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Former Vice President Walter Mondale endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president and predicted that the controversy surrounding her use of private e-mail would not affect her candidacy. Mondale was asked why he is supporting Clinton and if he thinks the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s private server could prevent her from becoming the Democratic nominee. “I don’t think that will affect her. I think she’s a very strong candidate. We just had our national DNC meeting in Minneapolis this past week. She spoke and made a really powerful impression – strong support all over the place. We’ve got...

“Kennedy was young and appealing and ostensibly liberal, but I think at that point, seeing through Kennedy, and what liberalism was, was probably a significant step for me to understand that conventional politics or liberalism was not what was relevant.” Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders once said that he was “physically nauseated” by a speech made by President John F. Kennedy when Sanders was a young man, because Kennedy’s “hatred for the Cuban Revolution […] was so strong.” “Kennedy was young and appealing and ostensibly liberal,” Sanders reminisced in a 1987 interview with The Gadfly, a student...

Gary Hart has serious reservations about a Hillary Clinton candidacy. The prospect of a billion-dollar Clinton campaign “ought to frighten every American,” he said in an interview with POLITICO, and Democrats would be better served by a competitive primary that forced her to speak in more depth about the issues. Hart, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, offered his opinions in a phone interview Wednesday where he also expressed admiration of Elizabeth Warren and gave advice to prospective challenger Martin O’Malley, a former Hart campaign staffer. “I like Hillary Clinton. I really appreciate what she and her husband have done …...

Valid Questions: After Bill Clinton contradicted State Department claims about Hillary's health with news of a six-month rehab, her fitness should be as much of an issue as Sarah Palin's baby and John McCain's age. Karl Rove has taken a lot of heat for raising the issue of age and mental condition of a secretary of state who disappeared from public view as the Benghazi controversy arose. The questions are similar to those asked about President Reagan after his first debate with Vice President Walter Mondale, and those asked about Sen. John McCain and his prisoner of war experiences. So...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale underwent heart surgery Wednesday, his family announced. Mondale, 86, underwent an unspecified procedure at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, his family said in a brief statement that called the surgery “successful.” …

It’s like we’re in a time warp back to the 1970’s. Not the muscle cars and wild times of Studio 54, just the bad parts – turmoil in the Middle East, high unemployment, food and gas prices through the roof and an occupant of the White House with no clue how to deal with any of it. When asked about this administration’s failures, President Obama quickly becomes Vinnie Barbarino with his “Who? What? Where?” routine. Vice President Joe Biden isn’t any better. In his debate Thursday, Biden took on a personality that was a cross between Bozo the Clown and...

Ronald Reagan’s eldest son Mike Reagan has issued a statement lambasting Mitt Romney and his supporters for claims that Romney’s Republican presidential rival Newt Gingrich was a strong critic of President Reagan. Reagan says such claims are false. Even Rush Limbaugh, shocked by the Romney claims, chimed on his Thursday radio broadcast to say "This is obviously a coordinated attack to take Newt out here in Florida." Rush slammed the Romney-backed smear campaign against Newt. “That kind of stuff is why people hate Romney so much," Limbaugh said. Limbaugh added that Newt has always been a conservative from his early...

So, it appears that the president has decided to channel the candidacy of Walter Mondale from 1984. Here’s President Obama, on Monday: So this is how we can reduce spending: by scouring the budget for every dime of waste and inefficiency, by reforming government spending, and by making modest adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid. But all these reductions in spending, by themselves, will not solve our fiscal problems. We can’t just cut our way out of this hole. It’s going to take a balanced approach. If we’re going to make spending cuts -- many of which we wouldn’t make if...

Obama wants to raise taxes. So does Mondale. Obama won't tell you. Mondale just did. Remember Walter Mondale? Oddly enough, we do, mostly for this fun fact: He's the only major-party American politician to have lost elections in all 50 states. In 1984, he told Americans to take a hike, and they told him the same thing. In a Washington Post op-ed piece over the weekend, Mondale quotes his own speech to that year's Democratic National Convention in San Francisco: "Taxes will go up. . . . It must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I....

We will not be able to control our budget deficits without raising taxes. That simple reality has brought us to a moment of truth in American politics. President Obama’s speech Wednesday lived up to that moment, and now Democrats and Republicans in Congress must take a similar stand. Many have described my 1984 presidential campaign promise to raise taxes as exemplifying the folly of proposing tax hikes during an election. Although the rebounding economy and improving job picture that year probably had more to do with President Ronald Reagan’s reelection than my pledge did, there are certainly political lessons for...

...the seventies... then Governor Brown literally ignored the expeditiously burdensome escalation of property taxes to the point that the common people had to drive an initiative called "Prop 13" through a June 1978 ballot just to save their homes and businesses. 'Then', Governor Brown was quotes as saying that he didn't want to squander the whole state surplus (nearly $7.1 billion in surplus in 1977) on helping homeowners curb their growing residential taxes. Brown's better idea was to spend from the surplus so to own and operate a communications satellite for California. Hence his nickname: "Moonbeam." If you ask Jerry...

Republicans are already celebrating their comeback — and promising an even bigger year in 2012. Oddly enough, Walter Mondale knows exactly how they feel. His party's obituary was written by the press after the 1980 election, when Ronald Reagan capitalized on stagflation to score a 44-state landslide over Jimmy Carter. Just like Obama, Reagan came to power with enormous expectations and soaring popularity — only to watch it all melt away in his first two years on the job, thanks to a brutal recession and double-digit unemployment.

Mondale to Obama: Ditch the 'idiot boards' Former Vice President Walter Mondale suggested in an interview today President Obama stop relying on "idiot boards" -- teleprompters, that is -- to deliver his message to the American people. "He uses these idiot boards to read speeches in television, and I think he loses the connection that he needs emotionally with American voters," Mondale said in an interview set to air this evening on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, according to a transcript from the network. "Idiot board" is a term used in television and movie production to refer to...

Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, once worked for a man who was an identified member of the Communist Party USA, a registered agent of the Soviet Union and a paid disseminator of Soviet black propaganda. This man went on to become a key Chicago political fixer who helped elect communist linked politicians including the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington and former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun. This man knew Barack Obama and was a key member of an organisation which endorsed Barack Obama in his 2004 US Senate race. Barack and Michelle Obama were active members of this...

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...

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...

The reporting on the life and death of my friend, Gene McCarthy, has been woefully inadequate to the truth of the man, especially in his last three decades. Gene was an intelligent and honest man, who had the courage of his convictions. That included the courage to change his convictions when the facts required. The news media brought on a number of classic tax-and-spend liberals like Eleanor Clift to talk about Gene as if he was one of them. Of course, he was that, as a professor first elected as a Senator. But in his final maturity he was much...

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...

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...