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American Morning

Coleman Appears To Be Winner in Minnesota Senate Race

Aired November 06, 2002 - 07:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour in Minnesota, where it looks as though the candidate who ran the shortest Senate campaign in history is coming up short in the polls.
Let's check in with Bob Franken, who is standing by there and has had a chance to talk with folks that are analyzing these late returns.

Good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

And of course, the media are now projecting that Norm Coleman, the Republican -- the 53-year-old Republican is going to win this race.

This is one that stretched out throughout the night. The counting is still going on, and that's because of the supplemental paper ballots that were necessitated by the late entry of Walter Mondale -- 74-year-old Walter Mondale hadn't been in a political race since 1984, but he was drafted to replace Paul Wellstone, who died just over a week ago.

And in that week, we constantly heard the expressions, "toss up," "too close to call," et cetera, et cetera. Well, in fact, that proved to be true, but now it looks like Mr. Coleman is the winner.

You see Walter Mondale last night as he came to the headquarters where we are to tell people he was going to bed. And that things still looked that there was a possibility that things would turn out well, but now, of course, the projections say otherwise.

There is Norm Coleman, as he made his stop at his campaign headquarters.

And we're waiting now this morning for the two news conferences. At some point, we'll expect that Mr. Mondale will tell Mr. Coleman and concede, and we are hoping that we'll see Walter Mondale in this very room.

And then, of course, we can expect to hear from Norm Coleman; Coleman, who was the beneficiary of some last-minute campaigning by President Bush, Mrs. Bush separately, and the vice president all over the last weekend. And of course, the analysts will tell you the beneficiary of a memorial service for Paul Wellstone last week that went bad for the Democrats. It turned into a political rally in the eyes of many Republicans, and now, the analysts believe that that might have been what energized the GOP turnout -- Paula. ZAHN: Well, isn't it true that was the single event that started turning numbers around for the first time in this campaign?

FRANKEN: Well, it was. They had been neck and neck -- Wellstone and Coleman had been neck and neck. And when Mondale started, he even had a very slight lead. But it was statistically insignificant, and each poll would show one or the other ahead. And so, nobody really had a handle on who was going to win this race.

All of that conspired to have a massive turnout yesterday. It may be a record turnout. There were sometimes lines at the polls that lasted two and three hours, because of the heavy turnout and because of the slow pace of marking the ballots the way they had to do.

Now, the question arises: Will there be any lawsuits that come out of this? And there are some potential lawsuits involving absentee ballots and the like. But at this particular moment, nobody is discussing whether it was so close that those lawsuits would be productive.

ZAHN: I know that we don't have a whole lot of exit polling on this race. But have you had any chance to talk with Senator Mondale's people about what they think in the end cost him this victory?

FRANKEN: Well, they talk about one speech that was made at the Wellstone memorial last week. Everybody says that that might have turned things around by getting the Republicans angry again and getting the state out of its deep sadness, an almost immobilized state because of the death of Paul Wellstone. That caused the Republicans to once again say, we have to win this race, and this time, we have to beat, say the Republicans, Walter Mondale.

ZAHN: Bob Franken, did you ever get to go to bed last night?

FRANKEN: I wouldn't have thought of it. I had to watch you.

ZAHN: Oh, thank you, Bob. We love that allegiance. I guess later today, we'll let you catch a little catnap. Thanks, Bob -- appreciate it. See you a little bit later on this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired November 6, 2002 - 07:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour in Minnesota, where it looks as though the candidate who ran the shortest Senate campaign in history is coming up short in the polls.
Let's check in with Bob Franken, who is standing by there and has had a chance to talk with folks that are analyzing these late returns.

Good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

And of course, the media are now projecting that Norm Coleman, the Republican -- the 53-year-old Republican is going to win this race.

This is one that stretched out throughout the night. The counting is still going on, and that's because of the supplemental paper ballots that were necessitated by the late entry of Walter Mondale -- 74-year-old Walter Mondale hadn't been in a political race since 1984, but he was drafted to replace Paul Wellstone, who died just over a week ago.

And in that week, we constantly heard the expressions, "toss up," "too close to call," et cetera, et cetera. Well, in fact, that proved to be true, but now it looks like Mr. Coleman is the winner.

You see Walter Mondale last night as he came to the headquarters where we are to tell people he was going to bed. And that things still looked that there was a possibility that things would turn out well, but now, of course, the projections say otherwise.

There is Norm Coleman, as he made his stop at his campaign headquarters.

And we're waiting now this morning for the two news conferences. At some point, we'll expect that Mr. Mondale will tell Mr. Coleman and concede, and we are hoping that we'll see Walter Mondale in this very room.

And then, of course, we can expect to hear from Norm Coleman; Coleman, who was the beneficiary of some last-minute campaigning by President Bush, Mrs. Bush separately, and the vice president all over the last weekend. And of course, the analysts will tell you the beneficiary of a memorial service for Paul Wellstone last week that went bad for the Democrats. It turned into a political rally in the eyes of many Republicans, and now, the analysts believe that that might have been what energized the GOP turnout -- Paula. ZAHN: Well, isn't it true that was the single event that started turning numbers around for the first time in this campaign?

FRANKEN: Well, it was. They had been neck and neck -- Wellstone and Coleman had been neck and neck. And when Mondale started, he even had a very slight lead. But it was statistically insignificant, and each poll would show one or the other ahead. And so, nobody really had a handle on who was going to win this race.

All of that conspired to have a massive turnout yesterday. It may be a record turnout. There were sometimes lines at the polls that lasted two and three hours, because of the heavy turnout and because of the slow pace of marking the ballots the way they had to do.

Now, the question arises: Will there be any lawsuits that come out of this? And there are some potential lawsuits involving absentee ballots and the like. But at this particular moment, nobody is discussing whether it was so close that those lawsuits would be productive.

ZAHN: I know that we don't have a whole lot of exit polling on this race. But have you had any chance to talk with Senator Mondale's people about what they think in the end cost him this victory?

FRANKEN: Well, they talk about one speech that was made at the Wellstone memorial last week. Everybody says that that might have turned things around by getting the Republicans angry again and getting the state out of its deep sadness, an almost immobilized state because of the death of Paul Wellstone. That caused the Republicans to once again say, we have to win this race, and this time, we have to beat, say the Republicans, Walter Mondale.

ZAHN: Bob Franken, did you ever get to go to bed last night?

FRANKEN: I wouldn't have thought of it. I had to watch you.

ZAHN: Oh, thank you, Bob. We love that allegiance. I guess later today, we'll let you catch a little catnap. Thanks, Bob -- appreciate it. See you a little bit later on this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.