Former U.S. vice president dies at 93
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Walter Mondale, a leading liberal Democratic voice of the late 20th century who was U.S. vice president under Jimmy Carter and lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election, died on Monday at age 93, his family said.
“Well my time has come. I am eager to rejoin Joan and Eleanor,” Mondale said in a statement to his staff and released to the public after his death, referring to his late wife Joan, who died in 2014, and daughter Eleanor, who died in 2011 at age 51. “Before I go I wanted to let you know how much you mean to me.”
Mondale, the first major U.S. party presidential nominee to pick a woman running mate, believed in an activist government and worked for civil rights, school integration, consumer protection and farm and labour interests as a U.S. senator and vice president during Carter’s troubled one-term presidency from 1977 to 1981.
He also served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996 under Bill Clinton.
Mondale had spoken in recent days with Carter, Clinton, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a family spokesperson said.
“It’s with great sadness that Jill and I learned of the passing of Vice President Walter Mondale, but great gratitude that we were able to call one of our nation’s most dedicated patriots and public servants a dear friend and mentor,” President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said in a statement.
“Walter Mondale was the first presidential nominee of either party to select a woman as his running mate, and I know how pleased he was to be able to see Kamala Harris become Vice President,” Biden’s statement added.
“Today I mourn the passing of my dear friend Walter Mondale, who I consider the best vice president in our country’s history,” Carter, 96, said in a statement that also praised Mondale’s political skill and integrity.”
“He was an invaluable partner and an able servant of the people of Minnesota, the United States, and the world.”
Widely known as “Fritz,” Mondale was the Democratic nominee in 1984 against Reagan, a popular incumbent Republican who had beaten Carter four years earlier, and selected New York Democratic U.S. congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. Ferraro died in 2011 at age 75.
Despite the historic selection of a woman, Mondale suffered one of the worst defeats ever in a U.S. presidential election, losing in 49 of the 50 states and carrying only his native Minnesota as well as Washington, D.C.
Mondale served in the Senate from 1964 until he was elected as vice president in Carter’s 1976 victory over incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, who had become president after Nixon resigned in 1974 due to the Watergate corruption scandal.