Posted on 11/02/2002 3:57:35 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
In Minnesota, we used to call him "Lucky Fritz.'' As a Republican political staffer in the land of 14,000 lakes (far more than the 10,000 earlier counted), I never saw his equal. Walter Mondale never got elected to any office first--he was appointed first, then elected. The incumbency greased the election and re-election. Except once. Let me explain.
Fritz was a junior lawyer and active volunteer in the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in the 1950s when state Attorney General Miles Lord resigned to take a state judgeship. Mondale was appointed attorney general by Gov. Orville L. Freeman. Not only that: When Fritz walked into his office on the first day, he was handed a thoroughly researched prosecutor's case against a famous charity, the Sister Kenny foundation.
The foundation's leaders had been misappropriating money that should have gone to fighting polio. The case was sensational; he became the first of many attorneys general to convert what was a dull legal office into a watchdog for the consumers. He was dubbed ''the people's lawyer,'' and Fritz Mondale, by virtue of his appointment and high-profile consumer case, became a nationally known fighter for the consumers. So he was elected and re-elected handsomely.
Then came 1964. Sen. Hubert Humphrey was elected vice president on the ticket with Lyndon Johnson. That meant a vacancy in the Senate. Mondale was appointed to fill it. Following Humphrey's precedent, he lined up with the chamber's liberals. Easily elected later and then re-elected, he was mentioned for the presidency in 1976. He disdained, saying he didn't want to spend a year traveling the country, living in Holiday Inns. Jimmy Carter was nominated, and Carter picked Mondale as his running mate. So Fritz rose up the ladder again by appointment.
After four years in the vice presidency, the Carter-Mondale team lost to Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Mondale returned to private life in Minnesota. It was then that he thought about finally doing something political on his own--running for president in 1984. On that maiden voyage against Ronald Reagan, Fritz lost 49 states. He did carry Minnesota, but by the margin of 0.2 of 1 percent. And, of course, he carried the District of Columbia. Back to private life he went.
He stayed in private life until another appointment came--from President Bill Clinton to be ambassador to Japan. He served there until the end of Clinton's second term. Once again, he returned to private life, a profitable law practice.
The death of Sen. Paul Wellstone leaves an opening again, and once again Mondale has been appointed by his party as replacement. But the televised funeral dirge for Wellstone, as strident as a political convention, has boomeranged. Late polls show Mondale is by no means a cinch for election.
Much will depend on a debate scheduled for Monday, on the eve of the election, between Mondale and his Republican opponent, the able former mayor of St. Paul, Norm Coleman.
Mondale goes into that debate as one trying to straddle Wellstone's positions with his own establishment ones. Already the former vice president has said he would have voted, like Wellstone, to deny President Bush the power to launch a strike against Iraq.
With the bad taste of the Wellstone partisan rally in its mouth, and Mondale's straddling, Minnesota voters just may decide to go with the future and a new face.
If voters do make that correct decision, finis will ultimately be written in the saga of Lucky Fritz.
Since the RATS put the "fun" back in funeral the other night, Fritz' numbers have been in a malaise.
... If voters do make that correct decision, finis will ultimately be written in the saga of Lucky Fritz ...Oh, indeed. Fritz had better beware. If his poll numbers tank, his campaign bus may well shoot over a cliff or something.
If that's the case, they have to gamble that he won't look like a senile old fart during the debate, something which is rather likely.
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