Walter Mondale Has Died | Hacker News Reader

Walter Mondale Has Died

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28 pointsda_big_ghey31 comments

RIP. I will admit that my first reaction was "Walter Mondale was still alive?". 93 years is a pretty good run!

I remember thinking the same 25 years ago when he was ambassador to Japan. He had a good run after leaving the VP office.

It's funny to think that if Buddy Holly were alive today he'd be 8 years younger than Mondale. People who've lived a long time connect to a world that seems so distant it feels like an entirely different era of existence.

Don’t worry - you’ll get there too!

Hopefully!

I never really understood why he lost so badly to Reagan.

The argument is roughly "incumbent, economy, sexism" in that order. When things have recently trended positively (particularly with the economy), as they did in 1984, the incumbent almost always wins in the US.

On Sexism, Mondale chose Ferraro as his running mate (the first major party ticket with a woman!). This wasn't received well overall: "only 22% of women were pleased about her selection, versus 18% who agreed that it was a bad idea. 60% of all voters thought that pressure from women's groups had led to Mondale's decision, versus 22% who believed that he had chosen the best available candidate." [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia...

> 60% of all voters thought that pressure from women's groups had led to Mondale's decision, versus 22% who believed that he had chosen the best available candidate

I'd imagine some people felt that both statements were true. Measuring opinion is an interesting challenge.

> The argument is roughly "incumbent, economy, sexism" in that order.

Also personality? I wasn't even alive during that election, but I've seen videos of Reagan's (quite good) jokes during those debates. I've never seen anything from Mondale, so it's likely that he didn't leave nearly as good of an impression.

All of that explains why he lost, but perhaps, not why he lost SO BADLY. He only won his home state of Minnesota and only did so by .18% (<4000 votes)!!!

It really was an amazingly epic blowout.

Yes. Note that Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee in his 2000 bid for the presidency. If Gore had won TN, Florida wouldn't have mattered as much.

Reagan was very popular, the US was on an upswing, and Mondale came across with a very wooden personality. The message seemed more positive from Reagan.

We were still in a HUGE recession when Regan took over and had a period of inflation and mortgages had an interest rate of 12% and higher.

This was more a reflection on how badly things went under Carter and not about Mondale. Mondale should have never been the candidate.

During the general campaign, he openly vowed to raise taxes. Even in the Democratic primaries, in 2020, Elizabeth Warren went from front-runner to done the moment she awkwardly acknowledged that taxes would go up under her health plan.

So in a general election, in the 1980's? Forget it. Americans do NOT want to pay for anything themselves. Not then, not now. Even America's version of a left only believes that taxes should go up for other people, not themselves.

Most people don’t know this, but 46% of all households pay zero income tax. https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us...

I think if we actually made everyone pay taxes, as more-socialist countries in the EU do that the American left raves about, there would be a lot less support for raising taxes. Right now “taxing the rich” is easy because so few people pay any taxes!

"Most people" don't know this? It was the centerpiece of Mitt Romney's last presidential campaign and one of the most popular conservative media ecosystem talking points for years. It's hardly a secret.

Also extremely misleading since labor income is only one taxable transaction among many that most people take part in, this doesn't account for state income tax, and it also doesn't account for FICA tax, which is federal and still based on labor income.

Highly misleading since they still pay social security tax, and Medicare tax.

Those alone are almost 10% (and that's not even touching sales tax, property tax, etc)

But to be fair, those aren't the taxes that get raised when one raises taxes. They raise the portion that is effectively zeroed out for a large portion of households who don't earn above the cutoff for the first tax bracket after deductions.

Well, the left believes that they should go up on other people, not the "regular voters". But it's always a lie, because we never have enough "other people". When we're going to raise taxes to pay for more government, we're going to raise your taxes.

Note well: This is not excusing the insane amount of tax loopholes for the rich.

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