The Presidency by Hugh Sidey: Bad News for the Doomsayers

The Presidency

Walter Mondale is a preacher's son from Elmore, Minn., who with little strain became Vice President. Before he began running for President, he made a million bucks in a couple of years for not doing much of anything. Yet when he looks out over America from the stump these days, he sees mostly desperation.

Gary Hart rose out of the dusty streets of Ottawa, Kans., survived the austerities of Yale's Divinity and Law schools, became a U.S. Senator, and is now a political legend-in-the-making, stalking the Mondale "juggernaut." When Hart mounts the campaign pulpit, he thunders often about a discouraged and...