State Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination Sept. 15. (AP)

By Jon Jeter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 17, 1998; Page A12

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 16 — With 16 years as Minnesota's attorney general, the most revered name in the state and a highly publicized lawsuit against cigarette makers, Hubert H. Humphrey III enjoyed an early advantage in his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.

But with four other well-known competitors – including the son of former vice president Walter F. Mondale and the son of a popular former governor – many here assumed the race would tighten up considerably in the final days. But it didn't.

In this oddly polite, squeaky-clean campaign, Humphrey didn't have to raise either his voice or his elbows to defeat his four rivals, who shied away from negative ads and in the end never mustered much of a challenge.

By focusing almost solely on their issues – gun control, health care and crime – Humphrey's competitors took the high road but also failed to draw clear distinctions between themselves and the front-runner, party officials, pollsters and political analysts said today. Their surprisingly poor showing highlights the political tightrope that politicians must walk today: While the public often finds negative ads distasteful, they work, at least in moderation.

"None of [Humphrey's challengers] ever answered the question: Why should I vote for you instead of Humphrey?" said Steven Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College. "By not going after the front-runner, they took what should have been a much closer race and turned it into something very boring and ultimately futile."

By winning 37 percent of the vote Tuesday in a congested field, Humphrey advanced to a November showdown with St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, a Democrat-turned-Republican and former Humphrey lieutenant. The two are vying to succeed Republican Gov. Arne Carlson, who is retiring after two terms.

Known as "Skip," Humphrey, 56, is son of the former U.S. senator and vice president. His primary challengers included Mike Freeman, the son of former governor and agriculture secretary Orville Freeman, and Ted Mondale, a state legislator and the son of another former senator and vice president. The elder Humphrey, Freeman and Mondale were leaders of the state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party or DFL.

The primary contest was dubbed "My Three Sons" and it was joined by Mark Dayton, a millionaire department store heir, and well-known state legislator Doug Johnson. But a heated race for the party's nomination never really materialized. Knock-down, drag-out political fights are less common in Minnesota – known for good government and a genteel civic spirit – than in many other states. In 1996, Republican Rudy Boschwitz tried to recapture the Senate seat he lost six years earlier to Democrat Paul Wellstone. But his campaign ads painting Wellstone as a liberal were seen as unduly harsh. They backfired and voters reelected Wellstone by a comfortable margin.

And more recently, politicians here took notice of what happened when a former executive for Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines, Al Checchi, paid for a barrage of negative ads in his primary campaign for California's gubernatorial nomination this spring, resulting in a backlash from Democratic voters.

"The Boschwitz campaign was crude, blunt and harsh," Schier said. "You can certainly go too far with negative ads and cause a backlash, but there is a middle ground."

Blessed with a famous political name and a solid record as the state attorney general who won a $6.1 billion out-of-court settlement with tobacco companies earlier this year, Humphrey jumped out to a quick lead in the early polls and held it – even after losing the DFL Party endorsement to Freeman. But in public debates where voices were never raised, and in ads that failed to even mention Humphrey's name until the final days before the election, the four Democrats barely challenged Humphrey's record or campaign promises.

The campaign's big spender, Dayton, had TV ads in the final week questioning Humphrey's toughness on street gangs and his failure to take on health maintenance organizations for refusing medical care. And Freeman aired an ad that attacked Coleman and used the headline from an old newspaper story to show that Humphrey had endorsed his former aide in his initial campaign for St. Paul mayor. But it never mentioned Humphrey by name.

Indeed, the Democrats reserved their most negative rhetoric and ads for Coleman, rather than any of their primary opponents. That, said party officials, essentially benefited the front-runner by doing his work for him.

"I was like one of those guys in a kung fu movie," said Coleman, "fighting 5 people at once." Freeman's campaign manager, John Youngdahl, said there were multiple reasons not to resort to mudslinging, not the least of which was Boschwitz's and Checchi's political fates. With limited funds, Freeman chose to shore up his name recognition with voters rather than attack Humphrey.

"Plus, you've got to realize," Youngdahl said, "these are not politicians who don't know each other. Mondale, Mike and Humphrey all kind of grew up together. They're relatively close in age and they're all family friends. It just was not going to get personal and brutal."