alternatehistory.com

Walter Mondale
The Man from Minnesota
1977-1981
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Walter “Fritz” Mondale was not the first Vice President to have the option of living in Number One Observatory Circle, but he was the first to take that offer. Gerald Ford had been whisked off to the Oval Office before he could settle in, and his family’s wealth meant that Nelson Rockefeller already owned a house in Washington. Thus, Mondale became the first Vice President to live in the residence of the Vice President. In a way that is fitting as Mondale, an experienced counterbalance to Jimmy Carter’s outsider candidacy, forged a new path for the position once compared unfavorable to a warm bucket of piss. Mondale took an active role in the Carter administration; however lackluster it might have been.​

He acquitted himself well against Bob Dole in the 1976 debate, though given Dole’s rather large gaffe on the subject of Democrats starting all the wars in recent times it would have been hard not to. In 1980 he again did well at the debates, including some famous quips about voodoo that had even his opponent laughing. It was not enough however; the economy and the Iran Crisis had dragged the ticket through the mud and Carter lost in a landslide. Mondale would attempt a comeback in 1984, picking Dale Bumpers as his running mate as he won the nomination easily. But the times were a changing, and the Carter administration remained unpopular. Mondale won only 3 states and would retire from politics until the early 2000s, when he served as Minnesota Attorney General as a favor to the state party.​

His successor would be much less active as Vice President, mainly do to the new President being much more experienced then Jimmy Carter.​