MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost one of the most lopsided presidential elections after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax hike if he won, died Monday. He was 93.
The death of the former Minnesota senator, ambassador, and attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was mentioned.
Mondale followed the path of his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the United States Senate and Vice President, led by Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.
In a statement Monday evening, Carter said he considered Mondale to be “the best vice president in our country’s history”. He added, “Fritz Mondale provided us all with a model of public service and private behavior.”
Mondale’s own foray into the White House in 1984 came at the height of Ronald Reagan’s popularity. His selection of Rep. New York’s Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate made him the big party’s first presidential candidate to put a woman on the ticket, but his statement that he would raise taxes helped set the race.
On election day, he wore only his home state 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 (Senator George McGovern got 17 electoral votes in his defeat in 1972, winning Massachusetts and Washington, DC)
“I did my best,” Mondale said the day after the election, blaming no one but herself.
“I think you know I never really warmed up in front of television,” he said. “In all fairness with television, it never really warmed me up.”
Years later, Mondale said his campaign message had turned out to be the right one.
“History has proven to me that we should be levying taxes,” he said. “It was very unpopular, but it was undeniably correct.”
In 2002, state and national Democrats watched Mondale when Senator Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Died in a plane crash less than two weeks before election day. Mondale agreed to replace Wellstone, and early polls showed he was ahead of the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman.
But 53-year-old Coleman, who emphasized his youth and vitality, beat the then 74-year-old Mondale in an intense six-day campaign. Mondale was also hurt by a partisan memorial service for Wellstone, during which thousands of Democrats had booed Republican politicians in attendance. One speaker pleaded, “We implore you to help us win this election for Paul Wellstone.”
Opinion polls showed that the service deterred independents and cost Mondale votes. Coleman won by 3 percentage points.
“The hymns were the most hurt,” Mondale said after the election. “It doesn’t justify it, but we all make mistakes. Can’t we find it in our hearts now to forgive them and move on? “
It was a particularly bitter defeat for Mondale, who, even after losing to Reagan, had found solace in his perfect record in Minnesota.
“One of the things I’m most proud of,” he said in 1987, “is that not once in my public career have I ever lost an election in Minnesota.”
Years after the 2002 defeat, Mondale returned to the Senate in 2009 to stand alongside Democrat Al Franken, when he was sworn in to replace Coleman after a lengthy recount and lawsuit.
Mondale began his career in Washington in 1964, when he was appointed to the Senate to replace Humphrey, who had stepped down to become vice president. Mondale was elected to a full six-year term with about 54% of the vote in 1966, though Democrats lost governorship and suffered other electoral backlogs. In 1972, Mondale again won a Senate term with nearly 57% of the vote.
His career in the Senate has been characterized by advocacy of social issues such as education, housing, migrant workers and child nutrition. Like Humphrey, he was an outspoken advocate for civil rights.
Mondale tested the waters for a presidential bid in 1974, but ultimately decided against it. “In essence, I found that I did not have the overwhelming desire to become president, which is essential to the kind of campaign needed,” he said in November 1974.
In 1976, Carter chose Mondale as No. 2 on his ticket and released Gerald Ford.
As vice president, Mondale had a close relationship with Carter. He was the first vice president to hold an office in the White House rather than a building across the street. Mondale traveled extensively on Carter’s behalf, advising him on domestic and foreign affairs.
Although he missed Humphrey’s charisma, Mondale had a funny sense of humor.
When he retired from the 1976 presidential election, he said, “I don’t want to spend the next two years at Holiday Inns.”
Recalled shortly before being selected as Carter’s running mate, Mondale said, “I’ve checked and found that they’ve all been redecorated, and they’re great places to stay.”
Mondale has never moved away from its liberal principles.
“I think the country needs progressive values more than ever,” Mondale said in 1989.
That year, the Democrats tried to persuade him to challenge Minnesota GOP Senator Rudy Boschwitz, but he decided not to make the race, saying it was time to make way for a new generation.
“One of the requirements of a healthy party is that it renews itself,” he said at the time. “You can’t keep running Walter Mondale for everything.”
That paved the way for Wellstone to win the Democratic nomination and upset Boschwitz. Wellstone had prepared to take on Mondale in a primary, but would have been a tough underdog.
The son of a Methodist pastor and music teacher, Walter Frederick Mondale, was born January 5, 1928 in tiny Ceylon, Minnesota, and grew up in several small towns in southern Minnesota.
He was only 20 when he served as district manager of Congress for Humphrey’s successful Senate campaign in 1948. His education, interrupted by a two-year term in the military, culminated in a law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956.
Mondale started a law practice in Minneapolis and led the successful 1958 governor campaign of Democrat Orville Freeman, who appointed Mondale attorney general in 1960. Mondale was elected Attorney General in the fall of 1960 and re-elected in 1962.
As Attorney General, Mondale quickly moved into civil rights, antitrust, and consumer protection cases. He was the first attorney general in Minnesota to make consumer protection a campaign issue.
After his years in the White House, Mondale served as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Japan from 1993-96, where he fought for US access to markets ranging from automobiles to cell phones.
He helped avert a trade war over automobiles and auto parts in June 1995 by persuading Japanese officials to give US car manufacturers more access to Japanese dealers and by encouraging Japanese car manufacturers to buy US parts.
Mondale kept his ties with the Clintons. In 2008, he endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as president, changing his allegiances only after Barack Obama sealed the nomination.
When the Democrats came to him after Wellstone’s death, Mondale worked at the Dorsey & Whitney law firm in Minneapolis and served on the boards of directors of companies and nonprofits. After the short campaign he returned to the firm.
Mondale and his wife, Joan Adams Mondale, were married in 1955. During his vice presidency, she pushed for increased government support for the arts and was nicknamed “Joan of Art.” She had taken a minor in art in college and worked in museums in Boston and Minneapolis.
The couple had two sons, Ted and William, and a daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor Mondale became a broadcast journalist and TV host, with credits like “CBS This Morning” and programs with E! Entertainment Television. Ted Mondale served in the Minnesota Senate for six years and made an unsuccessful bid for Democratic appointment as governor in 1998. William Mondale served for some time as Assistant Attorney General.
Joan Mondale died in 2014 at the age of 83 after a long illness.
Former Associated Press writer Brian Bakst contributed to this report.