not running for Senate again and once told him, "I'm tired of this business."

Jones questioned whether the 74-year-old would serve out a six-year Senate term. If he stepped down early, Minnesota's governor might not appoint as liberal a replacement.

"I just raise that as a question for anybody that age who has gone back to private life,'' Jones said. "Also the Senate has changed a fair amount since he was there last. This is a snarling place, exactly the kind of politics that I had the impression Mondale was not fond of."

The Methodist minister's son also is very different from Wellstone, whose Senate seat he might win. Wellstone, a fiery populist, distrusted big corporations, opposed free trade and voted his conscience.

Mondale believed in free trade and after he left public office, he served on the boards of big corporations, including Northwest Airlines and UnitedHealth Group.

"He clearly was not picked to carry on the mantle of Wellstone idealism," said David Strom, legislative director for the conservative Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

"He is a quintessential establishment figure,'' Strom said. "Someone who's a team player, someone's who's essentially nonthreatening and tows the party line."

If he decides to enter the Senate race and wins, Mondale would become Minnesota's junior senator, taking the seat he previously held. Democrat Mark Dayton, who took office in 2001, would be senior senator.

The Senate's Democratic leadership would determine Mondale's seniority and committee assignments, said Don Ritchie, associate historian of the Senate.

But Mondale probably would have more heft than a typical freshman senator because of his long tenure in public life - including four years as ambassador to Japan - and the Democratic Party's current precarious hold on power in the Senate, which it controls by one seat.

"If he gets in, he may one of the reasons that Democrats hold on to power in the Senate, so he might have more leverage," Williamson said.

"He brings qualifications that very few other people in the country have," Lillehaug said. "At a time when we appear headed for war and just have sustained a major tragedy of terrorism, that kind of experience is very reassuring."

Contributing: Jon Frandsen, GNS