As reported here over the last several days, the Minneapolis Star Tribune concedes that Norm Coleman's campaign is drawing crowds and gaining momentum. We believe that Coleman is now leading Mondale in both the Democrats' polls and the Republicans' polls. We will report further as soon as we have more inside information.

The Washington Times offers an optimistic take on the FBI's progress in infiltrating and neutralizing al Qaeda cells in the U.S.

By the way, Deacon, we should tell our readers that Michelle Malkin is a Power Line reader. She sent us an email saying we have "a GREAT blog!" We, of course, are far bigger fans of her than she is of us.

Michelle Malkin is a great favorite of Power Line, especially for her efforts on immigration issues. In this piece, she notes that no one seems to know how old accused sniper John Lee Malvo really is. This uncertainty points to a basic problem in our immigration system. As Malkin explains, minors who enter the U.S. illegally qualify for exemption from immediate deportation. They are automatically released to any family member living in the U.S. pending deportation hearings that often do not occur for many months. How does the INS determine the age of illegal immigrants who claim to be minors? According to Malkin, INS policy calls for the use of dental records and wrist bone X-rays. But liberal advocacy groups have attacked these tests as inhumane. One such group is the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, which came to Malvo's aid when he was in INS custody. So what Malkin wants to know is, how did INS verify Malvo's age "before sending him on his merry way."

Yup, Deacon, he's dead. Bin Laden's been laiden six feet under (apologies, for the third time, to Mark Steyn). After the election is over, we'll go back to a more eclectic style of commentary. For the moment, before we return to the various hot Senate races, I want to note this contretemps. England's Culture Minister has denounced this year's Turner Prize entrants as "conceptual bullshit." This drew predictable howls from the artiste community. Unfortunately, along the way toward a balanced article, the London Times is required to describe the "art works" in question. Which resolves the debate in favor of the Culture Minister.

James Robbins, a National Review contributor on security issues, finds evidence that al Qaeda is in disarray. For example, some al Qaeda money is missing, apparently looted by middlemen no longer committed to the struggle. And al Qaeda no longer appears to be speaking with one voice. According to Robbins, its messages are uncoordinated and sometimes contradictory, varying in tone and style. Robbins suspects that bin Laden is dead and that a power struggle is underway for leadership of al Qaeda.

The invaluable Real Clear Politics brings together the latest poll data. President Bush's numbers are holding remarkably steady in the mid-60's, notwithstanding Dick Morris' moment of hysteria a few days ago. Bush is doing the right thing by touring the country, helping his party to hold the House and, we hope, take back the Senate from its unelected, illegitimate obstructionists. The generic Congressional preference poll is dead even, a good sign for Republican candidates.

More on the Wellstone death rally: The Star Tribune's top state political reporter is Dane Smith. I called him to ask about the Capitol Hill Blue story that we post below and offered to e-mail it to him. After cross-examining me regarding my identity and my employer, he asked me to summarize the story. He interrrupted me to say that he knew the story was false. I asked how. He said because he knows the local DFL officials, because they had told him so, and because he knows they could not orchestrate an event like that. And to think some people consider the Star Tribune's political coverage biased...

Matt Drudge has obtained the text of Walter Mondale's first radio ad, which is just now hitting the airwaves. Mondale has lost no time in going negative; the ad attacks Norm Coleman for promoting free trade. The strange thing about this is that Mondale has spent most of the last eighteen years as a lawyer in private firms, specializing in international law. At Dorsey & Whitney, a Minneapolis law firm, his practice consisted largely of trying to facilitate international business transactions on behalf of American corporations. It is simply weird for him to morph suddenly into a protectionist. Nor does it seem like a particularly smart strategy. Talking about foreign steel competition may help shore up Mondale's base on the heavily-Democratic Iron Range, but Coleman wasn't going to get a lot of votes there anyway. On the other hand, the Americans most committed to free trade are farmers, who sell their grain everywhere--and need to, since they produce far more than Americans can consume. The biggest unknown in this race has always been how well Coleman will do in Minnesota's rural areas; there are lots of Republican-leaning voters there, but they haven't all jumped to support Coleman because of his urban background and image. Mondale's attacking free trade may help to cement Coleman's support among farmers and other residents of rural areas.

Speaking of George McGovern, my cousin from New York wonders whether, with Tim Johnson apparently trailing in South Dakota, the Democrats will substitute McGovern as their Senate candidate.

More on the Wellstone death rally: Now the lying about it, exposed courtesy of Capitol Hill Blue's "Democratic operatives planned, engineered Wellstone political rally." They even planned Jeff Blodgett's "apology."

More on the Wellstone death rally: Trunk and Rocket Man have already made the most salient points about the disgusting memorial rally for Senator Wellstone. As an aside, I would add that the event may have been, in part, a release of pent up frustration among middle-aged Democrats who yearn to be back in 1972 nominating George McGovern. To Democrats like Clinton, Gore, and Harkin, Wellstone must have seemed like the one true-believer who never "sold out" his McGovernite ideals, not even when locked in his tight race with Norm Coleman. In paying tribute to Wellstone, these faux "New Democrats" apparently couldn't resist returning to their McGovernite roots and putting on a display that, like the 1972 Democratic convention, alienated mainstream voters. I'm not denying that the primary force at work was sheer opportunism. But it's possible that the subconscious desire to roll back the years to a time when left-wing Democrats could be unabashed left-wing Democrats helps explain the lapse of judgment that led to Tuesday's shocking display.

UPDATE: Deacon, you are right on the button. Life has been pretty depressing for leftists for quite a while-- Reagan, the Berlin Wall, the fall of Communism, prosperity in the West, and so on--but there was something about Wellstone that took aging leftists everywhere back to their roots. For one brief moment (not so brief, of course, for those of us who sat through the whole three-hour marathon), the leftists could pretend that they were back in Selma, Alabama or congregating on the Mall to oppose the VietNam war. They have been yearning for this for a long time.

Trunk's comments on Alan Page cause me to think about the current campaign by "civil rights" lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran, to coerce the NFL into hiring more African-American head coaches. The NFL is negotiating with Cochran and his colleagues over this. Cochran's group is pushing a plan whereby teams that hire African-Americans will be awarded extra draft picks. The Washington Post reports that Players Association president Gene Upshaw, an African American and NFL contemporary of Alan Page, is "vehemently opposed" to this plan. Good for him. The plan amounts to bribing teams to hire African Americans. By the same token, it punishes teams that hire white coaches they honestly consider the best available candidate. In addition, it would probably create bidding wars for highly qualified Africian American candidates, thus artificially inflating their salaries. In other words, if the plan works as intended, it will create racial discrimination with respect to both hiring and compensation. This is what passes for "civil rights" these days.

The Economist is no friend of Israel, in my estimation. However, its take on the Labor Party's departure from the national unity government is quite similar to those of the Jerusalem Post and DebkaFile that appear below. The Economist notes that Labor Party leader Ben-Eliezer had been looking for a pretext to leave the govenment for some time, in order to bolster his sagging popularity within his party. It reports that Sharon has said he may replace Ben-Eliezer as Defense Minister with retired General Shaull Mofaz, who has advocated deporting Arafat (I'm not holding my breath on that one). The Economist predicts that the next election will produce a new coalition government.

Don Lambro of the Washington TImes reports that the big-three Democratic strategists -- Carville, Shrum, and pollster Stanley Grennberg -- are advising Democratic candidates not to play up the economy as an election issue in the final days of the campaign. Why? Because Greenberg's polls show that the Republicans have a one-point lead on who can best handle the economy. Lambro cites the Georgia Senate race as exhibit A. Democratic incumbent Max Cleland has apparently lost all of what was once a large lead over Republican Saxby Chambliss, who is campaigning on abolishing the capital gains and death taxes. The larger point, as Lambro notes, is that the swing voters most likely to base their decisions on economic issues are members of the new investor class. These folks tend to understand economic issues and, for the most part, cannot be "spooked by class warfare."

Hugh Hewitt on the death rally: As part of our continuing effort to dwell on the significance of the Wellstone death rally of Tuesday evening, we respectfully direct your attention to Hugh Hewitt's outstanding World Net Daily column, "Using tragedy for political gain."

Mike Erlandson, Chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party, was on the radio this morning talking about the backlash against the Wellstone pep rally. His repeated mea culpas failed to mollify the callers, all of whom were hostile. The most significant point, however, was that Erlandson was twice asked how, according to current Democratic polling, the backlash was affecting the Coleman/Mondale race. Erlandson acknowledged that there had been "damage," but refused to answer the question. Presumably if the Democrats' polling showed Mondale ahead, he would have said so.

Robert Novak has a column this morning in which he reports that Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page was interested in replacing Senator Wellstone as the Democratic candidate. Based on anonymous Democratic sources, Novak reports that "the DFL apparently did not want to risk running the African-American Page in an overwhelmingly Caucasian state, and Page was swiftly discouraged." The column is "Mondale gambit shows Dems' audacity." Novak's strength as a columnist is his shoe leather reporting, and he may well be right. But I wonder if this story has any basis in fact.

Alan Page is the most popular Democrat in Minnesota. Unlike every other Minnesota Supreme Court justice, he was originally elected--not appointed--to his position on the court. Did he really want to resign from his position on the court to undertake the race against Coleman? Novak fails to report that Justice Page declined to resign and enter the race to be the Democratic candidate against a weak Rod Grams in 2000. Justice Page has never run for political office, and a short campaign as the party's endorsed nominee would help cover his weaknesses as a novice candidate, but I doubt (based on no information) that he would have been willing to leave the court to take a flier.

Novak refers to Justice Page as a "law-and-order" liberal. Novak provides no evidence for this characterization of Justice Page, and I am aware of none. The "law-and-order" part is pure hokum. Only the description of him as "liberal" is correct. Novak sounds to me like he's making this stuff up as he goes along.

The imputation of racism to Minnesotans as the Democrats' reason for not selecting Page also rings false to me. When he most recently stood for reelection, Justice Page was the leading vote-getter in the state. He is personally popular; as a Minnesota Viking, he was the NFL's first defensive Most Valuable Player--around the time Fritz Mondale last ran a statewide campaign. The imputation of racism to Minnesotans as a reason for rejecting Justice Page as a candidate sounds like something Democratic bigwigs would say in this context to justify dissing Justice Page, so Novak's story is plausible in that sense. But without some evidence to support the story, I don't believe it.

Recap on the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll: Tuesday's "memorial rally" for Senator Wellstone was the buzz yesterday, and the aftershocks are reflected in the Star Tribune today. The coverage is so lame, however, that it is barely worth a look. The news recap lets the senator's campaign manager "take responsibility" for what transpired, without exactly exploring what that might mean. The story is "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset" In its editorial this morning, "The Speech/Straying from memorial to rally," the Star Tribune instructs those of us who were revolted by the offenses against taste, decorum, and courtesy that the Democrats put on national display Tuesday night in Minneapolis to "try to put it aside." The editorial's focus on the egregious Rick Kahn conveniently ignores the other stemwinders from the senator's son and from Tom Harkin as well as the booing of Republican dignitaries. Rather than to try to "put it aside," we intend to dwell on it.

Which brings us to yesterday's Star Tribune Minnesota Poll on what is now the official Mondale/Coleman race. The poll showed Mondale up 47-39, with an 8-point lead. We wrote yesterday at great length about both the patent and latent defects of the poll. For the details see our posts under yesterday's date. There are two problems with yesterday's poll. Here is a summary of our take on it.

First, unlike most good political polls of which we know, the Minnesota Poll does not attempt to locate a representative sample, assess the "likely voters" among the sample, and break down the preferences of the likely voters. Rather, the Minnesota poll applies formulas to adjust the raw data it obtains from its survey. We think that as a result of these adjustments the reported result of the poll understates Republican strength generally and Coleman's strength specifically. The leading example of this phenomenon is the Minnesota Poll's final (November 5, 2000) pre-election Gore/Bush poll showing Gore with a 10-point lead in Minnesota; in the actual Minnesota popular vote, Gore edged Bush by 2.5 percent. We think much if not all of that margin was produced by the Star Tribune's own erroneous poll.

Second, the Mondale/Coleman Minnesota Poll reported yesterday had an exaggerated sample of Democratic respondents. The Minnesota Poll's last Wellstone/Coleman poll had a sample that was 40 percent Democratic; yesterday's Minnesota Poll had a sample that was 51 percent Democratic. Below we reproduce verbatim the "explanation" provided by the director of the Minnesota Poll, Rob Daves. We also provide the response of Coleman campaign manager Ben Whitney to Daves' "explanation." We think Ben has the better of the exchange, but you can judge for yourself.

Daves' "explanation" reminds me of the late comedian, Professor Irwin Corey. Corey's specialty was speaking in the peculiar gibberish of professorial expertise. However, Professor Corey was intentionally hilarious; Daves is funny only accidentally.

I spent a good part of the evening watching national news programs that talked about the Minnesota Senate race. I noticed that all of the Democrats who were interviewed had been given the same talking points. They all said that 1) prior to Wellstone's death, Norm Coleman had engaged in a vicious, negative campaign against Wellstone; and 2) Coleman did not observe a truce following Wellstone's death, as the Democrats did. Both of these claims are flat-out lies, as any Minnesotan could tell you. The Coleman/Wellstone race was vigorous and hard-fought, and appropriately so. But the most "negative" campaigning in that race was by Wellstone, who ran a series of ads that attacked Coleman personally, based on the fact that Coleman changed parties years ago. Even more absurd is the claim that Coleman failed to observe the campaign embargo. On the contrary, Coleman suspended all campaigning from the moment of Wellstone's plane crash until today. Not only did he not campaign, he was as gracious as could possibly be expected and repeatedly paid tribute to Wellstone as a gallant foe. Last night, while the Democrats engaged in their partisan orgy, Coleman remained silent. Only today has he resumed his campaign. There were, in fact, several Minnesota campaigns that failed to observe the cease-fire agreed to informally by the parties. All of these campaigns, without exception, were by Democrats, as even the partisan Minneapolis Star Tribune was forced to acknowledge. All Republicans scrupulously observed the cease-fire. These are not opinions, these are facts which any Minnesotan can verify. Nevertheless, the national Democratic party has sent its representatives out to be interviewed, armed with talking points that are, quite simply, false. What does one make of a party that cannot tell the truth--not about events of the dim historical past, but about events that occurred during the last few weeks and days?

We've posted a lot on the Minnesota Senate race over the last two days, and I thought it might be helpful to try to synthesize where we think things currently stand. The most fundamental point is this: The Democrats had hoped that there would be no campaign following Wellstone's death; that six quiet days would pass by without controversy, and that Walter Mondale would then be crowned Senator. This morning's Minneapolis Star Tribune warned the Republicans strongly against campaigning against Mondale. The same paper helpfully offered up a poll intended to show that Mondale has the race in the bag, so there is no need for a campaign. Now, this plan may never have worked in any event, but it was blown sky-high by last night's fiasco. A huge backlash against the Wellstone rally is in progress. Governor Ventura has blasted the Democrats harshly, as have various media figures in the Twin Cities. A local TV station has planned a debate for Friday night, and has announced that either Mondale will appear, or he will be represented by an empty chair and Coleman will have the time to himself. Meanwhile, Tim Russert has offered to come to Minneapolis on Saturday to moderate a debate. It should now be impossible for the Democrats to avoid one or more debates. The legitimate polls show the race to be a virtual dead heat, prior to last night's disaster. The Democrats have stumbled badly and are now engaged in damage control, trying to apologize for the rally. But the significant fact is that if they ever could have finessed the election and slipped it past the voters without a real campaign, that is impossible now. The Democrats are beginning with an even start, and are in for a tough six days.

Two polls sponsored by the Baltimore Sun and the Bethesda Gazette contain good news for Republicans here in Maryland. First, Bob Ehrlich leads Kathleen Kennedy Townsend by 46% to 42%. This spread slightly exceeds the margin of error. Second, Republican incumbent Connie Morella leads Chris Van Hollen 44% to 42% in the 8th Congressional District. Morella's support among African-Americans, an important constituency in her newly configured district, has risen from 17% to 32%, if the poll is to be believed. And her support among moderates has risen from 37% to 57%. In the end, however, voter turnout is the key to both of these races.

The Wellstone rally showed bad taste and bad judgment, but this is simply insane: Andrew Sullivan looks at the "Wellstone was murdered" theorists.

The Denver Post reports on the latest Zogby poll in the Colorado Senate race. The poll has Republican incumbent Wayne Allard leading Democrat Tom Strickland by 41 percent to 39 percent. Zogby views this as "terrible news" for Allard because "the undecided normally break against the incumbent." Zogby is also predicting a Mondale victory. However, he sees the Republicans retaining control of the House.

Usually we rely on Rocket Man to bring us the latest from DebkaFile, an Israel-based internet publication devoted to reporting and analysis of intelligence, security, and terrorism issues. However, with Rocket Man working diligently to get to the bottom of the Star Tribune's treatment of "leaners," it is left to me to present DebkaFile's analysis of the Labor Party's walkout from the Israeli government. Its basic take is similar to the Jerusalem Post's discussed below -- key Labor Party minister Ben Eliezer walked out to salvage his faltering position within the Party. However, in typical fashion, DebkaFile adds twist upon twist to the analysis. First, it reports that Ben Eliezer's ploy isn't working; he is actually losing ground within his party. Second, DebkaFile sees the influence of the European Union and the State Department behind the walkout as part of plan to replace Sharon with a left of center government that can work with Arafat. But third, DebkaFile argues that Arafat would actually rather see Sharon in power, inasmuch as Sharon has decided not to harm Arafat, so he can go on playing the victim of a "repressive" govenment. Nonetheless, Arafat is happy to see the breakup of the coalition government because it makes it more likely that Sharon will be further ostracized by the international community.

My view is that there's a war coming in the region that will shake things up in ways that will render irrelevant the games being played in connection with the walkout.

Hugh Hewitt relates the Wellstone memorial fiasco to the general deterioration of the Democrats under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle et al. Hugh's article is called "Using Tragedy for Political Gain."

Rocket Man, we report, you decide. The Coleman campaign shares your skepticism. Here follows the Coleman campaign's response to Daves, received a moment ago:

"You admit that there was a 100% increase in the partisanship measure (to 10%) from your last poll and from what is historically valid per exit polls (which is 5%). This ignores that you generated another 5% of imbalance by not considering leaners a part of their party - which I find inexplicable and inconsistent with what many other pollsters do. In your news article you refer to them as Democrats/Republicans so why are the leaners not worthy of consideration as members of their party with respect to your polling? If you include them you created a 15% over sample of Democrats. The fact that you had the same number of hard D's from your last poll is really irrelevant. It is the relative partisanship that matters - so you did oversample Democrats compared to Republicans. If the goal was to accurately inform readers, then you failed. Finally, you did not explain why this absolutely critical issue of your sampling is never explained to readers. You manage to reveal in the news articles how many phone lines are in each household you sampled, but neglect to discuss what is the easiest way to generate a distorted result for the poll. I do not get it..."

Trunk, if you can make head or tail of Daves's explanation, you're a better man than I am. He goes on and on about how they allocate "leaners," but presumably they allocated leaners in their prior poll as well, so that can't explain why the percentage of Democrats in the sample went from 40% to 51%. And he keeps saying that the percentage of "strong Democrats" in their most recent poll is EXACTLY the same as the Voter News Service percentage in 2000. That, of course, proves nothing unless we know how the remaining voters (a large majority of the sample) were allocated. In short, Daves gives no coherent explanation of why the Democratic proportion of the sample went from 40% to 51% in twelve days.

Even more on today's Star Tribune Minnesota Poll: The Star Tribune's Mondale/Coleman poll is obviously the story of the day and bears further examination. One of the mysteries of the the Star Tribune's Minnesota Poll is the various formulas it employs to adjust raw survey results. I believe they are proprietary, like the formula for Coca-Cola. The formulas are in any event applied invisibly to the raw data to obtain the published poll results. But on occasion the published results themselves have visible problems, and today's results provide a good example.

Today's survey results are based on a survey sample that was 51 percent Democratic (16 points over the Republican share), as opposed to a survey sample that was 40 percent Democratic in the last published Wellstone/Coleman Minnesota poll.

Rob Daves is the director of the Minnesota Poll for the Star Tribune. Daves has received an irate e-mail message from the Coleman campaign noting that the Minnesota Poll survey sample for the poll reported in today's Strib was 51 percent Democratic, versus 40 percent Democratic in the Strib's last reported Wellstone/Coleman poll. The Coleman campaign has further noted that no Minnesota exit poll has shown Democrats to exceed Republicans by 16 points. We have contacted Daves regarding this issue and Daves responds as follows:

"The [Minnesota Poll survey] sample was 51 percent DFL and those who leaned to the DFL, 36 percent GOP and those who leaned to the GOP. Exit polls normally don't break out leaners separately from independents, as we do...

"If you treat the leaners in our poll as independents, the way the VNS exit poll does, then our sample was 36 percent DFL, 26 percent GOP, and 38 percent Republican[sic--this should read "Independents"]. But remember that exit polls have a pretty big margin of sampling error, usually bigger than our poll, so their numbers are not exactly a gold standard. [Daves referred to and attached a table we are omitting.]

"As you'll notice, the percentage of strong partisans is remarkably stable between the two polls, one done over a 5-night period with call backs, refusal conversions and all of the standard techniques we use to get a good sample...The differences come in the fluidity of the leaners, who typically bounce in and out of weak partisanship anyway. And our percentage of strong DFLers in the Oct. 28 poll is EXACTLY what the VNS percentage was in 2000 -- hardly a Democratic bias.

"The 2000 VNS exit poll showed a 5-point advantage for DFLers over Republicans. Our Oct. 11-16 poll showed 5-point advantage for DFLers over Republicans, when comparable measures are used. Our Oct. 28 poll showed a 10-point advantage, but not because there were too many DFLers (that percentage was EXACTLY what the 2000 VNS percentage was).

"Moreover, a look at our unweighted demographics for the two polls shows a remarkable similarity in the proportions for education, ideology (liberal/moderate/conservative), and geography. The overnight sample slightly undersampled men and 35-44 year olds, compared with the Oct. 11-16 sample, but we weight on those variables to bring them into Census proportions anyway, just as I'm sure Glen does. If you just look at unweighted ideology, the proportions are virtually identical in the two polls.

"Sorry, but I don't buy [the Coleman campaign's] criticism of the poll's sample."

The backlash against the Democrats' political rally last night may not be limited to Minnesota. A reader from Atlanta writes, "I cannot express how shocked we were as we watched that campaign rally unfold on Fox News. I've voted both sides of the aisle all my adult life, but I was so appalled by the blatant attempt to capitalize on the death of a fine man and the others who died...that I might never vote for a Democrat again."

It appears that a significant backlash against the Democrats' over-the-top performance at the Wellstone "memorial" last night is developing. This morning Tom Barnard, the Twin Cities' dominant radio personality, said the phone lines were "burning up" with callers expressing outrage over the Williams Arena pep-fest. Call volume was so heavy that the show had to cancel a contest because the winner couldn't get through. Barnard said that he was born and raised a Democrat but is 100% Republican after the Democrats' sorry performance last night.

There is a lot of buzz this morning about the fact that television cameras showed Jesse Ventura and his wife, Terry, getting up and wallking out on the Democrats' pep-fest at Williams Arena last night. I heard Ventura being interviewed on the radio this morning. He said that he found the Democrats' misuse for partisan ends not only of Wellstone's death, but of the families of the other victims of the crash, to be deeply offensive. He said that his wife was so shocked and offended by the Democrats' conduct that she was brought to tears, prompting their walkout.

Republican former Congressman Vin Weber is our friend and a guy who has maintained frienships across party lines for many years. Yet Vin was not only sickened by the Democratic faux "memorial" rally yesterday, he expressed his disgust to a reporter. In the Star Tribune's "Memorial Service" supplement this morning, Vin is quoted prominently as follows: "What a complete, total, absolute sham. The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone's memory totally, completely and shamelessly for political gain. To them, Wellstone's death, apparently, was just another campaign event." Didn't they forget to drop the balloons though? In any event, the story is "Republicans decry service as political."

Here's the Jerusalem Post's report on the departure of Israel's Labor Party from Ariel Sharon's government. All of the Labor ministers, including Defense Minister and party leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, have resigned, ostensibly over a dispute regarding budget allocations to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, the article views the dispute as insubstantial. It suggests that Ben-Eliezer left the government in order to bolster his position in the upcoming Labor Party primaries. Polls show Ben-Eliezer trailing two more dovish challengers. Moreover, the article notes that Labor was always expected to bolt the coalition eventually in order to position itself as a "moderate" alternative to Sharon. Labor's departure will not topple Sharon's government, but will force Sharon either to rely on "small far-right parties" or call for early elections. Right now, elections are scheduled for November 2003.

The Washington Post on how Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is keeping Bob Ehrlich on the defensive in their toss-up race for Maryland governor by proposing yet new restrictions on the sale of guns. Even the Post voices skepticism about efficacy Townsend's various proposals on the subject.

The Washington Times on why Muhammad and Malvo should be prosecuted "anywhere but Maryland." It comes down to the death penalty. As I noted last week, it is basically a dead-letter in Maryland. In fact, currently there is a moratorium on the death penalty here. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was a prime-mover for the moratorium, although she is now saying that the death penalty is a "no-brainer" in Muhammad's case. Moreover, moratorium or not, Maryland cannot execute Malvo because he is under 18. And, as the Times explains, it is far from clear that it can execute Muhammad because, believe it or not, his crimes may not be sufficiently "aggravated" to meet the limited conditions under which the death sentence can be imposed in ultra-liberal Maryland. "No-brainer," indeed.

Bill Whelan of the Hoover Institution reports on the Callifornia gubernatorial race. A federal judge has released letters from attorneys representing a convicted state coastal commissioner alleging that, a decade ago, he and Gray Davis schemed to obtain campaign donations from developers in exchange for political favors. However, Whelan questions whether these allegations, though shocking, will have shock value, since this is what voters have come to expect from Governor Davis. The most recent poll shows Davis leading Republican Bill Simon by ten percentage points, but stuck at only 41 percent. Perhaps the most significant point in Whelan's piece relates to voter turnout. According to Whelan, next Tuesday's vote will challenge the midterm electin of 1942, when only 35.7 percent of voters participated, as the lowest attended election in American history. This could give the Republicans an advantage in California and elsewhere.

The Washington Post reports on the tight congressional race in Baltimore County between Republican Helen Bentley and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger. The Republicans may need to win at least one of the two hot Maryland races, the other one being the race in ultra-liberal Montgomery County between Republican incumbent Connie Morella and challenger Chris Van Hollen. I have always thought that Republican chances are better in the Baltimore Country race. But the Post calls that one a toss-up and says that Ruppersberger is slightly ahead in the most recent poll. The bad news is that Democrats have a heavy advantage in registered voters. The good news is that Republican Bob Ehrlich, who has represented the district for the past eight years, is leading Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the district by 20 points. This should help Bentley, who represented the district prior to Ehrlich.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who was appalled by the Wellstone "memorial service." The Associated Press reports that "Wellstone Memorial Turns Into Rally". Note that the AP repeats the results of the Star Tribune's Minnesota Poll and declares Mondale to be "comfortably ahead." The Democrats will do everything possible to create an air of inevitability around Mondale and prevent a real campaign from breaking out over the next six days.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has released its latest Minnesota Poll; the headline trumpets the claim that "Support Shifts to Mondale," while the body of the story says that "Dramatic political developments since Wellstone's death Friday have had little effect on voters' leanings in the U.S. Senate race." I guess the Strib's headline writers just can't restrain themselves. The poll says that Mondale leads Coleman by 47% to 39%. The Trunk dissected the Minnesota Poll's methodology in a series of posts a few days ago; the bottom line is that the Strib's poll appears designed to overstate Democrats' support by about five per cent. Taking that bias into account, the results of this poll are essentially the same as the two polls taken by Republican pollsters over the last 48 hours. The race, in other words, is at present a dead heat, as it was before Wellstone's demise. The Strib's poll also confirms the finding of the Republicans' polls that the Wellstone situation is not benefiting other Democratic candidates, specifically Roger Moe, who is trailing Tim Pawlenty in the race for Governor. The Strib's results confirm that Tim Penny has fallen out of contention, and their poll's four point lead for Pawlenty probably translates into a seven to nine point lead in reality.

Update: The word on the street is that Walter Mondale has cashed in approximately $6 million in stock options on shares of United Health Group, the HMO on whose board of directors he has served for several years. This is potentially explosive because Mondale's wealth has come not as the result of many years of hard work, but rather by selling his name and attending a few board meetings. In short, this appears to be exactly the kind of sweetheart deal that is fairly characterized as "crony capitalism." This has the potential to be the issue that blows Mondale's candidacy sky-high. We will be on top of the issue as the facts develop.

Somewhat surprisingly, Minnesota's Democrats are running scared. The lawsuit filed earlier today, which I posted on below, requests that absentee ballots cast for Paul Wellstone be construed as votes for Walter Mondale. The Democrats' position is too ridiculous to require refutation. How a voter could be "deemed" to have voted for a candidate who was not even in the race at the time the voter filled out the ballot is incomprehensible. At the same time, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a semi-official voice of the DFL party, says that "all Minnesotans" are "lucky to have [Mondale]" as a candidate and warns the Republicans against attacking Mondale in the few remaining days of the campaign. Apparently the Democrats are afraid that after eighteen years of retirement from public life, Mondale will be unable to meet the rigors of even a six-day campaign. It will be interesting to see how the Star Tribune responds when Mondale declines Coleman's challenge to debate the issues of the day.

The Democrats' "memorial service" for Paul Wellstone is in progress now, being televised on every Twin Cities station. I watched only the first few minutes; it was a pep rally, not a memorial service. It is at Williams Arena, home of the Minnesota Gophers basketball team, and as it began, a parade of celebrities entered the arena to wild applause and raucous pop music. Bill and Hillary are there, Ted Kennedy, most Democratic Senators and some Republicans. One person who isn't there is Dick Cheney, who was disinvited by the Wellstone family on a flimsy pretext. I turned it off, so I don't know whether it later resembled a memorial service more than a rock concert. Whether any votes will be swayed by this extravaganza remains to be seen. The tastelessness and open partisanship of the part I saw will certainly turn off some voters.

Here comes more voter fraud, this time in Michigan.

The Democrats commenced a lawsuit in the Minnesota Supreme Court this morning, seeking to overturn the bipartisan plan for handling absentee ballots that was agreed upon by Democratic Attorney General Mike Hatch and Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer. As discussed below, there are relatively few votes at issue here; it is fair to infer that, notwithstanding their professed confidence, the Democrats are expecting a very tight Senate race.

The non-Israeli Jews and Jewish refugees of the Arab Middle East are not exactly a popular or well-known victim group, though not because they have not been horrifically persecuted in their countries of origin. By contrast, anyone who has ever visited Israel must be struck by the manner in which Arab Israelis participate in the civic and commercial life of the country. The contrast with their Jewish counterparts in Arab countries tells you almost everything you need to know to understand the source of the Middle East's intractability. For the telling story of one refugee, check out "Libyan Jewish refugee shares story." The story ran in the Yale Daily News with a fine companion column by a Yale freshman, "Locating intolerance in the Arab world."

Speculation is rife that Walter Mondale's eighteen years in private life may have made him vulnerable as a political candidate, and that the Democrats may have acted hastily in selecting Mondale before thinking through what skeletons may be in his closet. Mondale has been on the board of directors of an HMO for some years, and it is being reported that over the last several years, he has sold several million dollars worth of stock. This is still rumor at this stage, and it is not clear how stock sales by Mondale and other insiders may correlate to losses suffered by outside investors. But it is obvious to all who know Mondale that, for better or worse, he is no Paul Wellstone. One can only speculate how Wellstone's partisans will react when they learn about Mondale's business dealings over the past two decades.

The first two rounds of polling subsequent to Paul Wellstone's fatal accident have been completed. As reported in the Washington Times this morning, and as posted below, the Republican Senatorial Committee's poll, conducted Sunday night, showed Walter Mondale with a 45%-43% lead over Norm Coleman. The Minnesota Republican Party did its own polling Sunday and Monday nights, using a different pollster, which showed the race to be a dead heat. Speculation is that the "Princess Diana effect" has peaked and is now ebbing. The party's polls also indicate that the outpouring of sympathy for the Wellstone family has had no impact at all on the other Minnesota races. Gubernatorial candidate Tim Pawlenty and House candidates Mark Kennedy and John Kline continue to lead their races.

Here is an important piece by Hugo Gordon of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Gordon explains the anti-democratic machinations of the European Union. In this instance, Ireland is re-voting on whether to agree to the Treaty of Nice, which involves a massive transfer of power from the people of Europe to the unelected authority in Brussels. The Irish rejected this once, but under the Euro rules, only a "yes" vote is permanent. When the "plebs" vote no, they are considered to have "got the answer wrong" and "are asked the question again after a period of re-education." Gordon says that the United States should care about this because it is part of a larger campaign to "demolish the concept of national sovereignty" against which the U.S. is the ultimate target.

Could it be any clearer that France and Germany, the two driving forces behind this campaign, are no longer our strong allies? Few tears need be shed over this realization. Why were they our allies in the first place? Not, I would argue, because of shared values and democratic traditions. When the alliances were formed, we shared few values or traditions with Germany (to say the least) and France had little history of stable democratic rule. It seems to me that we became allies of these two nations primarily because they were the key states to be allied with in our struggle with the Soviet Union. Today, though, our struggle is with a different force, and France and Germany are by no means the most important allies to have in that struggle. Israel, Russia, Turkey, and Pakistan and/or India are far more relevant. Much of Europe may become what India was during the Cold War -- a large and sanctimonious irrelevancy.

John O'Sullivan notes that "If we had to rely on the U.S. government and major news media for enlightenment, we would be utterly mystified as to why John Muhammad and John Malvo allegedly went on a killing spree. They are pretty sure that it has nothing to do with Islam or illegal immigration. Aside from that they are baffled." O'Sullivan points out that there never was any evidence to support the "angry white male" profile, and that three columnists--Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan and Mark Steyn--provided more reliable information and sounder analysis than the entire mainstream media. Why? Because "they were not wearing ideological blinders when they looked at [the] facts." O'Sullivan concludes that Sullivan, Steyn and Malkin demonstrate that "reporting is too important to be left to the reporters," a sentiment that will meet with no objection in the blogosphere.

Dick Morris notes that President Bush's approval rating has dropped significantly. He attributes this partly to the fact that Bush is using presidential capital in hotly disputed congressional races (as he should be doing). The other main cause, as the charming Mr. Morris expressed it on national television last night, is that Bush is perceived as "a pussy" on Iraq because he's "dancing" with France and Russia after convincing the country that we need to invade.

During his television appearance, Morris predicted that a Mondale-Wellstone race would be very close. Morris claimed that he didn't know of any poll results. He said he based his prediction on the fact that Mondale "was never that popular in Minnesota" and is an ancient laborite hack, rather than a populist like Wellstone.

Our friends at Real Clear Politics have pulled together the latest generic Congressional preference polls and find that, on the average, the Democrats lead by two points, 44% to 42%. This difference is insignificant, except that it fails to show any late surge in the direction of either party. The significant issue, as always, will be voter sentiment in the relatively few competitive districts. Meanwhile, the right direction/wrong direction polls are showing a trend in favor of "right direction." I generally find this poll question to be unhelpful; however, a number of pundits have purported to find signs of an anti-incumbent wave, which these numbers do not support.

According to the poll reported in the Washington Times this morning in the story Rocket Man links to below, the Mondale/Coleman race is a statistical dead heat. The story includes the following observation, consistent with Rocket Man's (and Hugh Hewitt's) take on the race: "'What's been lost in the coverage of this tragedy is the strength of Coleman's candidacy,' said Dan Allen, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. 'Minnesota remains hugely competitive, no matter who the Democrats select later this week.'"

The Republicans conducted a telephone poll Sunday night, which showed Mondale with a narrow 45%-43% lead over Norm Coleman. The results were given to the Washington Times, presumably to deter a sense of inevitability--"coronation," as the Trunk put it--about Mondale's candidacy. This is anybody's race, I think.

The New York Times this morning has a piece on the impact of Senator Wellstone's death on the three-way gubernatorial election, "Senator's death reverberates in race for Minnesota governor."

Among the signs of the return to something close to politics as usual this morning is the return to politics as usual on the news pages of the Star Tribune. The Strib discounts Mondale's age as an impediment to his appeal to voters in "Mondale's age not seen as big issue." In the spirit of scholarship the story helpfully explains, "Historians note that the word Senate is derived from the Latin for 'council of elders.'"

Lovers of words such as the proprietors of the Power Line also note that the word Senate shares the same Latin root ("senex") as the English word "senile." My authoritative Cassell's New Latin Dictionary also includes the related Latin word "senium," noting in italics that it means "old age, especially the weakness of old age, decline, decay." See, children, Mr. Mondale is perfectly qualified to be our "senator," exactly as the Star Tribune "news" story suggests.

Senility is also the key to the Democrats' strategy in pulling out the incredibly foreshortened Mondale/Coleman race. Note the focus on getting "supplemental absentee ballots" to the nursing home set in "Hatch, Kiffmeyer resolve ballot issues."

The comedy continues in "A truce in politics? Not for long." One must read almost to the end of this carefully structured story to hear it alleged--gosh, I guess the three reporters who share the byline couldn't verify it themselves--"Apparently, the only candidate or party ads that have sneaked through the weekend and Monday were by DFLers, Republicans said." When it comes to politics, as opposed to policy involving that silly old Saddam Hussein, the Democrats deeply believe in the disarmament of their enemies.

President Bush, on the other hand, believes in putting up a fight. The Strib reports that "Bush reportedly to campaign in Minnesota on Sunday." I vaguely recall that President Bush the elder campaigned in Minnesota on the weekend before the gubernatorial election in the similarly foreshortened Perpich/Carlson race of 1990 that Arne Carlson narrowly pulled out. As we said earlier in this context: May it be a portent!

In Minnesota we are fortunate to get Hugh Hewitt's great drive-time radio show on 1280 AM The Patriot. The show is outstanding in many respects, all related to the respect with which Hugh treats his incredibly loyal audience. We are therefore especially proud that in order to keep his finger on the pulse of the fast-breaking political developments which we are in the middle of here, Hugh invited Rocket Man to join him on the show this evening, with more to come during his visit to Minnesota on Friday. Rocket Man batted 1.000 answering Hugh's questions. We want to tip our hats both to Hugh and to the Power Line proprietor who made us proud.

More attention is being focused on the absentee voter issue in the Minnesota Senate race. Apparently the Secretary of State's office is working on a system whereby absentee voters will be allowed to show up at the polls and cast a vote for Mondale if they had mailed in their ballots before Wellstone's accident. This is, of course, totally contrary to the usual procedure with absentee ballots, and the mechanics would seem to be problematic. We will post further when we have details on the Secretary of State's plan. Absentee ballots will probably be the main source of controversy if, as I expect, the election is very close.

More on the Moussaoui connection: On Saturday we noted the weird fact that the co-pilot on Senator Wellstone's plane (Michael Guess) had worked at the same Eagan, Minnesota flight school that Zacarias Moussaoui attended. Here is the Star Tribune story on the overlap between Moussaoui and the co-pilot, "Co-pilot played minor role in story of Moussaoui."

Now Jesse Ventura is saying that he expects litigation to arise out of the Minnesota Senate race. He objects specifically to the fact that under Minnesota law, as we discussed earlier, absentee ballots cast for Coleman will naturally be counted for Coleman, while absentee ballots cast for Wellstone will not count for Mondale. "That to me right there creates an unfair election," Ventura says. Ventura has usually sided with the Democrats throughout his four-year term, and could be a useful front man for the Democrats if they lose the election and decide to challenge the result in court.

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review considers Mondale beatable. In fact, he predicts that after the first polls of the race are taken, the Republican party will increase, rather than decrease, its commitment to Minnesota.