MISTY WATER COLOR MEMORIES:

Speculation builds that Mondale will be on ballot (Dane Smith, Greg Gordon and Mark Brunswick, Oct. 27, 2002, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Speculation was building Saturday that former Vice President Walter Mondale will be asked by DFL Party leaders or surviving family members of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone to replace him on the Nov. 5 ballot.

DFL officials, citing their grief and the unseemliness of replacement talk on the day after his death, mostly refused to comment on any Mondale prospects. [...]

Mondale was first appointed to the Senate by Gov. Karl Rolvaag in 1964, when Hubert H. Humphrey was elected vice president. Mondale was reelected in 1966 and 1972, ending his second term early to assume the vice presidency under President Carter. During the Clinton years, Mondale served as ambassador to Japan.

If he were elected, his 12 years in the Senate would give him seniority, including becoming Minnesota's senior senator. But Democratic officials in Washington said that, based on the treatment of former New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg's sudden candidacy in New Jersey, Mondale probably would not receive seniority in committee assignments. Rather, he would likely be viewed as an elder statesman.

Oh yeah, it'll be helpful to have someone around to tell us about how the 1960s and 70s Democrats drove the economy into the ground--double digit inflation, interest rates, and unemployment by the time he, Jimmy Carter, and the Democrat Congress were done--and how they drove one of the only pro-western governments in Middle East history out of power--Iran--and how while he was in office it was the Soviets who were "liberating" Afghanistan... Posted by Orrin Judd at October 27, 2002 9:04 AM