(His father, also a four-term senator, lived until age 95.)

Mr. Lazio suspects otherwise, Republican officials said, but his aides here declined to return phone calls today, fearing a nasty fight with the popular four-term senator less than a week before Election Day.

Voters in Connecticut will decide whether to send a four-term senator back to Capitol Hill, while incumbents in two House districts are facing strong challengers.

Mr. Edwards, a trial lawyer who has served in the Senate for five years, also sought repeatedly to present himself as a Washington outsider, drawing a contrast with Mr. Kerry, a four-term senator.

Mr. Moynihan, the four-term senator who died last year, was one of only a few Democrats in Congress to support the idea of personal accounts.

He picked his first political race to take on Mr. Lugar, a four-term senator, former presidential candidate and perhaps the most popular politician in Indiana history.

Credited by admirers with having had a native eye for architecture, Mr. Moynihan, a four-term Democratic senator from New York, also benefited from sheer endurance.

Still, the experts believe that Mr. Johnson, who has never run for public office before, has little chance of defeating the four-term senator, who has raised over $4 million and has $2.3 million cash on hand.

The morning Medicare call was typical of the way Mr. Kerry, a four-term senator with comparatively little management experience, has run his campaign.

In 1962 Mr. Nelson defeated a four-term Republican senator, Alexander Wiley, to win his first Senate term.