The Presidency by Hugh Sidey: The Melody of Democracy

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Former Vice President Walter Mondale, the acknowledged front runner (150 speeches in 38 states in 1982), is hardly an electrifying campaigner, but he knows the value of political humor. Having bowed out of the 1976 race quipping that he could not face all those nights in Holiday Inns, Mondale now claims that the inns have been redecorated to his taste. The other day he was spotted in Miami with a huge cigar sticking out of his mouth at a rakish angle, looking like a Minnesota country boy imitating Groucho Marx. It will not work. Cigars are a bad symbol. We will see them less and less in photographs of candidates.

The greatest political show on earth begins formally in just two weeks. Yes, two weeks. Out in Sacramento they are having a Democratic state convention, and they have invited the presidential contenders to talk to the 2,100 delegates. Five of the big six (only Reubin Askew declined) accepted; Dark Horses Morris Udall and Dale Bumpers are galloping out. The media plan a mass assault. A couple of networks are scheduling straw polls of the delegates after the oratory. The way things are going, the anchormen that night may be ready to project a 1984 winner.