Walter Mondale Has Died, Age 93

This certainly brings back memories. Wally and The Beaver, as Geraldine Ferraro was characterized, the first female to be on a ticket as vice president. And that glaringly awful election night map is seared into my memory, dear God: 49 red states and only one blue, 49, Mondale’s home state of Minnesota — and the District of Columbia.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential election after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday. He was 93.

The death of the former senator, ambassador and Minnesota attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was cited.

Mondale followed the trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and the vice presidency, serving under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

His own try for the White House, in 1984, came at the zenith of Ronald Reagan’s popularity. Mondale’s selection of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate made him the first major-party presidential nominee to put a woman on the ticket, but his declaration that he would raise taxes helped define the race.

On Election Day, he carried only his home state and the District of Columbia. The electoral vote was 525-13 for Reagan — the biggest landslide in the Electoral College since Franklin Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in 1936. (Sen. George McGovern got 17 electoral votes in his 1972 defeat, winning Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.)

“I did my best,” Mondale said the day after the election, and blamed no one but himself.

And he certainly didn’t claim wide spread fraud or that he was cheated. Those were different politicians, a different day. R.I.P. Wally. You were okay. I’ll try to put that election map out of my mind, as believe me, I’ve done on many occasions. And if it was a nightmare for me, I can only imagine how you felt.