Former Vice President Walter Mondale thought he would still be around to speak at the funeral for Jimmy Carter, who was a little more than three years his senior.
But even though Mondale died first, in 2021, he left behind the eulogy he planned to deliver, which will be read at Carter’s memorial service at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9 by his son Ted Mondale. Former President Gerald Ford, who died in 2006, likewise left a eulogy that will be read by his son, Steven Ford.
In the tribute he left behind, Walter Mondale hailed Carter especially for making human rights the centerpiece of his foreign policy, for promoting environmental measures long before the term climate change became widely known and for placing more women in high office than any of his predecessors — including an appeals court judge named Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Toward the end of their time in office, Mondale said he and Carter talked about how they wanted their tenure to be remembered. “We came up with this sentence, which to me remains an important summary of what we were trying to do: ‘We told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace,’” Mondale wrote. “That we did, Mr. President.”
From Minnesota to the West Wing
Mondale was an odd choice as Carter’s running mate in many ways. He was a northern liberal close to the labor unions and part of the Democratic establishment in the nation’s capital who teamed up with a Southern moderate running as an outsider taking on Washington and the party elite. But they helped bring their party together in 1976 and forged a surprisingly close partnership.
With Carter’s support, Mondale became arguably the most empowered vice president in history to that point and a model for all those who followed.
Rather than being exiled and forgotten in the Old Executive Office Building across from the White House, Mondale was the first vice president given an office in the West Wing, just steps from the Oval Office.
He was also the first to live in a specially designated residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory and had weekly lunches with the president. Carter involved him in every major policy discussion.
Creating ‘a real partnership’
President Jimmy Carter, right, embraces Vice President Walter Mondale, joined by Rosalynn Carter, left, and Joan Mondale Jan. 21, 1977, following Carter’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Peter Bregg)
In the eulogy, Mondale recalled the origin of this unusual alliance.
“I was surprised when then-candidate Gov. Carter asked me to join him as his running mate in 1976,” Mondale wrote. He remembered setting two conditions: He wanted to make a real contribution and did not want to be embarrassed.
As Mondale recounted, “He agreed, welcomed my full participation, directed his staff to treat me as they would him, and during our four years in the White House, he was very careful to protect me from the frustration and too often humiliation that had cursed the lives of many vice presidents.”
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Mondale said they came together in a way that few of their predecessors had. “Unlike a lot of vice presidents and their presidents, our relationship did not blow up,” he wrote, crediting that to their shared small-town upbringings and Christian faith.
“With his leadership, we created the model vice presidency, a real partnership between the president and the vice president,” Mondale wrote in the eulogy.
Moreover, he added, “We became very close friends. We often spent hours together throughout the day. We were working on real problems, not wasting time. That model vice presidency that Carter helped create has been followed in one way or another by later administrations of both parties.”
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