ST. PAUL, Minn., July 31 -- In their zeal to bounce Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, three candidates affiliated with political maverick Lyndon LaRouche have filed to run against the three- term incumbent in the Sept. 13 primary election. Humphrey long has been a target for the LaRouche activists, particularly Lewis du Pont Smith -- an heir to the du Pont chemical dynasty. Smith and his allies have toured Minnesota over the past year accusing Humphrey of corruption and using his office to protect misdeeds by prominent citizens. Smith, who filed as a Democrat and lists a home address in Minneapolis, is making his first bid for office in Minnesota. Also on the ballot are Andrew Olson and Kent Herschbach, who were LaRouche- alligned gubernatorial running mates in 1990 and have been candidates for assorted congressional or statewide offices every two years since 1984. Herschbach, a truck driver, is running for attorney general as a Republican this year. Olson, a farmer, has stuck to the usual strategy of LaRouche adherents of entering the Democratic primaries. Although typically garnering a small percentage of the overall vote, LaRouche followers have displayed some pockets of support throughout the state. In addition to fielding full slates for the top elected posts, his group -- which in the past has used a variety of banners including Independents for Economic Recovery -- endorsed as many as 15 candidates for seats in the state legislature during its initial heyday in the mid- 1980s. The apparent vendetta against Humphrey began after he and other state Democratic Farmer-Labor party officials formally denounced the LaRouche slate running in the 1986 primaries.
Humphrey, son of the late vice president, since has largely ignored the LaRouche group's periodic attacks on his reputation although investigators in his office did look into possible illegalities when Smith began using recorded telephone messages to solicit support last year. Art Sasse, a Humphrey spokesman, earlier this year dismissed the ongoing activities of LaRouche's supporters as 'delusional' and said the attorney general considers them little more than a nuisance. 'Around here, nobody sees it worth the time to comment on,' Sasse said. LaRouche, who was released in January from the federal prison facility in Rochester, Minn., after serving five years on a $34 million fraud and tax conviction, has run for president every four years since 1976. He already has said he will run again in 1996. The former Marxist economist and his supporters have used state and federal election campaigns as a platform for their mix of far-flung economic and social remedies with a little conspiratorial logic thrown in for good measure. If elected, they have said they would abolish the Federal Reserve and would issue hundreds of billions of dollars of federal bonds for projects ranging from heavy industrial redevelopment to the forced internment of people afflicted with the AIDS virus and the colonization of Mars. Religous organizations, including the National Council of Churches, and other advocacy groups have blasted LaRouche's views as racist and anti-Semitic and said his proposals are simplistic, divisive and potentially dangerous. LaRouche supporters in Minnesota this year also have endorsed Gary Lagare for the U.S. Senate as well as Richard Van Bergen and Glenn Mesaros for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. All three are running as Democrats.
