St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 12

ifr A12 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EWS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2000 postnet.comnews t)J Jean Carnahan Governor's Mansion got a new look under the last administration i if I Carolyn Bond deserves a lot of credit for the major overhaul of the mansion that she conducted during those years, Carnahan said. A lot of her decorating remains in pristine condition, including the third-floor ballroom, the first-floor wallpaper and many of the 10 bathrooms. Carnahan said she attempted to match Carolyn Bond's choice of fabrics and colors when she recovered the first-floor furniture, which had suffered from the wear and tear of the mansion's 50,000 to 60,000 visitors a year. Hanging in the foyer is Carna-han's portrait, which features her in a pink suit.

One of her last acts, she said, will be to move that painting to make way for a portrait someday of Lori Holden, wife of the next governor, Bob Holden. Before leaving, Carnahan has attempted to revive an old gubernatorial custom, called the "Change Dinner," where the outgoing governor hosts the incoming one. She hosted separate din- ter who died in the 1800s, an African-American boy who is recorded as living in a barn on the property in the mid-1800s, and a boy who resembles Carna-han's grandson, Austin. On order is a new rug for the first-floor dining room. The rug will feature a medallion of a dogwood, the state tree.

Some of the money was raised through the sale of three books that Jean Carnahan wrote about the mansion and its long line of inhabitants. The first floor features large portraits of most of Missouri's first ladies, with the exception of Janet Ashcroft, who never had one done. Carnahan said she had written her encouraging her to reconsider. Hanging over a first-floor mantel, in one of the most prominent spots, is a striking painting of a red-garbed Carolyn Bond, the wife of Christopher "Kit" Bond while he was governor from 1973 to 1977 and 1981 to 1984. The two have since divorced.

Private money raised by Jean Carnahan paid for renovations, including new carpet and the re-covering of antique furniture. By Jo Mannies Post-Dispatch Political Correspondent As she leaves the Governor's Mansion for good, Jean Carnahan is proud of the $1.5 million in private money that she raised and spent to spruce the place up. "Where do you want me to begin?" she jokingly asked, as she gave a tour of the four-story complex. Under her watch: Most of the antique furniture was re-covered in the first-floor public rooms. The back staircase that spans the three main floors was re-carpeted and refinished.

The stairwell's walls and ceiling were repapered, with the ceiling featuring a dramatic starburst pattern on a blue background. The living room and office-study on the second floor, the main living quarters, were redone. The basement was cleaned up so it can house more storage space, along with offices, a laundry room and a security room that houses equipment that monitors the interior and exterior of the mansion, up to several blocks away. A new fireplace mantel and mirror were installed. A stunning antique wooden newel post, featuring a woman holding a lamp, was installed at the bottom of the main staircase.

The post is similar to one original to the mansion and removed during the 1940s, Carnahan said. And her "pride and joy," an outdoor fountain that features the sculptured figures of three children a governor's daugh KEVIN MANNINGPOST-DISPATCH The portrait of Jean Carnahan hanging in the foyer of the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City will be moved soon to make way for a portrait -someday of Lori Holden, wife of the next governor, Bob Holden. i A .1 recent decades, she said, because of partisan rivalries. The back-to- back governors often had been from different political parties. Jean Carnahan Age: 66 Birthplace: Washington, D.C.

Hometown: Rolla, Mo. Education: Graduate of George Washington University with a degree in business and public administration Family: Four children Randy (deceased), Robin, Russ and Tom. Two grandchildren. I I I JT1 tr. JlfV vt I i i X.

Where she stands on the issues Health care: Supports a (-'" prescription drug benefit for the elderly, preferably through the program. Federal budget: Wants to eliminate the national debt. (' Social Security: Calls for "shoring it' up" and protecting its surpluses from being diverted for other federal spending. Tax cuts: Favors "targeted" cuts aimed primarily at the middle- class. PHOTOS BY KEVIN IWANNINGPOST-DISPATCH Jean Carnahan helps to serve a pre-Thanksgiving dinner to homeless men Wednesday at the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center in St.

Louis. Along with her son Russ and his wife, Debra, Jean Carnahan carried on a tradition that she and her late husband, Mel Carnahan, began seven years ago. ners last week for Gov. Roger Wilson and his wife, and for Holden and his family. The custom apparently died in 1 1 She's convinced that if it had been daytime when her son ran into instrument problems, the plane wouldn't have crashed and that her husband would have won his Senate race.

New role in Washington She says her decision to step in for her husband, if he won the Senate, was made without any family pressure. As a result, "I felt very lonely in the process," she said. Election Day stunned her. "The high mark was when people went out and voted for him when he was no longer available for the job," she said. While in Washington for that Senate orientation session, she plans to find a place to live, preferably near the Capitol.

She'll also keep the farm in Rolla. Her surviving children, all lawyers practicing in St. Louis, don't want her in Washington alone, so she suspects that daughter Robin, a lawyer and political activist, may show up there, too, "She keeps making sounds like she is," Jean Carnahan said. Her daughter won't be part of Carnahan's Senate staff, but some of the top campaign workers here are expected to make the move. She's, been flooded with well-wisher calls from fellow senators, including Sen.

Christopher "Kit" Bond, who has offered to escort her for her swearing-in. Both characterize their telephone talk as pleasant. President Bill Clinton has called her at least three times since the victory, once from Air Force One, to tell her how proud he is. Jean Carnahan notes that she had been planning for months what she'd do if she moved to Washington. Only she thought she'd be a senator's wife, not the senator.

Her plans had called for writing another book she'd written three about the Governor's Mansion. Only this one would be more personal and inspirational. She'd already chosen a title: "The Tide Always Comes Back." Now, she's not sure. "You never really know when you have to change your course in life," she said. Speaking for her family, she added, "We don't make long-range plans anymore." To contact reporter Jo Mannies: E-mail: jmanniespostnet.com Phone: 314-340-8334 i i i Js? j- I Ivl jr- a Xy -I Campaign finance reform: Wants some sort of legislation.

Agriculture: Supports changes in the Freedom to Farm Act, which curbed some federal farm subsidies. Abortion: Favors abortion rights. Opposes a procedure that critics call "partial-birth abortion" but wants exceptions for the life and health of the woman. Guns: Supports background checks, trigger locks and restrictions on juvenile access to semiautomatic weapons. Carnahan backs hand-counts, sees i id 9: Carnahan Political battle lies ahead in U.S.

Senate Continued from Al She also will bring to the Senate a deep concern with how politics is practiced, as much as how it is preached. "The whole idea of duking it out in the public arena and seeing who's the last person standing that atmosphere is what has brought us the problems we have now," she said. On issues, she shares her late husband's belief in "a new national commitment for education," which she says is the key for any nation that wants its children to grow into productive adults. She also supports a prescription drug benefit for the elderly, prefers targeted tax cuts and calls for paying down the national debt. She wants to push for campaign finance reform and promises to advocate changes in the federal Freedom to Farm Act, a measure that she says has hurt many farmers.

And on abortion, "I certainly support a woman's right to choose under the guidelines of Roe v. Wade." Carnahan says abortion opponents mischaracterized her husband's stand on so-called "partial-birth abortion," a mid- to late-term procedure where the fetus is partially delivered and its skull crushed. "I'm opposed to partial-birth abortion, as was Mel," she said. But like her husband, she believes any ban needs an exception to protect the woman's health. Critics say such an exception would make the ban meaningless.

"We expect she won't be any different than he would have been, or was as governor," said Pam Manning, president of Missouri Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group. Her group "did everything we could," Manning added, to help Carnahan's opponent in the Nov. 7 election, Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo. Still, state GOP Executive Director John Hancock said he doesn't believe that abortion or any other issue played much of a role in Carnahan's victory over Ashcroft, a longtime rival, i Like most Republicans, Hancock credits the public's emotional pro-Carnahan response to the plane crash.

"I think issue positions had less to do with that election than they have had in any election in recent memory," Hancock said. But now, Jean Carnahan can expect her stands, and her coming Senate votes, to come under Republican scrutiny during her two-year term. The Republican Party will be interested if her positions "are consistent with the values of Missourians," Hancock said. And hinting at what the party expects to conclude, he added that whether she seeks re-election or not, "I fully expect we'll field a vigorous and successful campaign for that seat in 2002." i But Jean Carnahan's background offers a few surprises. On guns, for example, she supports as did her husband background checks on prospective purchasers, trigger locks and laws that "keep semiautomatic weapons out of the hands of juveniles." She adds, however, that she opposes "doing anything to harm sportsmen" and emphasizes that she knows a little about what she's talking about.

She took a course in rifle-shooting in college. "I got a sharpshooter's medal," she said. A few years ago at a governors conference in Virginia, Jean Carnahan says, she outshot one of her security officers in a skeet-shooting contest. "I don't know if he let me win or not," she added with a chuckle. "Maybe." Jean Carnahan talks about her late son Randy during an interview at the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City.

"I keep learning about the kind and generous things that he was doing," she said. "It made me feel very good to know that he was willing to share his life." -'4U i to do it. I needed to do it for me. I needed to do it for Chris." Jean Carnahan said she didn't want Sifford, who was "like our extended family," to be forgotten. In such highly publicized tragedies, "the elected official will be remembered, but the staffer will not." She shares that concern about her son, as well.

With a foundation for her husband in place, the family is considering some sort of memorial for Randy Carnahan, perhaps a scholarship fund. He ran the family law practice in Rolla, as well as the farm. He'd recently purchased more acreage, so it now encompasses about 800 acres, she said. "Randy was a Renaissance man. He loved adventure he loved horses, he practiced law," his mother recalled.

He had "put aside his law practice" to fly his father around during the campaign, Jean Carnahan said. "He knew he wanted his father to be safe, while they were flying around," so he had done research before purchasing the two-engine plane that he flew. Like his father, he also was quiet and unassuming. Although Randy was often with his parents, it was only after the crash that his mother discovered that he was providing most of the financial support for a missionary family working in Brazil. "I keep learning about the kind and generous things that he was doing," she said.

"It made me feel very good to know that he was willing to share bis life." value in preserving Electoral College Amid the laughter, she then veers into more difficult territory. Her son, Randy, who died in the crash, also was an avid hunter. "I'm going to miss the game that he brought me, that I put in the deep freeze" at the Rolla farm. One of the difficulties of dealing with this Thanksgiving, she adds quietly, is that Randy often shot the turkey that the family served. Life throws a curve Jean Carnahan did opt to fulfill one family Thanksgiving tradition since her husband was governor.

She spent Wednesday evening in St. Louis, helping to serve a pre-Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of homeless men at the Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center on Washington Avenue. "You have people there who've suffered a lot of loss," she said. "I'll have more in common with them this year." It was either one of her final formal acts as the state's first lady, or else among her first as a senator-elect. By the end of this week, she expects to have moved the last of the Carnahans' personal effects out of the mansion and to the family farm in Rolla.

In two weeks, she'll travel to Washington for a three-day orientation session for new senators. Carnahan will take office by Jan. 3. "Everything's happened so fast, I haven't had time to shift gears," she added. "I've lost all sense of time." That's a stark change for her.

From the time she was 15, shortly after meeting high school classmate Mel Carnahan, Jean Carnahan thought her life had been planned out. He had just moved to Washington, the son of a new congressman. She was the daughter of a working-class Washington family. They attended the same church. "He never wanted to do anything else but public service," Jean Carnahan said.

"On our second date, he told me he was going to marry me, and he was going to run for public office." Five years later, they got married. A few years after that, with a law degree under his belt, Mel Carnahan ran for public office. By 1980, he was running for state treasurer and she was writing some of his speeches. She also was raising their four children three sons and a daughter while ac- tive in school and church affairs. With a business degree from George Washington University, Jean Carnahan's campaign duties for her husband and middle son, Russ (who won a seat in the Missouri House on Nov.

7), often included running the database operations, where aides say she displayed a flair for computers. Even close friends joked about the Carnahans' personality differences. Jean Carnahan observed that one time, while playing a truth-telling game with friends, her reserved husband was asked what had attracted him. His answer: "She makes me laugh." As she speaks, Jean Carnahan sits in the same chair in roughly the same spot in front of her computer where she was working the night of her husband's death. It was there, in the small second-floor study of the Governor's Mansion, where she last talked to him, when he called from the airplane.

It was there where a distraught security man brought her the news. That night, she had been working on a speech that she was to give on his behalf the next morning. During that initial numbness, she recalls that it flashed through her mind that she would need to carry out that task, as she had so often. Then reality set in. Indeed, her first public speech six days later at the funeral for aide Chris Sifford almost didn't happen.

She initially had turned down the family's request, saying she couldn't do it. But then, "I decided I needed Jean Carnahan, who soon will be Missouri's newest senator and its first Democratic one in 14 years, says she has supported Vice President Al Gore's push for manual recounts of votes in Florida. "I think you need to make every vote cast, make it count," she said. But she's leery of calls to change or do away with the Electoral College system for selecting presidents. "I would be very cautious about doing anything to dramatically change the Constitution," she said.

Nationally, Gore has a lead of about 300,000 in the overall popular vote. But Gore or his GOP rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, needs Florida to amass the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. While solidly for Gore, Carnahan said she's sympathetic to the general idea behind the Electoral College "to act as a buffer between the smaller states and the bigger states." Without an Electoral College, states like Missouri might be ignored by presidential hopefuls who would instead concentrate only on the largest states and the major urban population centers, she said.

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