Fellow Minnesotans: Please help Norm by stopping people from sympathy voting...!
Is it his political base? Mondale has not been on a ballot in 18 years. He has been all but invisible in Minnesota for much of that time. When he was active he was respected but not loved, not the way his mentor Humbert Humprhey was loved.
Is it is ties to the deceased? He is not a family member. He is not even really a political ally, having retired from the fray when Wellstone first ran for office.
Could it then be Mondale's appeal to that very large independent voting block in Minnesota, the ones who insist that they always vote for the man, never the party? As a current resident of Minnesota, you certainly know that Minnesota independents love political mavericks. They have elected a group that ranges back to boy governor Harold Stassen in the 1940s, the ever odd Gene McCarthy in the early 1960s, the stuttering Plywood Minnesota mavin Rudy Boschwitz, the goofy Rudy Perpich, Paul Wellstone, Ross Perot and his charts and Jesse Ventura.
As a former Minnesotan who was very active in the politics of that state, I really doubt that this whole sympathy story is anything more than wishful thinking by the liberal media in need of a story for this weekend. I also doubt that the talking heads in the media and most of those commenting on this thread have any understanding of how profoundly quirky Minnesota politics are.