Democrats' Dilemma

What does Walter Mondale's career reveal about the dilemma of the modern Democtratic party and the crisis of postwar American liberalism? Steven M. Gillon 's answer is that Mondale's frustration as Jimmy Carter's vice president and his failure to unseat the immensely popular President Reagan in 1984 reveal the beleaguered state of a party torn apart by generational and ideological disputes.

The Democrats' Dilemma begins with Mondale's early career in Minnesota politics, from his involvement with Hubert Humphrey to his election to the United States Senate in 1964. Like many liberals of his generation, Mondale traveled to Washington hopeful that government power could correct social wrongs. By 1968, urban unrest, a potent white backlash, and America's involvement in the Vietnam war dimmed much of his optimisim. In the years after 1972, as senator, as vice president, and as presidential candidate, Mondale self-conciously attempted to fill the void after the death of Robert Kennedy. Mondale attempted to create a new Democratic party by finding common ground between the party's competeing factions. Gillon contends that Mondale's failure to create that consensus underscored the deep divisions within the Democratic Party.

Using previously classified documents, unpublished private papers, and dozens of interviews -including extensive conversations with Mondale himself- Gillon paints a vivid portrait of the innerworkings of the Carter administration. The Democrats' Dilemma captures Mondale's frustration as he attempted to mediate between the demands of liberals intent upon increased spending for social programs and the fiscal conservatism of a president unskilled in the art of congressional diplomacy. Gillon discloses the secret revelation that Mondale nearly resigned as vice president. Gillon also chronicles Mondale's sometimes stormy relationships with Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, and Geraldine Ferraro.

Eminently readable and a means of access to a major twentieth-century political figure, The Democrats' Dilemma is a fascinating look at the travail of American liberalism.

Columbia University Press

In this political biography of Walter Mondale, Steve Gillon asks a central question that is the basis of his argument: What does Mondale's career reveal about the dilemma of the modern Democratic party and the crisis of post-war American liberalism? Gillon's answer is that Mondale provided a bridge between the Party's past successes and its still undefined future. By examining Mondale's rise in the 1950s and 1960s and his ultimately unsuccessful effort to adjust himself to a world in which basic liberal assumptions were being questioned, Gillon argues that we can begin to understand what has happened to the Democratic Party as a whole. Gillon argues that Mondale's failure to build this new consensus transcended his individual limitations and reveals the serious problems that confronted the Party. He cites the Democrats' reluctance to make simplistic ideological appeals at a time when television makes such appeals more attractive, and their previous inability to articulate a platform that included the sweeping agenda and hopeful rhetoric necessary to attract and sustain public support. These fundamental problems and tensions, Gillon argues, define the large problems with which Mondale and the Democratic Party had to struggle.

Thomas F. Eagleton

The era should be labelled: Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Walter Mondale, A Half Century of Enlightened Thought. Steve Gillon makes a vital analysis of Walter Mondale's pivotal role in this historic political saga.

Steven M. Gillon is author of Politics and Vision: The ADA and American Liberalism, 1947-85.

Columbia University Press