Walter Mondale (1928–2021)
Last night America’s oldest living Vice-President Walter Mondale died. Mondale is/was not a big figure like Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, or Dick Cheney, mostly because unlike those three he never actually became president. But also because he was an unassuming dude with a funny name, who’s contributions were primarily behind the scenes. I don’t know if Mondale was a good or bad guy, and that doesn’t really matter, what does matter is his influence, as a historical figure Mondale is foolishly overlooked.
Mondale served as Vice-President from January, 20th, 1977 to January, 20th, 1981. Along with Hubert Humphrey, he has achieved higher office than any other Minnesotan. His Vice-Presidency oversaw turbulent times, the US economy was experiencing widespread stagnation, gas prices were higher than ever before, the Cold War was still going strong, and the country was still recovering from the Watergate scandal. After his term as VP ended, he ran for the presidency in 1984 losing to incumbent Ronald Reagan in one of the largest landslides in American history.
It might seem as though Mondale was a political failure, deserving of only a footnote in the book of history, and that may be true, but, at the very least it is a large footnote.
More than any of his predecessors Mondale expanded the role of the Vice-Presidency. Mondale was the first Vice-President to have an office in the White House, and was the first to meet weekly with the president(usually for breakfast or lunch, a tradition his successors kept), in addition Mondale sat in on a majority of cabinet meetings, a privilege his predecessors Nixon & Johnson fought for and failed to receive. Mondale was even brought into foreign policy, particularly in Israel, where he built up a rapport with Prime Minister Menachem Begin which laid the groundwork for the Camp David Accords.
Vice-President Al Gore would say, “ You can divide every vice president in American history into two categories: pre-Walter Mondale and post-Walter Mondale”. Now whether this influence is a good thing I don’t know, when one looks at the power seized by Dick Cheney in the Bush administration, one may come to the conclusion that it was better when all Vice-Presidents did was cast a rare tie-breaking vote and wait for the president to die.
