A few more thoughts I’ve had on Mondale:
He had his first major involvement in politics, running Hubert Humphrey’s Senate campaign, in
1948. Now, granted he was very young - only 20 - but that is still a date which seems so, so distant politically. It really emphasises that Mondale was, before his death, one of the Democratic Party’s last living links to the storied New Deal era.
His background in this period (as well as his austere Norwegian-style upbringing, itself a link to the Europe of the 19th century) meant that I doubt we will ever see his kind of politician again. This is not meant to be a nostalgic, “they don’t make them like they used to” plea, but simply a fairly natural consequence of generational turnover.
But even for his period, Mondale possessed that most rare quality in politicians - he was the antithesis of the sound and fury demagogue, but he was also no stale technocrat, with his deeply held passion for liberal and progressive ideals. He was a man of quiet dignity - a quality which is needed in the political profession, but one which its nature tends to discourage. For this reason, combined with his considerable achievements in office, I genuinely think that he an underrated contender for one of the greatest men to hold political office in the last 100 years in America.
I think this quote of his from The Guardian’s obituary sums it up well:
Mondale recalled that his campaign staff in the 1984 race had tried hard to drag him into the TV era. They pleaded with him to change his hairstyle and his smile to charm more on camera.
“I didn’t like it, and I told them so,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Look, I’m all I’ve got. I can’t be someone I’m not.’”
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his 1984 campaign. He told the people the truth about Reaganomics when the truth was the last thing they wanted to hear, but the subsequent decades have completely vindicated him. Any Democrat was going to lose in 1984; we should be thankful that Mondale did it with dignity and principle, keeping the liberal flame alive, however low it burned.
I feel glad that, as shown in his extremely touching farewell letter, he was able to say a proper goodbye to those dear to him and to die feeling optimistic about the future of the country which he cared so deeply about.
