In November 2000, former Missouri governor John Ashcroft lost his bid for reelection to the U.S. Senate: Mel Carnahan clinched victory by about 49,000 votes out of more than 2.3 million ballots cast.

It was, by any measure, an election which anyone with a pulse should have won: Carnahan had died in a plane crash on October 16th!

[In a democratically questionable move, Carnahan's widow Jean assumed his seat in the Senate. In 2003, Ashcroft recused himself from the Enron case -- because he had accepted campaign contributions from the company.]

[Say what?]