Walter F Mondale, the former vice president and liberal leader who lost in one of the most rogue presidential elections to Ronald Reagan, has died at the age of 93.
Mondale’s death was a major figure in the Democratic Party that put humility and honesty before the glare of mass communication. It marks the end of an era in American politics. He is described by a biographer as the last great American politician to resist the lure of television.
The death of the former senator, ambassador and attorney general in Minnesota was announced Monday in a statement from his family. No cause was mentioned.
Mondale followed in the footsteps of his political mentor, Hubert H Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and vice presidency, who served from 1977 to 1981 under Jimmy Carter.
His own try for the White House, in 1984, was at the height of Ronald Reagan’s popularity. His candidacy made history and hammered a crack in the country’s glass ceiling when he chose Geraldine Ferraro, then a US representative from New York, as the running mate, making Mondale the first presidential candidate to have a woman on the card. to place.
But his insistence on telling the truth to voters hurt him badly, especially with his honest statement that he would raise taxes to counter Reagan’s budget deficit. Reagan, on the other hand, led his campaign with one of the great political jokes: “It’s tomorrow in America again.”
On election day, Mondale carried only its homeland and the District of Columbia. The election vote was 525-13 for Reagan – the biggest landslide in the electoral college since Franklin Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in 1936.
“One of my opponents called me a media luddite. I was not good at it, ”Mondale recalled in an interview with the Guardian in 2008 looking back on his overwhelming defeat. ‘Reagan, he was a genius at it. He could walk in front of those cameras and that would be great. I would walk in and it would be a root canal. ‘
On Saturday afternoon, Walter Mondale sent this letter to his former staff members and campaign alumni, saying: ‘Together we have accomplished so much and I know you will continue the good fight. Joe in the White House is definitely helping. ” pic.twitter.com/PdYk42NXtK
Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) 20 April 2021
Mondale, affectionately known as Fritz, was born on January 5, 1928, the son of a Methodist minister and a music teacher. He grew up in several small towns in southern Minnesota.
Tributes poured in Monday night when the news of his death surfaced. In a statement, Jimmy Carter calls him a ‘dear friend, whom I consider the best vice president in our country’s history’.
“Fritz used his political skill and personal integrity to transform the vice presidency into a dynamic, policy – driven force never seen before and still in existence today,” the former president said.
In a tweet, Barack Obama said Mondale “had advocates of progressive affairs and changed the role of VP.”
Mondale’s great-grandfather migrated from Norway to the USA. The darkness of Norwegian culture remained with the family – he remembered that children in his childhood were beaten over the sin of bragging about themselves.
He was only 20 when he served as district manager of Congress in 1948 for Humphrey’s successful Senate campaign.
Mondale began his career in Washington in 1964, when he was appointed to the Senate to replace Humphrey, who resigned to become vice president of Lyndon Johnson. Mondale was elected in 1966 to a full term of six years with about 54% of the vote, although the Democrats lost the governorship and suffered other setbacks in the election.
In 1972, Mondale won another Senate term with nearly 57% of the vote.
His senate career has been marked by advocacy for social issues such as education, housing, migrant workers and child nutrition. Like Humphrey, he was an outspoken advocate of civil rights.
Mondale tested the waters for a presidential bid in 1974, but ultimately decided against it. “I basically found that I did not have the overwhelming desire to be president, which is essential to the kind of campaign that is required,” he said in November 1974.
In 1976, Carter chose Mondale as number 2 on his ticket and left Gerald Ford.
As vice president, Mondale had a close relationship with Carter. He was the first vice president to occupy an office in the White House, rather than in a building across the street. Mondale traveled extensively on behalf of Carter and advised him on domestic and foreign affairs.
Mondale never returned from his liberal principles.
“I think the country needs progressive values more than ever,” Mondale said in 1989.
After his White House years, Mondale served as Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996, fighting for American access to markets ranging from cars to cell phones.
Despite his long and varied career in politics, it will be his epic defeat against Reagan, and his honorable but ultimately disastrous resistance to the small screen, for which he will be remembered. “I think, you know, I’re never really warmed up on television,” he once said. “To be honest with television, it never really warmed me up.”
In his Guardian interview, Mondale recalled that his campaign staff in the 1984 race tried hard to drag him into the TV era. They pleaded with him to change his hairstyle and she smiled to enchant more on camera.
“I did not like it, and I told them,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Look, I’m all I have. I can not be someone I am not. ”