Lileks says:

In doing some research for today’s Mondale column, I reread his speech at the 1984 Democratic convention. Here’s a real time-capsule moment for you:



“When we speak of change, the words are Gary Hart's. When we speak of hope, the fire is Jesse Jackson's. When we speak of caring, the spirit is Ted Kennedy's. When we speak of the future, the message is Geraldine Ferraro”

Well, at least one out of four didn’t cheat on his wife. What a snapshot of 1984: a time when Gary Hart was the 845th blurry photocopy of JFK to be handed around, when Jesse Jackson was regarded as a bulwark of righteous enlightenment instead of a self-aggrandizing shakedown artist; when Ted Kennedy was a big pickled Care Bear, and Geraldine Ferraro was the future, not a footnote-to-be. I was a hardcore Democrat at the time, and I remember watching the speech and thinking: we are going to lose. We are going to lose 51 states. Puerto Rico will demand statehood just for the chance not to vote for this guy.

Yes, he won Minnesota - but by 4000 votes. Perhaps the DFL thinks that those 4000 voters have died or moved away, and it’s really Mondale Hour now. I just feel sorry for the guy. If he wins, he has to leave home, leave his family, leave his nice job, and go back to the ossuary of the Senate for six years.

One night he’ll find himself staring at the lovely ceiling, listening to Robert Byrd drone on - for heaven’s sake he was talking when I left and twenty years later he still hasn’t shut up - and he’ll think: "if I was home I’d be sitting by the fire at the cabin with a book, and I’d hear the wind in the pines, that low whoosh that makes you turn up the heat and reach for the Old Granddad. I’d have my slippers on. The ones the kids got me, the ones with the white nubby fur inside and the rabbit ears. Maybe I’d put “Shane” on the VCR - that’s the only tape we have at the cabin, for some reason. Keep meaning to bring some more, but on the other hand you can’t go wrong with “Shane” . . . . but life didn’t turn out quite the way I intended. It’s odd - one day you’re a happy man, basking in the twilight glow of a life well lived. And the next thing you know you’re a goddamnned Senator again.

"Wha - we’re voting? Find Daschle, find Daschle - well, he’s shaking his head. So I guess it’s a nay.

"Where was I? Ah. Yes. It’s not just the wind in the trees you love to hear. It’s the way the mailbox creaks in a good stiff breeze. See, it’s one of those sounds you never remember until you hear it again; you can go the whole winter and never hear it . . . and when you hear it in the distance as you drop off to sleep, well, it’s one of a dozen different things that tells you you’re home.

"Someone peed on our steps this morning. Peed right on the Post. The bag was dripping when I picked it up. I’d forgotten how much I really don’t like it here."