Mondale: Hard-Driving Optimist

At the Democratic National Convention, Fritz Mondale rashly promised to put in more hours politicking each day than even his indefatigable running mate, Jimmy Carter. Last week, after rising before the sun, Mondale formally began his part of the Democratic campaign at Washington's National Airport, enthusiastically shaking every profferred hand--and even a mechanic's leg that was dangling from an airplane's cargo hold. Then he boarded a chartered Boeing 727 to begin a weeklong, dawn-to-midnight campaign swing that took him to 14 cities in eleven states. But at midweek, when his speeches began going flat, aides had to insert rest periods in his fatiguing schedule, and Mondale admitted defeat. Said he: "Nobody gets up earlier than Jimmy Carter."

Even so, Mondale's energetic campaigning erased any lingering doubts about his drive and stamina. The questions had been raised because, in dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in November 1974, he said he lacked an "overwhelming desire" for the office. Aides attribute some of Mondale's new zeal to the fact that his partisan appetite has been whetted by the chance to go after Gerald Ford and Robert Dole instead of fellow Democrats. Then, too, Mondale has a sense of impending victory--an optimism that was missing during the primaries. Says he: "The issues are cutting with us. The Ford Administration isn't going anywhere. It's dead." The party's new unity was tonic as well. As Mondale noted during a flight from New Mexico to Iowa, "The hostility, bitterness, rudeness, vulgarity--you don't see that this year."

For so young a campaign, the Mondale effort seemed surprisingly well organized. Rather than aiming just for large crowds last week, schedulers set up a variety of small group meetings. One morning, for example, Mondale saw no more than 150 people at three labor hiring halls in Los Angeles, then went on to San Diego, where he talked to a handful of workers and officers at the U.S. naval base. Mondale called this low-keyed approach "listening and learning," explaining that it was patterned after Carter's early efforts to get in touch with the American people. Indeed, Mondale frequently told his audiences that Ford is "sitting behind his desk practicing being President. He should get out and earn it." The small, more intimate settings have another advantage that Mondale did not mention: they make for good television.

No Writer. Mondale delivered his speeches with ease and with humor that was often directed at himself. He lacks a good gag writer, but got off a few zingers of his own. Sample: "President Ford says he wants more national parks. Well, I've checked his record, and the only park he has supported is the President of South Korea." Throughout the week, Mondale struggled to blend the liberalism that he learned at Hubert Humphrey's knee with Carter's politics of moral leadership. At times Mondale seemed to forget that inflation now comes first in Carter's list of problems to be solved. In city after city he stressed unemployment, claiming that "counting discouraged workers, there are now more people out of work than the entire population of Ohio." To a largely working-class audience in Barberton, a suburb of Akron, he declared: "Any Administration that can't promise jobs shouldn't be in office."

As the week progressed, however, the standard stump speech became laced with Carterisms. At a Democratic Party rally in Albuquerque, Mondale urged a new Government "close to the values we have learned in church." He added: "Washington seems distant, isolated, out of touch with the American people." Touring a 1,700-acre farm in Missouri, he described the family farm as "our most sacred institution" and blamed farmers' problems with some Government programs on "unknown, unelected, faceless bureaucrats."

Like Carter, Mondale stayed clear of personal assaults on Ford. About as close as he came in a speech was to suggest lack of leadership. Said he: "The country needs someone in charge. [Republicans are] nice people, but they are tired and need a rest." It is still too early to gauge how much Mondale's un-abrasive, uncontroversial campaign will contribute to his party's ticket, but clearly he is fitting in well with Jimmy Carter's campaign scheme. In the final analysis, the race is Carter's to win or lose. Thus if Mondale simply continues to avoid hurting the ticket, that may be contribution enough.

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