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Walter Mondale Quotes

Total quotes: 27
“I told somebody afterwards that I think I would have voted for Reagan if I weren’t running, because he is a nice guy. He never was mean to me. I was never mean to him, and look at that campaign. It was a pleasant year, I think, for Americans. I think we ended up a united country, and so I could see why the average American liked the guy. They thought he was stable and good.”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale Oral History, Vice President of the United States
Tagged: Ronald Reagan, 1984 Presidential Election
“We were down 10-15 points, and another white male wasn’t interesting the public an awful lot. So there was this very strong movement in America and in the Democratic Party, saying that the time had come to include women on the ticket. A bold idea—I hope some day that it will succeed. So we started exploring that. We decided to pick Ferraro. The reaction was very positive, and at the convention very positive, but the history tells us it didn’t work.”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale Oral History, Vice President of the United States
Tagged: 1984 Presidential Election, Women in Politics, Democratic Party
“I couldn’t justify Chappaquiddick. I mean it was a humiliation, a horrible embarrassment, and as I told somebody—it’s in these papers here—I said he took us with him over that bridge because he was sort of our star. I think if that hadn’t happened, he might have been in the White House himself.”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale Oral History, Vice President of the United States
Tagged: Ted Kennedy, Chappaquiddick, White House, Humiliation
“He was a young, good-looking guy, big guy, a huge personality, what somebody would call a ‘room bender.’ He would come into a room and everybody knew he was there. Lots of energy, part of the Kennedy mystique, and was an all-out progressive, itchy and anxious to change and reform and get it done right away. Of course I immediately identified with him because I had essentially the same views on that stuff.”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale Oral History, Vice President of the United States
Tagged: Ted Kennedy, Good-Looking, Progressive
“I think this is a tough time in American history if you believe in justice, openness and civil rights. Really tough.”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale on 50 Years of the Fair Housing Act and the Problem With Purging a President's Cabinet
Tagged: Donald Trump, American History, Justice, Openness, Civil Rights
“I know Hillary. I love her. We’re dear friends. But she was not a very effective candidate. She seemed too centered on the bureaucracy of the campaign. So I don’t think that we Democrats are blameless in this.”
— Walter Mondale, 'I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared': Former Vice President Walter Mondale sounds off on Trump and Trumpism
Tagged: Hillary Clinton, Democrats, 2016 Campaign
“And now he’s president and you still can’t sleep. And now you’d like to get under the bed. You’re right to be scared. You’ve gotta be scared. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared.”
— Walter Mondale, 'I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared': Former Vice President Walter Mondale sounds off on Trump and Trumpism
Tagged: Donald Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Insomnia
“To use nukes is not just another form of warfare. It’s existential. It can wipe out parts of the earth. It’s a cataclysmic event. It’s not just okay to do. And during some of the talk around North Korea, I thought there was some loose talk there about using nukes.”
— Walter Mondale, 'I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared': Former Vice President Walter Mondale sounds off on Trump and Trumpism
Tagged: Nuclear Warfare, north korea, Donald Trump
“We have a president who doesn’t care about the facts. That’s new and very dangerous. Shocking, I would say.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Donald Trump, Facts, Fake News, dangerous, Shocking
“[Trump] has an appalling record for using lies or near lies to draw outrageous conclusions and that’s what he did there. We can’t accept that. This nation has to be based on truth and facts. And our public officers have got to be measured against a standard of what’s necessary for a healthy America.”
— Walter Mondale, 'I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared': Former Vice President Walter Mondale sounds off on Trump and Trumpism
Tagged: Donald Trump, Fake News, Truth, Facts
“A leader has to be held responsible for the result of what he says. The result of what he’s been saying is that our whole nation believes that he was supporting white extremism. Didn’t have anything bad to say about Nazis. That sort of thing. If he didn’t mean it, he should have corrected it in a way that makes it clear what he means. But that isn’t what happened.”
— Walter Mondale, 'I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared': Former Vice President Walter Mondale sounds off on Trump and Trumpism
Tagged: Donald Trump, Nazis, leaders, Responsibility
“You know, I lived in this country at a time when we had segregation. I was in the middle of all the civil rights fights in the '60s and the '70s. And thank God we've gotten rid of official discrimination.”
— Walter Mondale, Interview with Former Vice President Walter Mondale | RealClearPolitics
Tagged: Segregation, discrimination, 1960s, 1970s, Civil Rights
“I think people are terribly frustrated. I think they don't see big issues being resolved. A lot of people are hurting. Unemployed. In danger of losing their homes and all the rest. And the—it shows up in part with the Tea Party, which is really a protest movement in my opinion.”
— Walter Mondale, Interview with Former Vice President Walter Mondale | RealClearPolitics
Tagged: Voters, Frustration, Tea Party, Unemployment, Protest Movements
“I've been in this public life, presidential races and so on for most of my life, starting in early Hubert Humphrey days, and I am sick about the diminished lack of substance, real closure on the important questions in our campaigns. I think we're in what I call the era of the marketer, where the skills of avoidance, irrelevance, negatives have taken over from substance. It's never been perfect, I know that, but it's now shameful.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Public Life, Hubert Humphrey, campaigns, Marketing
“I felt very strongly about the need for debates. If you want substance in politics, you just inevitably are driven to believe in debates. And, of course, did a lot of it in the United States Senate, and I thought I could handle myself.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Debates, Politics, United States Senate
“We often do get the best and the brightest—Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, for example. They are brilliant, as have been many other presidents. But big money especially is undermining the integrity of the public process and posing enormous risks to the honesty of the electoral process. Reform is desperately needed.”
— Walter Mondale, Interview: Walter S. Mondale
Tagged: Best and Brightest, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter
“Digital media, new since I ran, offers citizens a much easier way to do research, to get new knowledge and to communicate. However, the advent of the Citizens United case has dangerously tipped the scales in favor of our richest citizens, bending the process toward big money and, sadly, reducing public trust in the process.”
— Walter Mondale, Interview: Walter S. Mondale
Tagged: Digital media, Citizens United, Big Money, Money in Politics
“Where's the beef?”
— Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale to Gary Hart: "Where's the beef?"
“We elected Johnson and Humphrey and because we had a successful convention, we had the largest range of fundamental civil rights adopted in our history. The Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act the other major measures. All of the programs for educational assistance, poverty assistance early childhood nutrition food stamps. All of that came about because we had a team that believed in social justice and civil rights.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: LBJ, Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Food Stamps, Social Justice
“I’m a strong pro-civil rights advocate; they were pushing against an open door in terms of the objective of civil rights and preventing any future lily white, segregated delegations.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Civil Rights, Lily White, Anti-White, Segregation
“Now bear in mind that Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey probably in American history, are the strongest pro-civil rights people in history as, as President/Vice President. I also had a strong record and have a strong record. We were trying to set up a system here that from there on out, would in effect be a civil rights law for our party, as it’s proven to be, and would cause in each of these states, an integrated party to be established-not just all white or all black, but a party of all Democrats. And that’s what we were up to.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Civil Rights, Democrats
“The view of how America speaks is reflected in our laws. And one of the laws is fair housing. It very clearly prohibits discrimination in the sale and rental of housing in America. It's been a sad fact of American life that the practice in many communities has been quite the opposite. That's why we passed the bill—to make a change. There's a lot of bad consequences that flow from segregation. The kids don't do as well. We live separately. We don't learn about each other. We're all Americans. And yet, we separate based on, basically, race. And I believe it's got to stop.”
— Walter Mondale, Fair Housing Act Never Fully Enforced, Walter Mondale Says
Tagged: Fair Housing, discrimination, Segregation
“I think that there is a crucial debate under way in American ghettos, and that debate involves a dispute about the basic decency of white America....This proposal which we call 'fair housing' is fundamental to that debate. Because the resolution of that issue I think depends more upon white America than upon the persuasiveness of these two opposite points of view. Because we have to show that we intend to be decent Americans. We must show that we don't intend to live separately in this country but that we intend to live together.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: American Ghettos, White America, Decency, racism, Segregation
“This legislation alone will not bring an end to the ghetto—but it will provide the opportunity for those persons economically able to escape the ghetto to do so, and to take their families with them. It will assure them free choice in the selection of their housing. For those still condemned by poverty to remain in the ghetto, there will be at least the knowledge that it is poverty—and not their fellow citizens or their Government—that forces them to live in the slums. There will be at least the knowledge that their children will have an opportunity to escape the restrictions and confines of the ghetto pressure cooker.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Poverty, Slums, Government, Black America, Ghetto, Housing
“In the last few weeks, there has been talk of causes, cures, and civil rights. The proposed remedies are many. Their efficacy is uncertain. The truth is, it seems to me, that there is no one solution, but there are many solutions. Our cities are beset by a multitude of ills, which can be cured only by a multitude of remedies. But every solution and every plan for the multiple evils in our cities and their ghettos is drastically and seriously affected by racial segregation in housing. With high concentrations of low-income, poorly educated, and unemployed persons in our cities—and without dispersal or balance throughout our communities—our cities will never be able to solve the problems of de facto school segregation, slum housing, crime and violence, disease, blight, and pollution.”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Civil Rights, Racial Segregation, Housing Segregation, Slum Housing, Crime, Violence, disease, Blight, Pollution
“To start off the hearings we called a remarkable witness, Carlos Campbell, a young African-American navy lieutenant.... After a series of impressive assignments in the navy, he had earned a posting to the Pentagon, but, try though they might, he and his wife couldn't find an apartment anywhere nearby. He told of going to various homes and apartment houses with For Rent signs. Many of the landlords, he said, had been encouraging over the telephone. But when they saw him in person, they would go into excuse-land. He kept right at it. His wife would go with him. The Defense Department had a housing office that tried to help him, and even they couldn't find anything in white neighborhoods. They knew what the problem was. Some of them even encouraged him to look in black neighborhoods. It was a disgrace. Here was a person good enough to perform tough assignments for our country in the armed forces, but not good enough to find housing for himself and his family."”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: racism, Defense Department, Housing Discrimination, Pentagon
“The image of the tumbledown slatboard shack in the rural South has been replaced by what is to my mind an even more regrettable, more terrible alternative—the filthy, freezing urban slum tenement. Added to the monumental problem of poverty in the cities is the totally related problem of segregated housing. These two monstrous national disgraces are really only one”
— Walter Mondale
Tagged: Segregation, Rural South, Poverty, Urban Slums, monstrous, National Disgrace
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