ST. PAUL, Minn. - As Minnesotans grieved over the death Friday of Democratic Sen. Paul D. Wellstone in a small plane crash, state and party officials began trying yesterday to untangle the resulting confusion in the contest for the Senate seat to which he had been seeking a third term.

With the election only 10 days away, Gov. Jesse Ventura said he was leaning toward appointing someone to serve until a new senator was elected, leaving Wellstone's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (the Democratic Party is known as the DFL in Minnesota) to nominate a replacement on the ballot.

Ventura met with legal aides yesterday and indicated that he was considering appointing an interim senator from Wellstone's party, but not anyone running for the vacant Senate seat.

"To me, it's only fair," he told the Associated Press. "I don't want it to become political. What if something happens? We have to have a senator. If terrorism hits, and they call a special session, we have to have someone to go out there."

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders were deliberating on their choice to replace Wellstone on the Nov. 5 ballot. Speculation was centering on former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, 74, as the DFL figure regarded as having the best chance to hold Wellstone's seat.

Although secluding himself amid growing party pressure that he come out of political retirement, Mondale did not reject the notion.

The most significant development of the day came from Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, a Republican, who said Wellstone's name could not remain on the ballot. She said state Attorney General Mike Hatch, a Democrat, had ruled there was no provision in state law for the name of a deceased candidate to be placed before the voters.

Many Wellstone activists had hoped to parallel the 2000 Missouri race in which the name of Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash days before the U.S. Senate election, was kept on the ballot and he won. The Democratic governor who replaced him appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean, to fill the seat until a special election this year. She is seeking election for the remaining four years of the six-year term.

A clear consensus had already emerged that the outpouring of sentiment over Wellstone's death would almost certainly have made him the winner in what had been a close race with Republican former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman.

Kiffmeyer stated flatly that Wellstone's name could not be offered as a write-in candidate, either. She said the DFL would have to produce the name of a new nominee by Thursday afternoon to provide enough time for a supplemental ballot covering the nominees for that office to be printed and distributed to county elections officials.

Unlike Missourians, Minnesotans will be choosing a new senator for a full six-year term, she said.

For a time, Mondale enthusiasts had thought that if the Nov. 5 election were for only a two-year term Mondale might be more likely to agree to run, out of loyalty to the party under whose banner he ran for president in 1984.

Since leaving the Washington scene, Mondale has enjoyed a comfortable life, working in an established law firm and also running a well-regarded series of political seminars at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Politics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He was among the first political figures to come to the Wellstone campaign headquarters Friday to console a shocked staff.

Other possibilities

Hatch has also been mentioned as a possible replacement for Wellstone on the DFL ticket, but differences he has had with party leaders, some of them say, make it unlikely that the DFL leadership would select him.

The one other well-known party figure considered by many to have the broad public celebrity and popularity to hold the Wellstone seat is state Associate Supreme Court Justice Alan Page, a Pro Football Hall of Fame player who was a tackle on the Minnesota Vikings' feared Purple People Eaters defensive line. Page, who studied law while playing in the NFL, was Minnesota's assistant attorney general from 1987 to 1993, when he joined the state's high court.

Still others mentioned include Wellstone's 37-year-old son, David; former state Attorney General Skip Humphrey; Reps. Martin Sabo, James Oberstar and Betty McCollum, the first woman to serve in the Minnesota congressional delegation; and retiring state Auditor Judi Dutcher.

Bill Harper, campaign manager for Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, the DFL candidate for governor, suggested that if Mondale could not be persuaded to run, the party would be wise to select a woman as a sharp contrast to Coleman.

Sorting out legalities

The DFL state chairman, Mike Erlandson, said that the party had "very big shoes to fill" and that lawyers would be meeting to sort out the legal situation. He said he didn't see "any necessity [for the governor] to name a successor unless for some reason the United States Senate and House are called back into session prior to the election. ... So out of respect for Senator Wellstone I hope he would consider that."

Erlandson said, "The legacy of Senator Wellstone will be a part of our campaign to elect Democrats to all offices." Speaking of the celebrated beaten-up symbol of the Wellstone road campaign, he said, "The green bus will lead us to victory here in Minnesota on Nov. 5."

According to Harper, the newly elected senator can take office as soon as his election is certified, rather than wait until Wellstone's full term expires. Kiffmeyer said, however, that was a matter for the governor and state attorney general to decide.

In any event, the secretary of state said, unless there is a clear-cut winner on election night, the identity of the new senator may not be known until two weeks later, when the state Canvassing Board is to meet to certify the results. Also, she noted, if the leading candidate is ahead by less than half of 1 percent, a recount will be in order.

Potential confusion

The counting process could be delayed by plans to use supplemental ballots for the Senate race. New regular ballots for all other office-seekers will also be printed without the Senate race, and original ballots bearing lines for the Senate race will have those lines blotted out.

Kiffmeyer conceded that election night confusion could result but said that conversations with all the parties convinced her that no major problems will be encountered. Amid some concerns that the process might invite challenges, she said, 'The county officials in our state do a great job, and I am confident that voters will be well-served under the circumstances."

The Senate election outcome is particularly critical in that the Minnesota vote could help determine which party controls the Senate next year. Wellstone's seat was targeted by the White House as perhaps the best chance for a Republican gain.

For the second straight day, all campaigns for senator and governor were suspended, and all television advertising was pulled off the air as Minnesotans reflected on the loss of Wellstone. Politicians awaited word of funeral arrangements for the senator, his wife Sheila, and daughter Marcia, who perished in the crash in the state's Iron Range north of Duluth, before deciding when to resume activities in the abbreviated campaign.

The acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Carol Carmody, said her team of investigators at the scene would be seeking to determine the cause of the crash over the next four to six days with no conclusion likely until much later. Three Wellstone campaign aides and the two pilots of the twin-engine 11-seat Beechcraft plane also were killed.

Grass-roots push

Wellstone's death was a personal and political blow to Moe, who was counting heavily on the two-term senator's prodigious grass-roots organizing and voter-turnout operations to lift all Democratic boats in his gubernatorial race against Republican House Leader Tim Pawlenty and independent candidate Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman.

But Harper said the Moe campaign had already been assured by the Wellstone operation that it would be going all out as a tribute to their fallen leader, in the certainty that it was what he would have wanted and expected of them.

All this underscored the task ahead for Coleman as he faces an as-yet-unknown new opponent with time running out for campaigning and the prospect that the negative and comparative television advertising that was a major feature of the Senate race before Wellstone's death will be shelved through Election Day.