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There's a little gem of Newsweek's embarrasing polling history buried under the perpetual poll sucker Howard Fineman's latest piece. http://www.newsweek.com/id/143258/output/print But nothing like in 1984. That was the most embarrassing example of the latter kind of survey. It predates PSR but remains seared into our institutional memory. The day the Democratic convention ended in San Francisco in 1984, the Newsweek poll showed Walter Mondale 18 points ahead of President Ronald Reagan. Mondale ended up getting clobbered, 49 states to one. This is pretty good, can somebody dig out this poll? I'd love to see.

If you're going to promise "new politics," it would probably be wise to eschew the same old Beltway cronies and insiders who have served presidential nominees of yore. And if you're going to attack political opponents for playing "textbook Washington games," it would probably be best not to play them yourself. If you do, you'll end up tongue-tied in front of the cameras, hung by your own holier-than-thou rhetoric and faced once again with the decision to throw another bad choice under the bus. Yes, Barack Obama, we're talking about you. Again. It's getting mighty crowded under that bus, isn't...

Barack Obama chose St. Paul, Minn., to stage his victory or at least near-victory rally Tuesday night. It was a good way to stick a thumb in John McCain's eye, since the Republicans have chosen to hold their national convention at the same arena. Yet he overlooked the historical connotations of that site. Beautiful downtown St. Paul is where Walter Mondale delivered his concession speech after one of the most lopsided defeats in the history of American presidential elections - Ronald Reagan's 49-state sweep in 1984.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale Wednesday called on Democratic presidential hopefuls Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to settle their differences or risk losing the November election to the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Mondale, who is a superdelegate, reiterated his support for Clinton, but said, “The question now is, How do we get the party united? We have to wait until the last primaries are over on June 3, but I just hope we can get through this with some unity and dignity.” Mondale, who made history as the Democratic nominee in 1984 by...

By Amanda Carpenter Thursday, May 8, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly promised to raise taxes in a television interview Thursday afternoon. “I will raise CEO taxes,” Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “If you’re a CEO in this country you’ll probably pay more taxes,” Obama said. Obama speculated his CEO tax rates “won’t be prohibitively high, you’ll pay roughly what you did in the 90’s when they were doing fine.” Obama also said he would eliminate the Bush tax cuts and install what he called a “middle class tax cut.” Blitzer asked Obama to define...

It seems as if Hillary Clinton can’t catch Barack Obama in pledged delegates or in the popular vote, meaning it could all come down to super-delegates. One of Minnesota’s most prominent super-delegates, Walter Mondale, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he’s worried that his party is headed for a ‘super-sized’ political disaster if a nominee isn't chosen before the Democratic National Convention. Mondale has attended Democratic National Conventions for nearly 50 years. He said he’s never seen anything like what’s happening in 2008. "I'm very frustrated by it," he said. Obama and Clinton will likely go into the 2008 convention with neither...

An image of an eight-year-old Knowles appears in the ad, shown sleeping soundly in bed. The Clinton campaign legally purchased the file footage of Knowles from Getty Images. Clinton's ad aimed to emphasize her experience and say she'd be a strong national security candidate. The ad was a play on a 1980s-era advertisement with a similar theme: if there was a middle-of-the-night national security emergency, who would you want to have answer the phone and deal with it? Ironically, though, the now-17-year-old Knowles would want Clinton rival Barack Obama to answer any important 3 a.m. calls coming into the White...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., looks down at the Mississippi river as she walks with former Vice President Walter Mondale along a bluff in Eagle Point Park before a campaign event Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007, at the Eagle Point Lodge in Clinton, Iowa. Mondale endorsed Clinton Sunday and said in a statement released by the campaign, 'America is ready for change, and Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to deliver it.' (AP Photo/Brian Ray)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Vice President Walter Mondale is endorsing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, the Clinton campaign announced Sunday. "America is ready for change, and Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to deliver it," Mondale said in a statement released by the campaign. "Hillary is uniquely qualified to rebuild America's standing in the world and lead this nation from her first day in the White House." Mondale, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, was vice president from 1977 to 1981 under President Carter. He was the Democratic nominee for president in 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Former Vice President Walter Mondale is endorsing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, the Clinton campaign announced Sunday. "America is ready for change, and Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to deliver it," Mondale said in a statement released by the campaign. "Hillary is uniquely qualified to rebuild America's standing in the world and lead this nation from her first day in the White House." Mondale, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, was vice president from 1977 to 1981 under President Carter. He was the Democratic nominee for president in 1984, but lost to Ronald Reagan...

Three years ago, Ted Mondale's new company signed a $550,000 contract with Hennepin County to provide a computer software program that was supposed to revolutionize the way data from real estate records is made available over the Internet. The revolution is off to a slow start. Though the county has paid $314,000 to Nazca Solutions Inc., which Mondale cofounded as part of a career move from politics into technology, there is still no program ready for public use. Mondale had originally promised a finished product in six months and, following two years of tinkering, said it would be ready last...

T he Washington Post's recent series on Dick Cheney's vice presidency certainly got my attention. Having held that office myself over a quarter-century ago, I have more than a passing interest in its evolution from the backwater of American politics to the second most powerful position in our government. Almost all of that evolution, under presidents and vice presidents of both parties, has been positive -- until now. Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it has gone seriously off track. The founders created the vice presidency as a constitutional afterthought, solely to provide a president-in-reserve should the need arise....

The Post's recent series on Dick Cheney's vice presidency certainly got my attention. SNIPBut it wasn't until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency that the vice presidency took on a substantive role. Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.SNIP Our relationship depended on trust,...

Former US veep Mondale accuses Cheney of power grab Jul 29 02:01 PM US/Eastern Vice President Dick Cheney has presided over an unprecedented power grab during his six years in the White House, former Vice President Walter Mondale wrote in a rare, scathing critique Sunday. Mondale, the former number two to Democratic President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, in an opinion piece appearing Sunday in the Washington Post newspaper, fingered Cheney as the chief transgressor in a White House guilty of "great excess" and "exceeding its authority." He wrote that since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, "Cheney set...

How much will someone pay for a humble, small-town home that sheltered a future senator, vice president and presidential candidate? Lorrie Krosch is hoping to find out. She is selling the boyhood home of Walter Mondale in Elmore, Minn., on eBay. Starting bid: $50,000. "When I bought it, it was so run-down it could have been knocked down," said Krosch, who bought the house at 208 E. Mondale St. in 2003 for $15,000. She spent more than three years refurbishing it, doing most of the work herself.

GASTONIA - Would Ronald Reagan's re-election have been even more of a runaway, or would Walter Mondale have claimed another precinct? That's one question after a bizarre discovery Wednesday in Gastonia: a locked metal box full of ballots from the 1984 election. The box was sitting behind a house off West Mauney Avenue when Jim Rudisill found it. Rudisill is having the former mill house rehabilitated and said people occasionally break into it at night to sleep there. They sometimes take things from the house, he said, but they rarely leave anything.

Former Clinton political hitman James Carville, who recently touted New York Sen. Hillary Clinton for a 2008 presidential run, is reportedly behind an advertising campaign attacking President Bush for his 1990 sale of Harken Energy stock as well as his ties to the oil industry in general. American Family Voices, a group described by the New York Times as "secretive," has paid to run a 30-second commercial on cable news programs in Washington, D.C., and in New York through Thursday. The ad blasts President Bush as "sly like a fox" for talking down his dealings with Harken Energy, which Democrats...

Former Marine who sparked Okinawa furor is dead in suspected murder-suicide Abduction and rape recharged opposition to U.S. bases in late 1990s By David Allen, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Friday, August 25, 2006 CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Almost 11 years after the crime that recharged opposition to U.S. bases here, a former Marine convicted in the abduction and rape of an Okinawa schoolgirl is believed to have killed a Georgia woman before committing suicide in her apartment. Kennesaw, Ga., police spokesman Mike Brock told Stars and Stripes on Wednesday that Kendrick Ledet, 31, of Smyrna, Ga., was discovered dead...

Former President Carter and his vice president, Walter Mondale, have joined forces to give verisimilitude to Carter's son, Jack's "back to the seventies" campaign theme. Jack Carter is seeking to unseat Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign. The Carter-Mondale campaign event took place in Minnesota as a precautionary measure. It is duck season in Nevada and there were fears that the speeches given by Carter and Mondale might be misunderstood by trigger-happy duck hunters. "My dad and Walter are treasured reminders of the happy days of 1970s America," Jack Carter said. "Those were humbler times for Americans. We shared shortages at...

Former President Carter and his vice president, Walter Mondale, are teaming up again -- this time at a fundraiser to help Carter's son, Jack, in his longshot bid to oust Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign. "It will be a real bit of old Americana," Jack Carter said of the event scheduled Friday in Minneapolis at a private home on the Mississippi River. While Jimmy Carter and Mondale see each other periodically, Jack Carter said it's the first time in more than 20 years that they've been together at a fundraiser. He also said his father has done few such events...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale says he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile that is raising nuclear fears around the globe. Earlier this week North Korea announced it was preparing to test a missile that could reach United States mainland. Tensions rose further when the North Koreans put fuel into the missile, and continued to insist that a test firing was imminent. Mondale said on WCCO-AM Friday that the United States should tell North Korea "defuel that missile. It has three boosters. Dismantle it and put it back in the sheds. Because if you're getting ready...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said Friday he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile, saying the U.S. should tell North Korea to dismantle the missile or "we are going to take it out." "I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country," said Mondale, who was the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan. The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 9,300 miles. That would make it capable of hitting much of...

Over the past 25 years, the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series has welcomed heads of state, Nobel laureates and civil rights leaders. At 5 p.m. on Nov. 5, former President Bill Clinton will speak at Northrop Auditorium as part of the series’ 25th anniversary. “We issue invitations to people to make a Carlson lecture all the time,” said Julie Lund, director of communications for the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. “We were lucky enough that former President Bill Clinton was able to accept our invitation at this time.” The lecture series is funded by a gift from Curtis L. Carlson, the...

Political operatives at the Democratic National Committee in Washington developed the plan to turn the memorial service for Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone into a political rally, top party sources tell Capitol Hill Blue. The party also urged the Wellstone family to ask Vice President Dick Cheney to not attend the service and concocted the excuse that security for the VP would disrupt the event even though Secret Service security was required for former president Bill Clinton, who was invited and who did attend. Rick Kahn, the Wellstone campaign worker and friend, worked the highly partisan crowd into a frenzy with...

Apparently a picture is worth about a thousand words and $150,000. That's what it cost the Democrats to throw their memorial rally for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone at the University of Minnesota on the eve of the November elections. The next morning, a picture of Bill Clinton laughing with former Vice President Walter Mondale at the event ran in newspapers across the country and helped set off what many consider to be a turning point in the Republican drive to take back the Senate. In the end, Republican Norm Coleman defeated Mondale. The tab, which included tens of thousands...

Eleanor Mondale Diagnosed With Cancer MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale, has been diagnosed with brain cancer, the Star Tribune reported Tuesday. Mondale spoke to the newspaper just hours before she began her first session of radiation and chemotherapy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Just a week ago, Mondale married local rock star Chan Poling. "It's bad but not that bad," she said from her farmhouse in Prior Lake. "I've got a really good chance to beat it." Mondale, 45, said her vision had bothered her in recent months but didn't believe...

Speaking out of both sides of one's mouth is an occupational hazard, if not an occupational necessity, for politicians seeking elective office in competitive races. It's not a pretty sight, and it supports a cynicism about democratic politics that is unbecoming. Catering to such cynicism, the leftist writer Garry Wills used to advise college audiences, "Vote for your enemy--he has no one to sell out to but you." The political debate over the use of the Senate's filibuster rule to torpedo President Bush's judicial nominees has triggered a series of reversals and pratfalls that support the low-comedy version of democratic...

Over the past two years, we were paid to give economic advice to the president. Now that we are private citizens again, we offer Democrats some free advice on how to handle the issue that is now on the top of everyone's in-box: Social Security. So here is our easy, seven-step program for recovering obstructionists: • Take your heads out of the sand. Some members of your party want to deny that we need to fix Social Security. Let's face it: When you do this, you look like idiots. President Clinton talked about the "crisis" in Social Security long before...

That should be interesting to watch!!!!

In singular moments in our history, the security of the United States hinged on a single presidential election.... Today's vote determines how the United States finishes the present war against terrorists, and, indeed, whether we continue to defeat Islamic fascism.... John Kerry sees our struggle as an unending law enforcement problem, akin to gambling and prostitution. Thus the terrorist attacks of the 1990s were not deadly precursors to 9/11, but belong to a now nostalgic era of "nuisance." In contrast, George W. Bush envisioned September 11 as real war.... Most of Sen. Kerry's allegations about this war ring false or...

We're for Walter Mondale, even though Ronald Reagan has in some ways done a good job. America, the President says with permissible hyperbole, is back and he deserves credit because the country feels so much better than it did four years ago. Mr. Reagan has a gift for symbolism and salesmanship; when he salutes the flag and the troops, he embodies a wide renewal of pride in country. And there's more to it than just the persuasions of a patriotic pitchman. People feel better off because many people are better off. The oil shocks and hyper-inflation of the 1970's have...

Did they Endorse Walter Mondale in 1984? Just want to know.

John Kerry is described as horse-like, wooden: without any real policies. The right animal, but the abstraction is incomplete. Kerry is the Trojan horse that miraculously appeared for Walter Mondale, to carry Mondale and his huge corruptions secretly back into real power and prominence in the US. Kerry was enticed to use Mondale's main henchman to select his VP, who moved fast to tap Mondale's kind of man, the Democratic Trial Lawyer's favorite. This is one man's 25 year saga of alleged massive corruption directed at him by Mondale and his late partner, Thomas J. Watson Jr. Mondale is now...

Mondale Is Buoyed by His Success in First Debate By BERNARD WEINRAUB Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 12, 1984. pg. B8, 1 pgs COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 11 -- As Walter F. Mondale told an unusually large crowd here today that the Presidential race was now "wide open," his deputy campaign director in Ohio grinned delightedly.

Spin is underway, and a variety of polls are suggesting a Kerry victory in the debate last night. Truth be told, Kerry exceeded expectations, but when it came to substance, he came up short. The flash polls still suggest Kerry won the debate, which Democrats think makes Kerry suddenly unstoppable. Historically speaking, that's hardly the case. Otherwise, we would have seen President Mondale, President Dukakis, President Perot, and President Gore. Since 1984, no Republican has won in the flash polls from the first debate, but has won 3 out of 5 of those elections. Ross Perot beat both Bill Clinton...

Two presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate were set in the 1984 general election. The first debate was limited to domestic policy, the second debate focused on international policy and national defense. President Reagan was the incumbent and the polls in late September showed his approval rating at almost 54 percent. The October debates were seen as Mondale's only remaining chance to close the big gap. In the first debate, Mondale was viewed as the more effective speaker and Reagan was said to have appeared tired and sometimes confused. In the second debate, Mondale failed to gain further ground. Reagan...

1984 Debate

It happens at some point to every doomed campaign. The candidate, hopelessly behind in the polls and coming down to the wire, starts talking about sensing a "groundswell" of support. The groundswell is never really there, but losing candidates are always able to see it (through the lens of vain self-deception, I suppose) . . . Anyway, the FR pool is: On which date will either Kerry or Edwards first publicly utter the "groundswell" word in this campaign?

...Mr. Kerry's Web site calls him "a man of conviction" who makes "bold decisions." His party convention sketched a picture of strong, principled leadership. But Mr. Kerry's record as senator and candidate suggests something less flattering: a mainstream Democratic liberal who, knowing most Americans aren't liberal, takes great care to heed prevailing political winds. ...He voted to give Mr. Bush authority for war when that appeared to be the safest move, and voted against funding the war.... [H]e would have taken the cautious route of trying to contain Saddam Hussein rather than removing him. Mr. Kerry has taken a similar...

NEWLY-HIRED KERRY ADVISORS JAMES CARVILLE AND PAUL BEGALA SAID IT'S THE CANDIDATE STUPID: "Bill Clinton and Al Gore probably assembled as good a staff as anyone has ever put together for a presidential campaign. But the dirty little secret is that they would have won with the staffs assembled by Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale. It has always been our belief that consultants don't win elections; candidates do." (James Carville and Paul Begala, "Who Wins The Election? It's The Candidate, Stupid," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12/8/92)LEARN ABOUT KERRY/EDWARDS' SHIFTING POSITIONS AT WWW.KERRYONIRAQ.COM

On May 13, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy berated Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemning "disaster after disaster" in U.S. Iraq policy. Well before the Abu Ghraib revelations, Kennedy has sought to transform Iraqi freedom from a philosophical and strategic issue into a partisan debate, without regard either to reality or result. On April 6, Kennedy called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam." On March 5, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy, speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, took the president to task for allegedly exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq: "The evidence so far leads to...

Conducted at the end of the Democratic National Convention last week, the Newsweek-Gallup Poll of 1,006 registered voters showed 48 percent supporting Mondale and his vice-presidential nominee, Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.), 46 percent favoring Reagan and Vice President Bush, and 6 percent undecided. The 2 percent difference is insignificant, since the poll has a 4 percent margin of error. While it is normal for a candidate to score well with the public after his party's convention, the poll reflected a large turnaround. Mondale had been trailing Reagan by six points in Newsweek's poll last week and by as much...

MONDALE INTENDS TO REBUT REAGAN ON RELIGION ISSUE; He Prepares Major Statement on President's Linking of One's Faith to Politics MONDALE INTENDS TO REBUT REAGAN By BERNARD WEINRAUBSpecial to The New York Times. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 30, 1984. pg. A1, 2 pgs Article types: front_page Dateline: ST. PAUL, Aug. 29 ISSN/ISBN: 03624331 Text Word Count 1141 First Paragraph ST. PAUL, Aug. 29 -- Walter F. Mondale has decided to make a major campaign issue out of President Reagan's comments that religious and political ideas are linked. Mr. Mondale made it clear today that he...

BOSTON - At conventions devoted to electing next presidents, there's always the question of what to do with ex-presidents, not to mention those who ran and lost. The answer: as little as possible, and get it over with. Democrats go into their convention Monday needing to accommodate one big brassy winner, Bill Clinton (news - web sites); the towering Kennedy legacy, and a succession of people who have accomplished much but don't wear the magic aura of success. A few of them, in fact, represent crushing defeat. Clinton was allotted a prime time speech Monday night, a hail to the...

More proof: two johns in your home = good; two Johns in the White House = bad.

IT’S OFFICIAL!Kerry/Edwards Make History, More Liberal Than Mondale/Ferraro________________________________________Kerry: “I’m a liberal and proud of it.”(“Gee, There Were So Many In 1988,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 7/21/91)1984 DEMOCRAT VEEP CHOICE CALLED“THOROUGHLY” LIBERAL 1984 Associated Press Headline: “Democratic Veep Choice Thoroughly A Political Liberal.” “The Americans for Democratic Action and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are worlds apart on most matters, but they agree that Rep. Geraldine Ferraro is a liberal. Reviewing the New York Democrat’s voting record on major issues last year, the liberal ADA gave her a 90 percent rating. From its conservative vantage point, the business group awarded Ms. Ferraro...

Something to Yak About – Yeah, That’s the Ticket: Kerry-Edwards More Liberal Than Mondale-Ferraro With his selection of John Edwards as his running mate, John Kerry has managed to construct a Democrat ticket that’s even more liberal than… (drum roll, please…) Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro! That’s right, folks, the Kerry-Edwards ticket has amassed a documented record of liberalism that exceeds even that of the utterly failed Mondale-Ferraro ticket of 20 years ago, according to the Lefties at Americans for Democratic Action. Hard to believe, but the numbers don’t lie. It’s The Record, Stupid! Just when we thought John...

One hundred one academics who support the Presidential candidacy of Walter F. Mondale bought a quarter page advertisement in today's issue of the New York Times to say Mr. Reagan's suggestion "that his record was in the tradition of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy" was "a flagrant distortion of reality to serve his own political purpose." The group, which includes five Nobel prize winners, comes from 22 colleges, universities and other institutions.

Why do the Democrats like to talk about Vietnam so much? Because it's the only war they ever won.

SELMA, Ore. - Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale said Sunday that the strong role Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) has taken in the White House is changing the way government and politics work. "This is going to be an issue in the campaign, and it will be an issue for political scientists," Mondale said in an interview following a press conference. "This is starting to bend the political process." Mondale, 76, was invited to southern Oregon to speak to a community forum serving as a fund-raiser for the Selma Community and Education Center. About 300 people...