Walter Mondale: Getting a Second Look

(3 of 7)

At the least, Mondale's articulate, forceful performance and Reagan's hesitant one seem to be prompting a second look at both contenders by voters who had decided to tune out the campaign as a boring exercise leading to a foregone conclusion. The Democratic challenger buried his "wimp" image in Louisville. Even poll respondents who do not intend to vote for him are giving him higher ratings on leadership ability. And some doubts are appearing among Reagan supporters who have not yet changed their allegiance. Mondale has no doubt about the reason for the reassessment. Says he: "If I were the person I'd read about in the paper [before the debate], I wouldn't vote for me. Suddenly they saw me; the contrast between what I'd been described as being and what they saw was very helpful . . . Because of that, people are listening to me on the issues."

Perhaps, but the only solid movement detectable so far is the beginning of a trend both candidates had long been expecting: a drift by disaffected Democrats back to their party's nominee. "They wanted to know their tiger was in the game," says one Democratic planner. A Reagan strategist agrees that the debate "will accelerate the return-of-the-native phenomenon" but quickly adds: "That won't overcome a lead of 15 to 20 points."

At most, then, Mondale has a second chance. He could conceivably win the presidency, but only conceivably, and then only if he does everything right and Reagan does a lot wrong for the rest of the campaign. More realistically, Mondale has an opportunity to keep shaving Reagan's margin, thus making the race interesting enough to draw a large turnout, keep the final result respectably close and influence congressional and state races. Even that would be a feat of no small importance.

Before the debate, Republicans had been speculating euphorically, and Democrats apprehensively, about an epic Reagan landslide that would bury not only Mondale but many Democratic congressional, state and local candidates across the country and perhaps put the Republicans in a position to become the nation's majority party. Talk of such a "realigning election" stopped abruptly on the morning after the showdown in Louisville, and Democratic candidates took new heart.

In Massachusetts, for example, Mondale has pulled into a virtual tie in the polls with Reagan. As a result, supporters of Democrat John Kerry are far more confident that he can defeat Republican Raymond Shamie for a U.S. Senate seat. "We have been running 14 points ahead of Mondale," explains one Kerry strategist, and that now looks like a sufficient margin. In Illinois, Congressman Paul Simon scents a gain for his bid to defeat Republican Senator Charles Percy. Says Simon: "Until the debate, whenever I called ward committeemen, I'd hear all sorts of moaning about Mondale's being a dead weight, that the party couldn't do anything with him. There has been none of that since Louisville. The debate has created a totally new attitude that is clearly helpful to Mondale and to me and to everyone else on the Democratic ticket."