By: Hwa Chung (Jessica) Nam
Monday, February 11, 2008

Former Vice President, Walter Mondale, was the guest speaker for a video conference hosted by Steve Scully, political editor, as well as with C-SPAN.

Students at Pace University, University of Denver joined George Mason University for a video conference with the former Vice President. The video conference started off on a somewhat personal note when Scully asked Mondale about his experience as a Vice President of the United States.

“Wonderful because you’re out talking real issues, connecting with the American people,” said Mondale. “There is joy to be in a position where you can be heard, you may make a difference.”

His reflection back to the time when he spent working for Jimmy Carter and as Vice President was not all joy.

“It’s also a tremendous challenge because it’s both the physical survival kind of effort,” said Mondale. You go 24/7, in my case couple years, and all the tensions and issues and the conflicts and money to be raised and the developments come across. It’s hard to explain it all--it’s very exhausting as well.”

Steve Scully then asked Mondale about his brief consideration to run for President and reminded him of his reason, which was because he “did not want to spend the rest of [his] life in a holiday inn or even the next year or two in holiday inns.

Immediately responding with laughter, he then said that as soon as President Carter selected him to be his running mate, his response to it was that “it’d all been repaired and [he] did want to spend the rest of [his] life in a holiday inn.”

Mondale began to talk about the role of being the Vice President of America. He spoke of his constant interaction with the President, several hours a day, as well as reading the same exact material that the President read. He went into detail about this type of plan that he had with Carter and also raised his opinion on how he thinks “it’s gone off the rails recently”.

“I’m talking about what Vice President Cheney and Bush have done with the vice presidency,” said Mondale. “I looked at myself, not as a co-president, not as a prime minister, not somebody that possessed power separate from the president. But someone who was there to try to help the president and the administration do the best possible job. They’re going to find out that the result of what happened now is really damaged our country.”

Mondale mentioned how the Vice President and the President must be in sync with each other. He believed that he was definitely in sync with the President and what him and Carter established as the concept of “activist Vice President” is something that is now part of the American government.

Carter and Mondale are known to be the longest-living post-presidential team in American history and it may be due to the fact that the former President and Vice President worked so closely and actively together.

Finally, the former Vice President concluded the video conference by answering the question about what history books should say about Walter Mondale.

“I hope they say that I was a decent person who tried to make things better. Spend his life trying to move America and the world in a more hopeful and in a nonbelligerent way,” said Mondale.

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