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MINEAPOLIS – President Biden on Sunday paid tribute to one of his closest friends and mentors, the man who guided him through some of the darkest moments of his life, taught him how to be a senator and advised him on the vice presidency.
In a 30-minute speech that was sometimes humorous and other times emotional, Biden called former Vice President Walter Mondale “one of the great giants in American history – and that’s not hyperbole.”
“He was one of the best men you’ve ever known,” Biden said. “One of the most worthy people I’ve ever worked with and one of the toughest, smartest men I’ve ever worked with.
Biden decided to attend the funeral – the second for him in a week, after the service of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last Wednesday. From Colin Powell to former Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reed (D-Nev.), Biden used funerals to express his sympathy, emphasize bipartisanship, and honor what he sees as a long-standing tradition in American public affairs. lives that have been disrupted in recent years.
Biden, funerals and a bygone America
The speeches of the president of the Mondale Memorial were particularly personal. He described how Mondale and his wife helped give Biden a purpose in life when Biden’s wife and daughter were killed in a car crash just before he was sworn in as the new senator in 1973.
“Fritz and Joan, they hugged me,” Biden said. “They helped me find my goal in a sea of darkness and pain. … They hired me. They helped me get up when it was easy to give up. ”
Biden recalled that when he was asked to be Barack Obama’s vice president, one of his first calls was to Mondale, another longtime senator who served as the second commander of a relative of a newcomer to Washington. Mondale is reforming the way vice presidents conceptualize their role, he said, turning it more into a direct partnership, and Biden has tried to use that as a model.
“He told me, in essence, that the vice president has no inherent power. None. Zero, “Biden said. “The vice presidency is simple – and it is true – it is a reflection of the relationship with the president of the United States.
And their relationship lasts; Biden spoke to him on the phone shortly before Mondale died.
Mondale died at the age of 93 in April 2021, but his funeral was postponed due to the pandemic. He served as Attorney General, Senator and Vice President, and later as Ambassador to Japan to President Bill Clinton.
Mondale was also nominated by the Democratic Party for president in 1984, and among his most notable moves was putting the first woman on the main party’s presidential ticket, electing the then representative. Geraldine Ferraro (DN.Y.) as his candidate. They lost to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide, but Ferraro paved the way for figures such as Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Vice President Harris.
“Walter Mondale was a Senate giant, a great vice president and a nominee for his party president who tells the truth, who never stops standing on the principle,” said historian John Mitchum, who highlighted Mondale’s career and legacy of civil rights. women’s rights and environmental protection.
Even with the presence of national figures such as Biden, Sunday’s ceremony had a hint of hometown, abounding in Norwegian jokes and references to figures from Minnesota. In her speech, Senator Tina Smith (D-Mininoran), who considers Mondale a mentor from her early days as a political volunteer, described how she met him at lunch 10 days before Mondale’s death.
“Many of us who knew Mr. Mondale began to think of him as a hero, and eventually dared to think of him as a friend,” Smith said.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) Said Mondale was the first to encourage her to run for the Senate. He was also the first, she said, to teach experts how to pronounce it last time. And when she spoke at the National Congress of the Democratic Party in 2004, he warned her of the dangers of reading a teleprompter.
So she memorized the speech, and Telesufter broke that night.
“I could see Walter Mondale in the front row,” Klobuchar said. “I made eye contact with him and I have never in my life seen a sharper nod that I told you. I nodded back. “
One gray day in Minneapolis, the lobby of the Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota, where the service was held, was covered with photos of Mondale fishing, hunting and smiling.
Some of those present recalled in interviews how the former vice president had touched their lives. Dennis Marchetti said he went hunting with Mondale in Green, Minnesota, near the Canadian border. “He was a very good shooter,” Marchetti added.
Ruth Usem, 82, met Mondale during many Ferraro fundraising events at her home, vividly recalling his sense of humor.
Ishmael Befera, 17, smiled in a photo of himself fishing in Manatu, Canada, with the former vice president, who was friends with his grandfather.
“He would say, ‘Patience is the key to catching fish,'” Befera recalled. “If you have patience, everything will come to you.”
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