{"id":7087,"date":"2009-12-11T13:02:47","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T18:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7087"},"modified":"2021-07-14T14:32:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:32:37","slug":"mondale-peasants-dont-make-me-turn-this-country-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7087","title":{"rendered":"Mondale: “Peasants! Don’t Make Me Turn This Country Around!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

About twenty years ago, I read a fascinating profile of and interview with Gus Hall<\/a>, longtime head of the Communist Party of the USA and perennial CPUSA presidential candidate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The thing that struck me about the profile – which appeared in the Strib <\/em>but was syndicated, if memory serves, from the NYTimes<\/em> – was that it was set in the CPUSA’s New York headquarters, described as a shabby, run-down office in a crappy part of immediately-post-Dinkins-era Manhattan.\u00a0 The interviewer described Hall – then in his eighties – and the other commies at the interview as seeming like ancient veterans who gathered to pine for the good ol’ days – with the added hilarity\u00a0reading\u00a0the ancient Stalin-cuddler Hall\u00a0testifying to his belief in and zeal for the CPUSA’s political relevance.<\/p>\n

I thought about that, reading a WCCO piece on\u00a0a smoochfest\u00a0with Walter Mondale<\/a> the other day.\u00a0 Mondale, the former Attorney General, Senator, Jimmy Carter’s veep and Ronald Reagan’s second speed bump, spoke to the “fellows” at the Humphrey Institute, a branch of the U of M that is an academic arm of the DFL in all but name; he basically told all of us political kids to get off his lawn.\u00a0 Esme Murphy is the reporter.<\/p>\n

And he is not amused:<\/p>\n

\u00a0The 81-year-old Mondale talked of his displeasure at the lack of civility in Washington. Back in the \u201870s, Mondale says, the divide wasn\u2019t as great, and animosity was left for the Senate and House floors. Mondale said, \u201cAs Tip O\u2019Neil used to say, \u2018politics ends at six o\u2019clock,\u2019 and it did; we would all go to parties together.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry your social scene petered out, Fritz.\u00a0 But if you recall, the state of this nation was really really awful <\/em>back when O’Neill and his little club of drunks were picking at Nixon’s remains, and walking over Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.<\/p>\n

But Mondale didn\u2019t just chalk up the level of discord to the lack of a decent cocktail hour. He reserved some sharp barbs for the cable talk shows. He blasted \u201cthe cable shows\u2019 unremitting diet of poor manners and gross simplification\u201d of key issues.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right.\u00a0 Far better to have things as they were in 1974, when Walter Cronkite and Dave Moore told people what to think, and all of the peasants knew their place –\u00a0on their knees, thankful for a Better Minnesota –\u00a0and that was that.<\/p>\n

And he decried the death of moderate voices on both sides of the aisle. On a recent visit back to Washington, he said, he chatted with Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Mondale said, \u201cSpecter told me there are no moderates anymore.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The funny part?\u00a0 Mondale would consider himself a “moderate”.<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t be a mainstream Minnesota media politics story without a reference to Larry Jacobs, the Keyser S\u00f6ze of Twin Cities politics:<\/p>\n

At the end of the luncheon, the Humphrey Institute\u2019s Professor Larry Jacobs said the spacious room would soon be remodeled to include a tribute to Mondale. \u00a0A perfect idea to bring together two icons of such similar views and who shared the same position on our national stage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was a\u00a0 huge difference, of course.\u00a0 While both presided over a post-Depression Minnesota where Democrats and Republicans differed hardly at all, Humphrey rose to prominence at a time when Democrats were still Americans first.\u00a0 Mondale was no screeching yippie – but his political peak came when the DFL, and the larger Democratic Party, believed that America certainly could be <\/em>a great country – but certainly not until the whole country mirrored their every belief.<\/p>\n

CORRECTION:\u00a0 Wow – coulda sworn Mondale was Governor for a while.\u00a0 My bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About twenty years ago, I read a fascinating profile of and interview with Gus Hall, longtime head of the Communist Party of the USA and perennial CPUSA presidential candidate.\u00a0 The thing that struck me about the profile – which appeared in the Strib but was syndicated, if memory serves, from the NYTimes – was that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[436],"class_list":["post-7087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","tag-esme-murphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7087"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78760,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7087\/revisions\/78760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}