BONUS | When a VP pick changes history

Presidential

The Washington Post

History, Government, Education

4.5 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2020

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Geraldine Ferraro broke a major barrier in American politics in 1984, when she became the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major party. It was a historic decision by Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Walter Mondale. And it did more than pave the way to the White House for more diverse candidates — it also fundamentally changed the way all future presidential campaign teams would approach vice-presidential announcements and conventions.

Hosted by Washington Post journalist Lillian Cunningham, this podcast episode features former vice president and ’84presidential candidate Walter Mondale; Mondale’s former campaign press secretary, Maxine Isaacs; and vice-presidential historian Joel Goldstein.

This is a special episode of the “Presidential” podcast series. In 44 chronological episodes, the “Presidential” podcast took listeners on an epic historical journey through the personality and legacy of each of the American presidents. Created and hosted by Lillian Cunningham, “Presidential” features interviews with the country’s greatest experts on the presidency, including Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers, historians and journalists.

The full “Presidential” series is available to listen to here. Start listening at the very beginning, with the life of George Washington, or jump ahead to any president whose story you want to better understand.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It was the summer of 1984.
0:12.7	Michael Jackson was all over the radio.
0:16.0	The challenger was shuttling astronauts to and from the space station.
0:20.6	The Soviet Union was boycotting the summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
0:25.4	And the country was panicked by the AIDS pandemic.
0:32.6	Finding the cause would be an important and significant first step.
0:36.4	Finding a cure is something else again.
0:39.4	It was also a presidential election here.
0:42.0	Why Democrats and Independents are voting for President Reagan.
0:46.5	Ronald Reagan, a Republican, was wrapping up his first term as president.
0:52.9	And he was running again for a second term.
0:56.2	By the summer of 1984, Democrats had settled on their own nominee to go up against him.
1:02.7	Former Vice President Walter Mondale.
1:07.4	Are we going to win this election?
1:13.8	Mondale had been Jimmy Carter's VP for the four years before Reagan had swept into office.
1:20.6	His numbers heading into the election didn't look too promising.
1:25.0	In July 1984, he was pulling a solid 10 to 15 percentage points behind Reagan.
1:32.3	I was in a bad spot, in terms of my standing with a public was pretty bad.
1:39.9	This is Walter Mondale.
1:42.1	He's 92 years old now.
1:45.3	And he was kind enough to speak to me from his home in Minnesota.
1:49.2	And I had to come out of that hole that I was in by...
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.