In abbreviated campaign, Mondale and Coleman hustle in Minnesota

<br>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ With their abbreviated campaign near the halfway mark, the candidates for Minnesota's U.S. Senate seat are touting the access to power they'd have in Washington. <br><br>Republican

Friday, November 1st 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ With their abbreviated campaign near the halfway mark, the candidates for Minnesota's U.S. Senate seat are touting the access to power they'd have in Washington.

Republican Norm Coleman is giving voters a glimpse of his White House connections, with Vice President Dick Cheney expected to campaign for him Friday. First lady Laura Bush will stump for him in a Twin Cities suburb Saturday and President Bush stops by for a rally in St. Paul on Sunday.

But former vice president Walter Mondale, the Democrat running in the place of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, got a boost of his own when Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on Thursday promised a spot on the Democratic Senate leadership team if he wins.

``That will allow me to go to work immediately to help our state and to help be a force in American life,'' Mondale said Thursday, his first full day of campaigning after being nominated at a special state meeting of Democrats Wednesday night.

Mondale would be one of about 10 Democrats in Daschle's inner circle.

Campaigning out in small cities outstate, Coleman continued trying to portray himself as the candidate of the future and seeking to portray Mondale, who last held elective office in 1981, as someone from the past. During a stop in Mankato, he used the word ``future'' more than a dozen times. And in Willmar, he declared, ``I will win on November 5th and we will move forward.''

Touring the Twin Cities, Mondale seemed happy and a bit amazed to be campaigning for office again. He began airing his first TV ad, paying tribute to Wellstone and saying he'd ``work for economic opportunity, better schools, a more secure retirement, a safer world.''

At a news conference, he pledged to serve only one term, but said he would serve the full six years. ``I'm running because I want to continue Paul Wellstone's traditions and because I have a lot of things I believe in that I believe I can help accomplish,'' he said. ``I want to serve six years to do that, but I think then that will be enough.''

Meanwhile, election officials in Minnesota's 87 counties scrambled to comply with the state Supreme Court's order Thursday to send new absentee ballots and supplemental Senate ballots to people who ask to change their vote.

Absentee votes were already being sent in when Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota last Friday. Minnesota Democrats asked the high court to order the mailing of new ballots to all absentee voters, whether they ask for one or not.

But a few hours after hearing arguments on the matter Thursday, the court's seven justices issued their order without detailing their reasoning. The order requires county auditors to state clearly to absentee voters that the second ballot would replace the first one they mailed in. Voters who sent in their ballots and don't want to make a change can do nothing and their vote will count, the order said.

In some counties, including the state's largest, Hennepin, election officials were already dispensing new ballots to absentee voters who requested them. But it's unclear how many such ballots can be distributed and returned on time. They must be left off at local election offices by 5 p.m. Monday or arrive by mail Tuesday.

Almost 4.5 percent of Minnesotans voting cast absentee ballots in 1998, the last non-presidential election year. Officials expect absentee voters to account for 5 to 8 percent ballots cast in Minnesota this year.