Crashing a Party

Running for president and working for social justice are often irreconcilable activities. A commitment to social justice demands a prophetic perspective. And prophets, as the Bible tells us, are rarely welcome in their own country. They aim for truth, no matter how uncomfortable or disturbing. Politicians, at their best, attempt to balance many competing demands, concerned both for truth and electoral success.

In his exceptional book The Democrats' Dilemma, Steven Gillon begins by recounting the prophetic roots of Walter Mondale's life. Mondale "inherited" his values from his father, a Methodist preacher, and his mother, an active layperson. He was schooled in the Methodist social gospel, from which he gained a "deep compassion for the underprivileged and a strong populist disdain for wealth and power."

At the home of Theodore and Claribel Mondale, strangers were always welcome. "The Mondales welcomed into their home anyone who was temporarily homeless, passing through town, or had fallen on hard times."

The fruits of those values are evident in Mondale's political career. Upon his nomination to the vice presidency, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mondale's reputation as a populist had caused a downturn in the stock market. When told of the news, Mondale smiled and said, "My father would have been proud of me."

Gillon gives us other glimpses of this prophetic streak in Mondale. Early on, Mondale thought the fight for racial justice was the most important problem facing the nation. As a senator, he was one of the strongest supporters of civil rights. His boldest initiative was to sponsor the most controversial part of the Johnson administration's civil rights bill: fair housing. In the aftermath of the 1967 riots, with white middle-class resentment rising, virtually everyone told Mondale to give up that lost cause. Mondale disagreed ... and won.

He worked closely with Ralph Nader on consumer protection legislation, contributing to several legislative victories. Mondale also took up the cause of migrant labor. In the face of massive opposition -- much from other liberals -- Mondale persisted ... and lost. Reflecting bitterly, Mondale said, "The capacity of our society to mangle people is virtually limitless."

Busing was another unpopular battle. Consistently, Mondale fought all attempts to prohibit busing. In response, The New York Times stated, "We think he is right. We wish more of his colleagues in official and political life had the guts to speak out as he has."

STILL MONDALE WAS a politician, not a prophet. Oftentimes the demands of politics can lead to compromises and deals; Gillon recounts them. In 1964, Mondale brokered a deal in which Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Party were denied seats at the Democratic Convention. Mondale's deal gave the Freedom Party two seats as at-large delegates rather than seats as delegates from Mississippi. The all-white delegation from the Democratic Party would be seated in full, even though they denied African Americans the right to participate in their party. Responding to the compromise, both the Freedom Party and the party regulars left the convention.

In another compromise, Mondale was a supporter of the Vietnam War until 1969. While harboring private doubts, Mondale was unwilling to change his public position and betray his mentor Hubert Humphrey. Yet after the 1968 election, Mondale did something that few politicians ever do; he publicly confessed that he had made a mistake. "'The war,' he said, 'was a military, a political, a moral disaster' that threatened to take from an entire generation 'all confidence in the ability of a democracy to respond with justice, reason, and humanity.'"

Gillon argues that as a presidential candidate, Walter Mondale's liberal politics were symbolic of the fading fortunes of the Democratic Party. For Mondale, politics was the art of forging a compromise among core constituencies of the Democratic Party: labor, the civil rights movement, the Jewish community, and feminists. Gillon argues that this method of politics led to fatal wounds for the Democrats.

Specifically, it provoked many white middle-class Democrats to move into the open arms of Ronald Reagan and the Republicans. The white middle class, so the analysis goes, felt that Mondale's liberalism showed preference toward African Americans and other groups within the Democratic Party. In some of the most brazen political rhetoric of the century, Reagan convinced many that Mondale was the candidate of "special interests."

In 1992, many applauded Bill Clinton for breaking out of this liberal net. In a carefully orchestrated moment, Clinton rebuked Sister Souljah and Jesse Jackson. He also deliberately avoided considering a woman as vice president, choosing instead a Southern white man to be his veep. With many Nixon and Reagan Democrats coming back to the fold, Clinton defeated the New England aristocrat, George Herbert Walker Bush.

But a deeper look challenges Gillon's claim that there are significant differences between Bill Clinton and Walter Mondale. Never a strong ally of George McGovern, Mondale himself began a conscious effort to recover the middle-class constituency after they deserted the McGovern Democrats for Richard Nixon. He began rethinking many of his ideas.

Mondale no longer advocated large government programs. He seemed inclined to support free trade, some tax breaks for business, the rebuilding of the infrastructure, and a tougher approach to crime. These positions are remarkably similar to Clinton's positions in the '92 campaign.

Mondale failed in his political makeover, but the former anti-war protester and McGovernite from Arkansas succeeded. The major difference between these two men may be Clinton's superior mastery of sound bites, photo ops, and a blow dryer. The superficiality of those differences should be the subject of deeper analyses. Steven Gillon provides a fascinating and provocative start.

Dan Hofrenning was assistant professor of political science at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and a Mondale Fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute in Minneapolis when this article appeared.

The Democrats' Dilemma: Walter Mondale and the Liberal Legacy. By Steven M. Gillon. Columbia University Press, 1992. $35, cloth.