On Monday, the United States lost one of its most notable Vice Presidents. Walter “Fritz” Mondale, a former Senator from Minnesota who was tapped to be Jimmy Carter’s running mate in 1976, is credited by historians as establishing the modern Vice Presidency. Before Mondale, the President and Vice President often did not interact too deeply on a day-to-day basis. In fact, veeps frequently had frosty relationships with the chief executive. Nixon often grumbled about Spiro Agnew’s gaffes causing headaches for the White House. Kennedy and Johnson had a famously icy working relationship (and not-so-secret rivalry), and the apolitical Eisenhower was reported to have never warmed to the ever-partisan Nixon in his administration.
In 1976, Mondale sought to change that. When offered a spot on the Carter ticket, the Minnesota Senator made it clear that he desired an active role in government, rather than being yet another campaign tool tossed aside once the Oval Office was won. Carter, intrigued by Mondale’s proposed “assistant presidency” model, agreed. The experiment proved a tremendous success, as Carter frequently consulted with his Vice President on the most confidential and weighty of matters. In many ways, the country has never looked back. After slightly more symbolic roles for George Bush and Dan Quayle, the Clinton administration provided a much more active role for Al Gore. Dick Cheney was so active in Bush 43’s administration that it became a source of controversy, with (in my view, unfair) allegations that Cheney was the real power in the White House. Vice Presidents who have followed Walter Mondale have him to thank for their relevance in government.
Despite his important contributions to the country as Vice President, my first exposure to Walter Mondale was in his role as the 1984 Democratic nominee for President. One of my first independent forays into American history was to look over every presidential election. The most memorable elections were the close ones decided by, at times, razor-thin margins. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1796, Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and the unforgettable 2000 election of Gore against Bush resulting in a protracted recount and Supreme Court verdict. The less exciting elections to read about were the landslides and the foregone conclusions. Unfortunately for Fritz Mondale, 1984 fell definitively into this latter category. Ronald Reagan romped to a second term by winning 49 of the 50 states. Mondale managed to carry his home state of Minnesota by only the narrowest of margins, at a whopping 0.18%. His only other win was in the District of Columbia. It was arguably the biggest landslide in modern American history, with Reagan coming within a whisper to be the first person to win every state since James Monroe and George Washington.
An unfortunate introduction to be sure, one that left him low on my priority list for candidates to read about. But that all changed one day when I went through a viewing spree of prior presidential debates. Ronald Reagan’s zinger about his age in the second 1984 debate is one of a number of “Hall of Fame” debate moments in American history, so naturally I wanted to see the moment in its greater context. After a poor performance in the first presidential debate, Reagan knew that he needed to put to bed any questions about his advanced age in the second face-to-face with Mondale. When asked by a moderator about the issue, Reagan responded with a bit of humor: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.” The crowd erupted in laughter at a one-liner that ended any questions about Reagan’s mental acuity for the rest of the campaign.
Such a loss might have been disappointing to the Democratic nominee. But rather than Reagan’s line, the thing that caught my attention the most when I first watched the clip was Walter Mondale’s reaction. He was laughing, too! And not just a polite chuckle, but a hearty, full-throated laugh. Where some politicians might have been so thin-skinned as to snap back over a comedic tack against their political experience, Mondale took the remark as the light-hearted joke that it was. As small as this moment might seem, Mondale’s laugh has always stuck with me. Incidentally, it was the first thing that I thought of when I learned that Mondale passed away.
America needs more politicians like Walter Mondale today. Regardless of his politics, Mondale was a genuine character who served in good faith. There is a crucial distinction that Mondale understood that is all too lost these days: political opponents are not our enemies. Even in a national debate, a crucial part of the contest for the most powerful office in the world, our former Vice President found an ability to share a laugh with his challenger. It is not as though Mondale was a right-leaning Democrat, a half-hearted partisan. He was a dyed-in-the-wool party loyalist. Yet in the end, Mondale knew that he and Reagan were on the same American team.
At 93, Walter Mondale led a long and storied life. He contributed much to our country, in many ways that most Americans don’t realize. Let his passing be a reminder to us that politics does not need to be the vitriolic warfare that it is today.
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