Mel Carnahan

Family life and education

Carnahan was born in Birch Tree, Missouri, and grew up on a small farm near Ellsinore, Missouri, with his only sibling, Robert "Bob" Carnahan. He was the son of Kathel (Schupp) and A. S. J. Carnahan, the superintendent of Ellsinore schools who, in 1944, was elected to the United States House of Representatives.

Carnahan moved with his family to Washington, D.C., where he graduated high school and earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Business Administration from George Washington University. He entered the United States Air Force, rising to First Lieutenant, and served as a special agent for the Office of Special Investigation. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia, Missouri, in 1959.

Political career

Carnahan's political career started as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives representing the Rolla area. In 1980, Carnahan was elected Missouri State Treasurer. He served in that post from 1981 to 1985. In 1984 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Missouri, losing the Democratic primary election to then-Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Rothman, who lost the general election that year to state Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In 1988 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri. In 1992, he faced Mayor of St. Louis Vincent C. Schoemehl in the Democratic primary for governor. He won the Democratic nomination by a wide margin and went on to easily defeat Republican state Attorney General William L. Webster in the general election. He was elected Governor of Missouri on November 3, 1992, and reelected for a second term on November 5, 1996, defeating Republican State Auditor of Missouri Margaret Kelly.

Personal life

Carnahan and his family were active members of the First Baptist Church of Rolla, where he served as an ordained deacon and member of the building committee. In 1984, he risked his political career by taking a public stand against Missouri ballot issues, Amendments 5 and 7, which would legalize parimutuel betting and create a state lottery. He was one of only a handful of state elected officials to take such a position; however, both amendments passed.

Carnahan married Jean Carpenter in Washington, D.C. on June 12, 1954. They had four children, all lawyers. Russ Carnahan, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Missouri's 3rd District (2005–2013); Tom Carnahan, founder of Wind Capital Group, which builds wind farms; Robin Carnahan, former Missouri Secretary of State (2005–2013); and Roger "Randy" Carnahan, who piloted the plane and perished in the same crash that killed his father.

2000 Senate election and death

In 2000, Carnahan ran in the election against incumbent Republican John Ashcroft to become a United States Senator. It was a heated and intense campaign, in which Carnahan traveled all over Missouri to garner support in what was a very close race. However, early in the evening of October 16, the night before a presidential debate held at Washington University in St. Louis just three weeks before the election, the twin-engine Cessna airplane he was flying on, which was piloted by his son Randy, lost control in rainy and foggy conditions and crashed on a forested hillside near Goldman, Missouri, only about 35 miles (56 km) south of St. Louis. All three on board the plane (Mel and Randy Carnahan and Chris Sifford, the governor's campaign advisor and former chief of staff) were killed in the crash.

Lieutenant Governor Roger B. Wilson succeeded Carnahan as Missouri's Governor, serving until the end of his gubernatorial term in January 2001. Because the state's election law would not allow Carnahan's name to be removed from the November 7, 2000, ballot, the campaign appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean Carnahan, to unofficially become the new Democratic candidate. Wilson promised to appoint her to the seat, if it became vacant as a result of Mel Carnahan's win in the election. Carnahan's campaign continued using the slogan "I'm Still With Mel." A Senate first, Carnahan posthumously won, by a 2% margin. Jean Carnahan was then appointed to the Senate and served until November 2002, when she was narrowly defeated by a 1% margin in a special election by James Talent (R).

Carnahan is not the only candidate to have died during a U.S. Senate race. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was killed in a plane crash in 2002, eleven days before his Senate election; Wellstone's party, the DFL, chose former Vice President Walter Mondale to replace Wellstone on the ballot, but Mondale lost narrowly to Republican Norm Coleman. Representative Jerry Litton, also from Missouri, died in one in 1976 the day that he won the Democratic primary and was to be nominated by party officials; on his death, the party ran a second primary, and former Governor Warren E. Hearnes, the runner-up in the first primary, won but was subsequently defeated by Republican John Danforth. Richard "Dick" Obenshain of Virginia was killed in a plane crash in 1978 shortly after receiving the Republican nomination; he was replaced by the far less conservative state convention runner-up, former United States Secretary of the Navy John Warner, who proceeded to narrowly defeat (by less than half of a percentage point) former Attorney General of Virginia Andrew P. Miller.