Jim Talent announces run for Carnahan's seat

ST. LOUIS -- Former Rep. Jim Talent announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate Tuesday with a strict declaration that he is running for the office and not against its current holder, Democrat Jean Carnahan.

"It's up to the voters to judge Mrs. Carnahan's record, assuming she is my opponent," Talent, 44, said, standing alongside his wife and three young children at a news conference. "Obviously, there are differences between us. I think I have the views and the experience to move the system in Washington in the direction of the common sense, conservative values of this state.

"I think I can do that better than anybody and I'm going to ask the voters to consider whether that is the case."

Last year, Talent left his safe 2nd District seat after serving four terms to run for governor, losing to Democrat Bob Holden by 21,000 votes, a margin of less than 1 percent of the vote. If he wants to return to office, political observers suggest he rethink his decision not to directly challenge Mrs. Carnahan, who has yet to formally announce her own intent to seek election but is raising money for a race.

"It is a losing strategy," said Saint Louis University political scientist Ken Warren, a longtime political observer in the state. "It will not win the respect of the voters."

Mrs. Carnahan was appointed after her husband, former Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the election last November. Despite his death, Mel Carnahan defeated incumbent Republican John Ashcroft, now attorney general.

Focused, says Carnahan

"I'm just really focused on what I'm doing here right now," Mrs. Carnahan said when asked about her plans in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. "I don't think people want us think about politics right now. I think they want us to come together and concentrate on the thing at hand.

"And frankly, I don't want to think about it."

Talent might feel it would be difficult to run against the Carnahan name, Warren said, because of what happened to Mel Carnahan.

"But that's over, life goes on," Warren said. "She is a bonafide senator and a bonafide Senate candidate. You can't run for the U.S. Senate and not run against a candidate."

Talent acknowledged some differences with Mrs. Carnahan he planned to address, including her vote against Ashcroft's appointment as attorney general.

Still, the difficulty facing Talent in running against Carnahan is evident.

"She lost her son; she lost her husband, and just recently lightening struck her house and the whole thing was consumed. There's still a great deal of sympathy for her out there," said Rick Hardy, a political scientist at the University of Missouri. "Is Jim going to be running against her or against the ghost of Mel Carnahan? I think it's going to be a little bit of both. He's going to have a tough time trying to figure out which one to run against."

State tour planned

Talent's announcement that he would run -- "otherwise known as the worst kept secret in Missouri," he quipped -- was to be followed with a campaign visit to Joplin, the first of several "Talk with Talent" stops across the state. A spokesman said he will also travel to Washington this week to "reintroduce" himself.

Despite his loss to Holden, on the same election day that President Bush handily beat Vice President Gore in Missouri, he doesn't plan to change much in his second statewide campaign.

"I'm surprised you a haven't already noticed: I'm wearing a white shirt instead of a blue shirt at the announcement," Talent joked with reporters on Tuesday.

"The fundamentals pretty much stay the same," he said. "I hope each time I run that I do it better. The more times you do something, the better you should be able to do it. We're going to run it basically the same."

Different campaign

If that's the case, voters can expect a dramatic difference between this Senate campaign and the often bitter 2000 campaign between Mel Carnahan and Ashcroft, two longtime rivals.

Talent pledged to keep his run civil and focused on the issues, something that characterized his race against Holden. The governor, speaking in Jefferson City Tuesday, echoed Talent's hope for a civil campaign.

"The thing that I was always gratified about my race with the congressman for governor is that both of us stayed on the discussion of issues and I expect him be at the same level in this campaign," Holden said.

The Carnahan-Talent race should be one of the nation's most watched, and Talent said he expected both national parties to make it a "top-tier" race. Democrats control the Senate 50-49-1 and the Missouri race is one of several that could affect that balance.