![]() The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was one of his proudest – and hardest fought – achievements. "It is with profound sadness that we share news that our beloved dad passed away today in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Īs proud as we were of him leading the presidential ticket for Democrats in 1984, we know that our father's public policy legacy is so much more than that. The statement from the family can be read below: Walter Mondale, President Jimmy Carter’s Vice President and failed presidential candidate, is dead at 93. They had three children, Eleanor and sons Theodore and William.Former Vice President Walter Mondale PHOTO: US Senate When Humphrey became vice president in 1964, Mondale succeeded him in the Senate, coming to Washington during Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," a time of great hope and excitement for liberals, though their optimism was crushed by the Vietnam War. His political life started with his work on the re-election campaign of Humphrey, then mayor of Minneapolis. Army, he earned a law degree at the University of Minnesota. Minnesota was dominated by farming and mining, and it had a tradition of liberal, populist politics, with many Scandinavian-American residents like the Norwegian Mondales. His father was a Methodist minister, his mother a music teacher. 5, 1928, Walter Frederick Mondale was the sixth of seven children. And it was." Mondale's loss and a similar thrashing of fellow liberal Michael Dukakis in 1988 opened the way for more centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton to assert themselves in the party. He said that after the second debate, "I was almost certain the campaign was over. "I think the public wanted to vote for Reagan," Mondale said later. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," Reagan joked, provoking laughter in the audience at the debate, and even from Mondale. "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. He allayed concerns about his age with his response to a question as to whether, at age 73, he was too old to be seeking four more years as president. Mondale was seen as the victor in their first debate, with the older Reagan coming across to some as out of touch and uncertain. The contest between Mondale and Reagan presented Americans with a clear choice between liberal and conservative candidates and doctrines. Mondale, still associated in voters' minds with Carter, faced the daunting task of trying to defeat a popular incumbent amid economic prosperity in 1984. The Carter-Mondale ticket lost in 1980 against Reagan and his running mate, George H.W. Carter increasingly looked like a weak president as he struggled with a hostage crisis in Iran, a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and tough economic times at home. 'CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE' He did not always agree with Carter, as when he privately opposed Carter's preachy 1979 speech in which the president told Americans, besieged by a bad economy, that they were suffering from a "crisis of confidence." Mondale even considered resigning over the speech. He played a key role in buttressing the sometimes frayed relationship between Carter's White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress. Mondale became a more engaged vice president than many who preceded him. Mondale served in the Senate from 1964 until he was elected as vice president in Carter's 1976 victory over incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, who had become president after Nixon resigned in 1974 due to the Watergate corruption scandal. Mondale was a protege of fellow Minnesota liberal Hubert Humphrey, also a senator and vice president, who lost the 1968 presidential election to Republican Richard Nixon. "It's something that I felt good about, and I thought I told the truth." Earlier that year, Mondale made a memorable political quip when, during a primary debate, he tried to depict Gary Hart, a rival for his party's presidential nomination, as all style and no substance by asking: "Where's the beef?" The line, borrowed from a humorous hamburger commercial popular at the time, hurt Hart's campaign. "I'm really glad I did it," he told PBS in 2004. Even years later, he expressed no regrets. I just did." The remark helped sink his campaign. By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds," Mondale said during his speech in San Francisco accepting the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. During his race against Reagan, Mondale promised Americans he would raise their taxes, a vow that did little to help his candidacy. ![]()
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