Senate Foes Scrap in Minnesota Debate

Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Norm Coleman sparred Monday in a rare election-eve debate, a fitting end to the unusual five-day Senate race between the two in Minnesota.

Mondale sought to portray Coleman -- who was recruited by the White House to run for the seat that had been held by Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone -- as a puppet of President Bush.

Coleman said his ties to the administration would help the state. “If I win,” he said, “the president is going to owe me big time.” He pledged to be his “own man.”

Coleman accused Mondale, a U.S. senator from 1964 to 1976 who then served as vice president in the Carter administration, of representing the politics of the past.

It was the only meeting of the candidates since Mondale was tapped by state Democrats on Wednesday to run in place of Wellstone, who died in a plane crash Oct. 25.

The debate was broadcast live on CNN, underscoring the attention the contest has gained since Wellstone’s death and Mondale’s selection as his replacement.

The race long has been seen as crucial in determining which party controls the Senate. Coleman and Wellstone had been neck and neck in the polls, and surveys show the Coleman-Mondale race is likely to be close.

No clear-cut winner appeared to emerge from Monday’s one-hour debate.

Joseph G. Peschek, a political scientist at Hamline University in St. Paul, said he thought Mondale, 74, did a “good job of dispelling notions he’s not up to the job because of his age. He was well-informed about current issues and fairly aggressive about pointing out his differences with Coleman.” But he added: “Coleman stood his ground and did not shrink.”

Noting that Mondale struck the more aggressive tone, John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said he thought that might have benefited Coleman, “if only because good manners play well in Minnesota.”

The consensus among analysts was that the debate was likely to have little effect on the election’s outcome.

“Both of them touched all the right notes for their base, and for the independents already leaning their way,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

Seated at a table across from each other at Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, the candidates differed sharply on such issues as Bush’s tax cut, a possible unilateral U.S. strike against Iraq, homeland security legislation and who would be more effective.

“I can be independent. I owe no one,” Mondale said, noting that Coleman has received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from special interests.

Coleman, citing Mondale’s recent membership on corporate boards, answered: “When we talk about ... corporate America, that’s been your world.”

“That’s really charming, to hear a Republican worry about a Democrat who knows something about business,” Mondale shot back.

Coleman pledged, if elected, to “change the tone in Washington” by stressing bipartisanship.

Mondale responded with another barb, saying: “What you’re doing is sticking with the right wing [of the GOP] and pretending to change the tone.”

Mondale said he would have voted the same as Wellstone in opposing the resolution passed by the Senate last month that authorizes Bush to use force against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Coleman said that without the bipartisan vote in support of the resolution, the administration “would be negotiating from weakness” in its efforts to prod the United Nations to take a tougher stance against Iraq.

Mondale said the prospect of the U.S. going it alone against Iraq “is not strength, Norman, that is weakness.”

Coleman noted that while Mondale was vice president, “we had double-digit inflation. We had folks waiting in line to get gasoline.”

Mondale, borrowing the line Coleman has used against him, responded: “This election is about the future. It’s not about the collapse of the shah [of Iran] in 1979.”