ANSAS CITY, Mo. - The US Senate race that was among the most competitive in Missouri history - and has become its strangest - will soon choose a winner. Dead or alive.
When Democratic candidate and two-term governor Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash Oct. 16, the state was left shocked, grieving, and wondering what had become of its top-profile political campaign.
State law said it was too late to change the ballot, so on Nov. 7, Carnahan's name will appear next to that of his opponent, Republican incumbent John Ashcroft. And polls and pundits talk seriously about the possibility of a dead man winning.
''The chance is there. It's very much there,'' said Dale Neuman, a political science professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. ''There's no evidence that Carnahan's chances have diminished since when he was alive campaigning.''
The state's political professionals have given up trying to predict what will happen, unwilling to predict whether sympathy will carry the election for Carnahan or confusion will cinch the contest for Ashcroft.
Private campaign polls found Carnahan ahead by 10 percentage points or more in the week after his death. A Kansas City Star poll published Friday showed Carnahan leading Ashcroft 47 percent to 45 percent, within the poll's margin of error, but virtually the same as before his death.
Senate vacancies are filled by the governor's appointment, and the new governor, former lieutenant governor Roger Wilson, has said he would appoint Carnahan's widow if her late husband wins the election. Jean Carnahan is expected to say tomorrow whether she would accept an appointment.
In the meantime, the Missouri political season has traveled through the looking glass. Jean Carnahan, a grandmother never elected to public office, has the state hanging on her every word. Some Republicans have promoted a write-in campaign for her. And political commercials are growing friendlier as the election grows nearer.
The race has also sent out ripple effects.
After Carnahan's death, Missouri Democrats at first were worried that their rank and file might stay home on Election Day, dooming their hopes in a tight gubernatorial race. Essentially unopposed, Ashcroft would be free to spread his millions in campaign money among fellow Republicans.
In addition, Missouri is one of the most important tossup states in the presidential race. Lose their Senate candidate, the Democrats feared, and Al Gore was sunk here as well.
But with the late Carnahan holding steady in the polls, the end of October finds Democrats hopeful and Republicans nervous.
At a Democratic fund-raiser featuring rock 'n' roller Stephen Stills a week after the crash, boosters wore ''Honor Mel'' stickers, and the speaker of the Missouri House crooned a song he wrote in Carnahan's memory (''Let the light shine on/May we all sing Mel's song'').
''If we want to remember the memory of Mel Carnahan,'' said US Representative Karen McCarthy, ''we can get out on Election Day and put Democrats in office.''
All the while, Republicans were left in a tight spot. Democrats and Republicans in most statewide races pulled their radio and television commercials for a few days after Carnahan's death. When they came back on, Ashcroft remained noticeably silent. In the weeks before the plane crash, he had spent millions on ads criticizing Carnahan, while he maneuvered to deflect the barbs his opponent was tossing his way.
Ashcroft had preceded Carnahan as governor, and late last month and early this month, he had blasted away at what he characterized as the Democrats' failure to improve education. Three days after the crash, Ashcroft took to the Senate floor.
''Governor Carnahan and I,'' he declared, ''shared a commitment to the greatest promise for the future: the education of our children.''
At the same time, the Democratic candidate for governor invoked Carnahan in his first post-funeral commercial. In the spot, Bob Holden says: ''Under Governor Carnahan, Missouri made great strides, especially when it came to education. And no one should say otherwise.''
The Republicans, said political scientist Neuman, were a bit hamstrung. Holden's opponent, US Representative Jim Talent, now can either stay mum about school problems or risk looking as though he were tearing at Carnahan's legacy.
''It's a gentler campaign in all the races now,'' Neuman said. ''The campaigns can't do what they'd usually do.''
GOP strategists aren't rolling over, however. When Wilson announced last Monday his plans to tap 66-year-old Jean Carnahan if her husband wins, Republicans called his promise a violation of the Hatch Act. The federal law was designed to prevent office-selling and bribe-taking.
By midweek, four Republican state legislators had held a news conference saying their constituents were confused about the election. Their suggestion: Democrats wanting Jean Carnahan should write in her name on the ballot. Democrats complained it was an effort to confuse matters further and to split the vote between Mel and Jean Carnahan.
Then two days ago, Republicans backed off their Hatch Act objections. Instead, US Senator Kit Bond and others suggested that voters ought not to write a blank check for Wilson. ''Bait and switch,'' Bond called it.
Mostly forgotten is the race that was going on before the tragic crash.
Ashcroft is a reliably conservative Republican, a man whose politics is often associated with his religious faith. In a state that toggles easily from Republican to Democrat, he stands noticeably to the right.
Carnahan was a Democrat who leaned clearly leftward, practicing a brand of politics more liberal than the national party's and whose most significant accomplishment was the state's biggest tax hike ever.
But his personality was reserved, and his country drawl strong, even for someone from small town Rolla.
''The funny thing is before he died everybody was talking about how he was so dull,'' said state Representative Tim Van Zandt, a Democrat from Kansas City. ''Then he dies, and everybody worries about how we'll create excitement for the ticket. Now he's what everybody's rallying around.''
