Reply #19: I have some disagreement with your premise. I voted in 1980, [View All]

[hedgehog]

and I remember Mondale as suggesting that the country could no longer afford the New Deal. To me, Mondale was preaching that we'd just have to give up on the American Dream of a comfortable middle class. I saw him retreating into his gated community in Minnesota and giving up without a fight. That may or may not be what he ran on, I'm just saying that that's the impression I got out in Ohio. At the time, everything we learned about a candidate was filtered through the big three networks and a couple publications like Time, Newsweek, etc.

If my impressions were representative, regardless of what Mondale actually stood for, people may have thought they were choosing between someone who had given up and a wild card who might make a change.