Jimmy Carter Replaces Walter Mondale in 1980

What if President Jimmy Carter had to drop Vice President Walter Mondale from the Democratic National Ticket and who would make the best replacement? (The POD could be Mondale for some reason not being able to run for re-election such as dire health). When Carter searched for Vice Presidential nominees in 1976, he also considered Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine (Secretary of State in 1980) and Senator John Glenn of Ohio, would they work?
 
New York Times, Oct. 21, 1983

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/24/us/mondale-s-tightrope-act-on-the-carter-problem.html

' . . . Perhaps the most significant disagreement with his boss was over the ''crisis of confidence'' speech that Mr. Carter delivered in July 1979 instead of a speech on energy. Mr. Mondale, who had argued strenuously against the President's making that speech, does not dispute that he went so far as to describe as ''crazy'' the diagnosis made by Patrick Caddell, the White House pollster, that the nation was suffering from a deep ''malaise.'' . . . '

' . . . Hamilton Jordan, the former White House chief of staff, said in his book, ''Crisis,'' that ''some of Mondale's critics contended that he was not forceful or effective in internal debates with the President. Nothing was more untrue. Perhaps the most admirable characteristic of Fritz Mondale as Vice President was that he fought hard for what he believed in on the inside, yet would accept the President's decisions and go out and defend them publicly.'' . . . '
So, yes, Fritz Mondale could publicly keep faith with the Carter administration, but with less enthusiasm or with conjured and forced enthusiasm which people pick up on.

Then it might leak that Fritz argued against the Crisis of Confidence speech, whereas of course the real problem was that Jimmy fired half his cabinet.

Then outside chance, Jimmy Carter pulls from earlier practice (?) where vice-presidents were just asked to serve a single term. And he realizes Fritz's heart is no longer in it. Maybe, although this second part is less likely.
 
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It would make no difference whatever to the 1980 election. Except that if Mondale were replaced by someone less liberal, this could help Teddy Kennedy marginally if it were done before the Democratic national convention.
 
It would make no difference whatever to the 1980 election. Except that if Mondale were replaced by someone less liberal, this could help Teddy Kennedy marginally if it were done before the Democratic national convention.

Agreed, Jimmy Carter was toast. The insane thing was that they ran Mondale in 1984. That changed the odds for beating Regan from slim to none. Jimmy Carter was widely considered a complete incompetent and running someone as closely associated with him as his own vice president was insanity.
 
Carter had burned his bridges a bit too well for a re-arraigning of the deck chairs like a new VP to matter. While Carter is well respected and somewhat popular now, he was not when he had finished his term as president.
 
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