After Democrats' lesson with Walter Mondale, Mark Patinkin wonders if they haven't learned

Suddenly, I’m wondering if it’s 1984 all over again for the Democrats.

That was the year they nominated Walter Mondale – Jimmy Carter’s VP – to run against Ronald Reagan.

It didn’t turn out so well.

Mondale lost 49 states.

I’m not saying Biden could face the same landslide defeat. Hardly.

But The Providence Journal sent me to cover the convention that nominated Mondale. And I learned something there from a wise soul about the lemming-like behavior that at times brings political parties to pick nominees who are headed toward a cliff.

Let's go back to ‘84 to see if it’s a bit of a mirror.

The convention was in San Francisco, at the Moscone Center. I can’t believe it’s been 40 years. Here’s how long ago that was.

We journalists typed on a Stone Age RadioShack laptop called TRS-80, nicknamed Trash-80. We weren’t using email, so stories were sent with acoustic couplers you wedged over both ends of a phone. They sounded a screech that somehow translated to data.

Except I still remember my colleague John Mulligan, the Journal’s Washington, D.C., reporter, finding that the roar on the convention floor interrupted the signal. Panicking on deadline, he crawled under a table with a coat over his head to muffle the background noise. Maybe John remembers it differently, but I still have that picture of him in my head.

Gary Hart, the Colorado senator, did well in the Rhode Island primary and had many local delegates pledged to him, including state Sen. Kathleen Connell of Middletown, Pawtucket Mayor Henry Kinch, House Majority Leader Joseph DeAngelis and Senate Majority Leader John Revens.

Rhode Island delegates pledged to Mondale included North Providence Mayor Sal Mancini, Newport Sen. Robert J. McKenna, AFL-CIO president Ed McElroy Jr. and Providence lawyer Frank Caprio – yep, the guy who became the nationally beloved judge from “Caught in Providence.”

Mondale and Hart were competing to take on Reagan, a daunting task, since he was a sitting president.

Three years later, the married Hart got caught in a scandal when it came out he was having an affair – and was photographed with the young woman sitting on his lap on a boat named “Monkey Business.” I don’t want to name names, but it seems alleged affairs don’t seem to hurt certain current presidential candidates anymore.

Yet in 1984, Hart was an exciting prospect. Mondale – not so much. He was uncharismatic, like white bread, weighed down by having been VP to Jimmy Carter, who, while in the White House, was beaten by Reagan. Carter was far less adored then than he is now.

But everyone knew Mondale would be picked. One reason is that there were a ton of “big” Democrats in every delegation who weren’t bound by the primary results – they could vote for whomever they wanted. Clearly, they’d be going with the party’s designated guy, Mondale.

The “uncommitted” Rhode Island delegates reflected who got into that category – they included Attorney General Julius Michaelson, Gov. Joe Garrahy, U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell and U.S. Rep. Fernand St Germain.

The day before the nomination, I was walking through the Moscone Center, the corridors mobbed with pols and journalists, and ran into a hero of mine – the legendary Chicago columnist Mike Royko.

I came up to him like a fanboy and, after chatting, asked what he was going to write about that day.

Election 2024: Breaking down RI's presidential primary ballots: Who's on them and how does it work?

What he told me comes to mind now, in 2024, as Democrats are increasingly worried about Joe Biden because of his infirmity, his falling behind Trump in the polls and baggage like the border crisis.

Royko told me that everyone in the building knew Mondale would lose to Reagan. And yet he was still going to be nominated because political parties often do that. They stick with their leader, their anointed person. In part, it's because the delegate system is stacked that way, but, more broadly – everyone just feels they should fall in line behind the presumptive nominee whose turn it is.

“It’s nuts,” said Royko.

That, of course, doesn’t happen every cycle. Barack Obama was an upstart challenger to 2008’s "pre-chosen" Democratic pick, Hillary Clinton, and eclipsed her.

And I should repeat – I’m not saying Biden loses 49 states.

He may even still win.

But although it's early, the polls aren’t looking good. And, to be honest, neither is Biden physically. Or mentally. And even among supporters, the enthusiasm factor is low.

Opinion: Making the case for a unity candidate for president

Yet there is no contested Democratic primary with new faces. And it's likely past the point of that happening.

This is hardly an endorsement of Donald Trump.

I'm just asking if the Democrats have their best candidate.

Or whether it's 1984 again.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Joe Biden's reelection campaign offers reminders of Walter Mondale