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SPEAKER 1: And then overnight 50/50 chance of showers after midnight. Saturday and Sunday both look like cloudy and rainy day, showers through the day on Saturday. Highs of 60 degrees Sunday. Showers are likely with cloudy skies. Highs around 55 on Monday. Slight chance of showers and then highs around 60.

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GARY EICHTEN: And good morning. I'm Gary Eichten inviting you to stay tuned for Midday here on Minnesota Public Radio News. Coming up this first hour, Minnesota's senior statesman, Walter Mondale, has had a remarkable public career, from Minnesota Attorney General to US vice president and beyond. We'll talk with Mr. Mondale and take your questions right after the news.

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LAKSHMI SINGH: From MPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Obama administration is asking Congress to approve a $2-billion military aid package for Pakistan. Today Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said the five-year deal is critical to maintaining US-Pakistan relations in a post 9/11 world.

HILLARY CLINTON: United States has no stronger partner when it comes to counterterrorism efforts against the extremists who threaten us both than Pakistan. Taliban fighters reportedly have attacked a NATO convoy in Southeastern Afghanistan. The Associated Press cites an Afghan official saying three drivers were killed in the attack last night in Shahr-e Safa in Zabul.

The president of Haiti confirms it is cholera that has killed more than 140 people and sickened more than 1,000 others. Ruth Morris, of member station WLRN, reports that health officials are scrambling to control its spread.

RUTH MORRIS: Aid groups are rushing antibiotics and dehydration salts to the Artibonite region. Reports emerging from the area describe patients laying on blankets in a hospital parking lot, hooked up to IVs, and waiting for treatment. Artibonite did not experience serious damage from Haiti's massive January earthquake, but thousands of victims fled there. The outbreak has awakened fears that disease could spread with lightning speed through Haiti's tattered makeshift camps, which are often unsanitary.

Cholera is a bacterial infection spread through contaminated water. It causes severe diarrhea and vomiting, and can sometimes kill within four to 12 hours after symptoms begin if untreated. For MPR News, I'm Ruth Morris in Miami.

LAKSHMI SINGH: President Obama continues his tour of stump speeches today in California and Nevada. In Nevada, the president will be campaigning for Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Brandon Rittiman from member station of KUNR reports Reid's in an especially close race for re-election.

BRANDON RITTIMAN: Reid is polling neck and neck with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. Nevadans are being treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet of negative campaign ads on TV and a revolving door of superstars from the left and the right trying to swing their votes. Sarah Palin stumped for Angle earlier on Monday. Angle's backed by the National Tea Party Movement. Also stumping for her this week were Newt Gingrich and the controversial, Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Phoenix.

On the other side, Reid's bringing the president back to Las Vegas today for more campaigning. Vice President Joe Biden was in Reno Wednesday. Polls have been open all week for early voting in Nevada. For MPR News, I'm Brandon Rittiman.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the number of American adults diagnosed with diabetes is expected to drastically increase over the next 40 years. Health officials say that currently, one in 10 US adults has diabetes. That number could jump to one in three by the year 2050. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow is down 30 at 11,117. This is MPR.

SPEAKER 2: Support for news comes from US oncology united to advance the science of oncology and to help cancer patients access high-quality care. Online at usoncology.com.

PHIL PICARDI: From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Phil Picardi. President Barack Obama will be in the Twin Cities tomorrow. He's coming to speak at a campaign rally on the University of Minnesota campus in support of Mark Dayton and other Democratic candidates. When Obama was elected two years ago, the enthusiastic support of college students was a key to his victory. The U of M Humphrey Institute's Larry Jacobs says polls show young people aren't as excited this time around.

LARRY JACOBS: And that's a real problem. I think there has been a certain bit of disaffection or disillusionment in the hope, the change that's been lost. And the President's coming to Minnesota is a way to try to re-energize youth to make sure they see why their vote matters.

PHIL PICARDI: Obama headlines a rally at the university's Field House on Sunday. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for congressional candidate, Terrell Clark in Blaine. Clark is challenging incumbent Republican, Michele Bachmann. A judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by 32 people arrested by police outside the Republican National Convention in 2008, in Saint Paul. The lawsuit was filed last year against the city of St. Paul and police. It argued the plaintiff's civil rights were violated on the first day of the convention. One attorney says his clients will appeal.

Many young drivers in rural Minnesota still aren't using their seatbelts. New numbers from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety show the lowest rates of teen seatbelt use are in Northwestern and Southwestern Minnesota. The Department of Public Safety says overall seatbelt use in the state exceeds 90%, but it's less than half that among young drivers and young passengers.

The Minnesota Wild to play the Canucks tonight in Vancouver. The Wild beat the Oilers last night in Edmonton. It'll be sunny and mild this afternoon. High temperatures in the 60s to mid 70s across the state. This is Minnesota Public Radio News.

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GARY EICHTEN: And good morning. Welcome to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio News I'm Gary Eichten. Well, he already had one of the most impressive resumes in Minnesota history, Attorney General, US Senator, Vice President of the United States, nominee for president, US ambassador. Now you can add author to the list. Former Vice President, Walter Mondale, is out with a new memoir written with David Hage that traces Mr. Mondale's remarkable career in public service, what happened, why it happened, lessons learned, lessons that weren't learned.

The book is titled The Good Fight, A Life in Liberal Politics, and it is a good read for anybody, especially any Minnesotan, liberal, conservative or independent really anybody interested in the political history of the state and the nation. Former vice president and now author, Walter Mondale has joined us this morning to talk about his career.

And if you have a question or a comment, give us a call, 651-227-6000 651-227-6000. Toll free number, 1-800-242-2828. You can send in your question or comment online. Go to mprnews.org and click on Send a Question. Or if you're on Facebook, go to facebook.com/mprnews. Mr Mondale, welcome back to Midday.

WALTER MONDALE: Good morning, Gary.

GARY EICHTEN: First in a series of books.

WALTER MONDALE: No, no, no. No, no. That took my breath away. No, it's my memoir and also the history of those times. It's something I think I had to do. I just wanted to write about it, and I loved doing it. But that's it.

GARY EICHTEN: What are you hoping to accomplish with the book? Just to get the record straight, or do you want to get your fellow Democrats fired up? Or what's your thinking?

WALTER MONDALE: I want to tell the story of those years as I see them and saw them spanning over 50 years, some of the most interesting and challenging years in American history. And I wanted to write about them. So being able to tell my story meant a lot to me. And I think that it's a pretty good history.

GARY EICHTEN: If you would put your political analyst hat on, having lived through a lot of history, political history here, the word is out that Republicans are going to score big in 11 days on November 2nd, and that Democrats are going to suffer some major defeats. Are you reading the tea leaves the same way?

WALTER MONDALE: It looks like that is possible. 11 days is a lifetime in American politics. There are other elements out there, the arguments going on. The president is now campaigning all over the country. He'll be here tomorrow. And Biden's all over the country. And I think some of these surveys indicate that some of the Democrats are picking up. But it is obviously a closely contested election. And some of the polls are pretty dreary from the Democrats' standpoint to folks that are in despair, I would say.

I've lived through this before, and there are cycles in American life. You win them, and you lose them. And you just have to go along. Keep your eye on the ball.

GARY EICHTEN: What accounts for those cycles? It was just two years ago. People were saying, well, the Republican party is dead. Just a regional fiery--

WALTER MONDALE: I never said that.

GARY EICHTEN: I know you didn't say it, but there were people that did say. And President Obama was the toast of the town and a new era dawning, so on and so forth. Well, that was only two years ago. And now it seems the tables have turned completely.

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah, it has been abrupt. And I think it's explained in good measure by the tremendous range of serious problems that he inherited and that are on his desk today, tough economy, a lot of people hurting, unemployment, losing homes, and not being able to care for their families. When that happens, people need help. And it can move politics dramatically.

We have a kind of a paralyzed Congress today. Can't get things passed. People I think are frustrated about that and a kind of a harsh and polarized country, which really unsettles me because I don't think we're going to work our way out of these problems by just shouting at each other. All those things are driving public frustration. And what I would like to see is a debate about the alternatives, about what are the options here, what are the real things driving these problems, so we can make as an intelligent choice as possible this coming election. That may happen, but I don't see much of it right now.

GARY EICHTEN: Is it similar in any way, shape, or form to 1980? When Jimmy Carter was up for reelection, you were running with Carter as his vice president? People were accusing the Carter administration of being ineffective, ineffectual. People were upset with the economy going in the tank. Similar situation.

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah, there were some similarities. The economy was bad in a different way. We had stagflation. We had both inflation. And although we'd add a lot to the employment lists in America, millions more were employed, they weren't feeling very happy about it. And '80 was a tough year. But this feels different to me fundamentally because of the polarization, the harshness of the rhetoric, the kind of intemperate feeling that I get listening to the news.

GARY EICHTEN: Walter Mondale is our guest, former Vice President Walter Mondale, who is out with a new memoir titled The Good Fight, A Life in Liberal Politics, really an interesting account of his remarkable career and of American politics in the last 50 years or so. It touches on a lot of stories that you may think you knew about, but you learn a lot more. If you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call 651-227-6000. or 1-800-242-2828. The online address, mprnews.org. The Facebook address facebook.com/mprnews.

Mr. Mondale, I'm wondering, now we were talking about Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama. Conservative critics are labeling Obama as the worst president, at least some of them, a worst president since Jimmy Carter. The implication being that Carter was a terrible president. You argue otherwise.

WALTER MONDALE: I sure do. We passed most of the legislation we asked for. We put in place a profound reforms in energy that was moving away from energy dependence. We normalized relations with China. We adopted the Panama Canal treaties. We brought about peace between Egypt and Israel and the beginning of the Middle East progress toward peace, and initiated a human rights emphasis in American policy that sustains itself.

And I know what the polls show, but I think that history is going to show that the Carter administration was a strong administration. And when Mr. Reagan assumed the presidency, this country was eminently governable. We had most of the serious problems under control, our policies in place that would do so.

GARY EICHTEN: What about the argument, for example, the Iranian hostage crisis just proved that the Carter administration was impotent, really. You had all those people being held over in Tehran, and they weren't going to get out. And they didn't get out until Jimmy Carter left office.

WALTER MONDALE: 30 seconds after he left office. We went through 444 tough days. And of course, our hostages went through misery on all of those days. We did everything possible to bring them home peaceably. We put protecting their lives first. We could have done many things. We had all kinds of recommendations about bombing Tehran or mining the harbors and so on. And every one of those things would have risked the lives of our hostages.

We tried the rescue mission, but that was defensive in nature. It didn't work. And they had to stay all those years. But we got them out, and they were able to live good lives after that. One of the key people who worked on this, old Navy commander, and he wrote the book, All Fall Down. He was quoted as saying, if I had been a hostage, I would want Jimmy Carter as my president.

GARY EICHTEN: There's seems to be, at least in this instance, for example, a yawning divide between the common public perception, certainly your perception. And is there--

WALTER MONDALE: No, I agree with that. And I say that in my book. I know that what I'm saying is not what the general impression is, but that's having been on the inside and worked on it day after day and reviewed every possible way of getting these people home, negotiating and the rest.

GARY EICHTEN: Does that happen across a large number of issues, the public understanding of what's going on in the public arena, varying really differently from what actually is happening behind the scenes?

WALTER MONDALE: I think this was fiendish because so much of what we had to do was secret. So much of what we tried to do had to be kept out of the public sector to save risks of their lives.

And then finally that year or so of just sitting there, being unable to either negotiate or to get our hostages home and this sort of thing of seizing, forgetting the diplomatic protection that's supposed to be diplomatic immunity, that one of the great principles of international affairs, international law, is that these diplomatic delegations that are located in various countries, in those nations, they are entitled to protection, diplomatic immunity. And the host government is pledged to do that. It's one of the basic ancient rules of diplomacy.

In this case, radical Islamic leaders, our first real experience with violent extremist Islamists violated all those rules. And we were there when we had to be the first to figure out what to do about it.

GARY EICHTEN: Let's get some listeners involved here. We're talking with former Minnesota Senator and former US Vice President, Walter Mondale, who's out with a political memoir of his remarkable career. It's titled The Good Fight, A Life in Liberal Politics. Again, if you'd like to join our conversation, 651-227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828. Online address mprnews.org. The Facebook address If you're on Facebook, go to facebook.com/mprnews. Yusuf, you're up first. Go ahead please.

YUSUF: Hello. [INAUDIBLE] First of all, welcome, Mr. Vice President. It's nice to hear to you again.

WALTER MONDALE: Thank you.

YUSUF: I have two questions for you quick. Number one, what does it mean for you-- I talked to you when you were in the University of Minnesota Duluth. You said you support Hillary Clinton. But what does it mean to you to elect Barack Obama, President of the United states? And how do you think it's different from now by the time he is elected?

GARY EICHTEN: OK. First of all, what was significant, if anything, about the election of Barack Obama other than the fact that he was the first African American to be elected?

WALTER MONDALE: Oh. I think what it was a very talented American was elected who happened to be Black. I do not think that election was about race or about color. I think it was thankfully about talent and policy. And so I think that that's the thing we should feel good about. I think he's an excellent president with problems that would overwhelm almost anybody who is in his place at this time. I think he's trying to work down those issues. And he needs some help.

GARY EICHTEN: You had some criticism of Obama in your book, among other things, pointing out that he was promoting this idea of post-partisan era. And you said, well, that's not true.

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah, I talked about two things that I thought had hurt him. One is the post-partisanship, the idea that somehow in this last presidential election, our nation had morphed away from dividing along partisan lines, which we have since the beginning of America. And now we were capable of talking above that and over that and coming up with nonpartisan conclusions. I never believed that was the case. We've always had partisan debate. The Congress has always had to itself out in that context.

And I think we lost some time looking for that kind of Holy Grail of a nonpartisan America. I admire him for doing it. But a president has a honeymoon period, a certain time when Americans want to give him the benefit of the doubt and everything. And I think we used up a good deal of that time trying, unsuccessfully, to do it in this new-- The second thing is, I think that the president delegated too much of the policymaking to the Congress.

Congress is a co-equal branch, but a president has to stay on top of the Congress, has to keep prodding the contract, has to keep setting up his proposals, defining what he wants. Otherwise, the Congress just starts disaggregating. They go toward what is needed solely in their own districts. And my experience in the Congress, my experience in the White House, my experience working with Carter persuaded me beyond any doubt that a Congress needs strong presidential leadership. And both those ideas, I think, kind of broke down that first year.

GARY EICHTEN: Do you think it will be materially more for the president to get his agenda passed if Republicans take control of the congress? Because it certainly seems like he's had enough trouble the first two years with the Democrats in charge. Is there much difference one way or the other?

WALTER MONDALE: It's going to be tough. But there was one problem that I tried to do something about when I testified down there a few months ago, and that is what I think is the abuse of the Senate rules. We had 59 members of the Senate, at one time 60 members. That's what the rule requires to end debate. But the opposition in these harshly partisan times use the filibuster to block almost every measure. And they started increasingly using these so-called holds that would prevent consideration of nominees, judicial, key executive officers, and to block any consideration of any measure that someone didn't like.

And everything is filibustered now. And so we have a profound paralysis and issue, a rules crisis in the Senate. We will have that again in the next Congress unless they amend the rules. And I think the issues are going to be much-- it's going to be much more difficult for the president to gain the initiative in the Congress. So it will be different, I think.

GARY EICHTEN: You led a big fight in the '70s to change the rules of the Senate. It used to be that, to end a filibuster, you'd have to come up with 67 votes. You got that changed to 60. And things seemed to be working reasonably well for a while. How did the Senate get off track?

WALTER MONDALE: It worked very well. And then this harsh partisanship that I'm talking about, that sort of seized American politics, hit the Senate, and pretty soon you had to have 60 votes. And if you had 59 or 50, you just couldn't get any business done, and plus these holds. So I think that's a big, big change. Under the Constitution, the Senate by a majority vote can change its rules at the beginning of each Congress. So at the beginning of this next Congress, if the vice president would so rule, the new Congress might be able to change the rules to improve the possibility of doing business there. Long shot yet, but it's a possibility.

GARY EICHTEN: Elizabeth, your question for Mr. Mondale, please.

ELIZABETH: In going back about the hostages in Iran, we found out after Mr. Reagan was elected president that he had sent Kissinger over there and made a deal with them, that, if they were elected, they would give them some planes. And part of the deal was they were not to release the hostages until after Mr. Reagan was sworn in as president.

I always thought that Kissinger should have been tried on some account for going over there and meddling with foreign policy when they were not in office. What do you think about that?

GARY EICHTEN: Thanks, Elizabeth. Does Elizabeth have the history right?

WALTER MONDALE: I think that she's talking about the allegations, unproven. That there was some understanding reached that the flow of arms that we had cut off to Iraq or to Iran, I think it was, would resume following the election if we lost And that the negotiations would be stalled. Gary Sick's book, All Fall Down, writes about this.

But I think that has not really been proven. I don't recall that Kissinger was involved in this at all. The allegations were that someone from the CIA was involved in this. But it is true that the armaments began the day after the election flowing out of Israel into the combat area. So I would say, based on these many years where this issue has been debated and the inability of anybody to really prove that happened that way, is such that we probably ought to just set it aside and move on.

GARY EICHTEN: Was President Reagan pretty much-- was he a straight up stand-up guy? I know you obviously had your disagreements with him philosophically on the role of government and so on. But as a person, was he pretty much a straight shooter?

WALTER MONDALE: I would say so. I would say the criticism that I would have is that he tended to be somewhat detached from a lot of things that were going on. When Oliver North and the others in that scandal, where they were sending arms to Latin America, I think that he didn't know about it. And he said, in effect, when the issue hit that this had surprised him, and he apologized for it. But I think there was something to that.

GARY EICHTEN: The book is chock-full of great lines, but one of my favorites was having to do with your confrontations with Ronald Reagan in 1884. He was selling Morning in America. And I was selling a root canal.

WALTER MONDALE: I think that's right. He had this talent for being sunny and optimistic and positive, and people liked that. I think they wanted that. And I came at him with a lot of problems that needed to be solved. So there was some of that.

GARY EICHTEN: A little candy. And you had the spinach.

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah, right. Eat your peas and beans.

GARY EICHTEN: Walter Mondale is our guest, former Minnesota Senator, former Vice President of the United States. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 1984. He served as Minnesota Attorney General, US ambassador to Japan, a remarkable public career. While he's out with a really interesting book about that career, it's titled The Good Fight A Life in Liberal politics, he's come by today to talk about the book and his career. And if you'd like to join our conversation again, 651-227-6000, 1-800-242-2828. If you're on Facebook, go to facebook.com/mprnews. Online, go to mprnews.org and click on Send a Question. We'll get to more questions here in a couple of minutes.

ANNOUNCER: Programming is supported by Flint Hills Resources, Pine Bend Refinery, title sponsor of the Regions Hospital Foundation wine auction taking place October 23rd at the St. Paul RiverCenter. More at the [INAUDIBLE] wineauction.org.

GARY EICHTEN: Here's a number to get your mind around, 13,160 people. 13,160 listeners contributed during our fall member drive which ended last night. If you were one of the new or renewing members who joined in, thank you for helping to pay for the news on Minnesota Public Radio. If you meant to contribute, didn't get to it, don't be shy. Still time to do so. Go to MinnesotaPublicRadio.org or call 1-800-227-2811. And thank you.

PHIL PICARDI: From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Phil Picardi. The Obama administration wants to give Pakistan $2 billion to purchase American-made weapons and other military supplies over a five-year period. Congress will be asked to approve that aid. Even amid concerns, Pakistan isn't fully committed to fighting extremists along its border with Afghanistan. The package replaces one that expired earlier this year or earlier this month.

In the aftermath of NPR's firing of commentator, Juan Williams, there are renewed calls from Republicans to end federal funding from Public Radio. South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint plans to introduce legislation to cut off that money. Federal grants provide about 2% of NPR'S annual budget. It's funded primarily by affiliates, corporate sponsors, and major donors.

The post office is trying again to get a rate increase. The agency says it's appealing the decision by the Postal Regulatory Commission to reject the increase. The post office has asked for a $0.2 increase in the price of a first-class stamp. Federal officials estimate that as many as one in three US adults could have diabetes by the year 2050. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one in 10 have diabetes now, but that number could expand dramatically in the next 40 years if current trends continue.

Republican Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has taken her name off of the state's public list of registered voters. The St. Cloud Times reports a spokesman for Bachmann says she votes regularly, but she removed her name from that list for privacy reasons. Earlier this year, Bachmann raised privacy concerns about the US census. Bachmann's Democratic opponent gets campaign help from former President Bill Clinton. This weekend, Clinton will appear for Democrat Terrell Clark at a rally in Blaine on Sunday night.

Sunny skies today, mild temperatures, highs in the 60s and 70s. Right now here in St. Paul, sunshine, the temperature at 51 degrees. This is Minnesota Public Radio News.

GARY EICHTEN: And this is Midday coming to you on Minnesota Public Radio News. Good morning. Gary Eichten here. It's about, oh, 27 minutes before 12:00. And coming up over the noon hour, interesting debate. This is from the National Public Radio, Intelligence Squared series. Of course they stage a series of debates, usually two or three on each side of a question. And the question today is whether or not Islam is a religion of peace, a subject that is getting, of course, lots of debate, especially in light of the Juan Williams controversy.

So we'll have that debate coming up over the noon hour. Meanwhile, this hour, we're talking with former Vice President Walter Mondale about, well, about his career and his new memoir, The Good Fight A Life in Liberal Politics. We have a full bank of callers, but you can send your question in online at mprnews.org or Facebook, facebook.com/mprnews. John, go ahead please.

JOHN: Oh, yes. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to ask Senator Mondale, why is it that liberalism just does not resonate with a lot of people? I'm a lifetime Democrat, and I work for a wage. I've never been part of a union. I'm a technical person, and I consider myself a professional. But yet I could never bring myself to vote for the Republican Party.

We get two choices, basically Democrat and Republican. And I just can never really bring myself to do that simply because I just was brought up to think of the Republican Party as representative of wealthy interests. And I grew up on Long Island, and maybe that has a lot to do with it. Although I know Nelson Rockefeller was governor throughout most of my childhood until I left Long Island.

GARY EICHTEN: All right. Thanks, John.

JOHN: Anyway.

GARY EICHTEN: Sorry for cutting you off there, but I wanted to get an answer from Mr. Mondale.

WALTER MONDALE: It's good question. And I think it's a cyclical question in American life. In other words, there's periods that I write about in the early '60s and '70s.

GARY EICHTEN: High tide of--

WALTER MONDALE: The high tide, when we passed all these civil rights laws that had to be passed. And we finally got Medicare. We got aid to education. We passed all the major environmental legislation and so on. But then after about, oh, seven or eight years, people started to get uneasy about, were we overdoing it? Were these programs really working? Did we have the money? So doubts began to set in about whether we were going too far.

And then the public wanted to slow down. So I would say that the idea of progressive government, liberal government, the idea of solving where it makes sense, problems by the use of government sometimes appeals to people. And sometimes it's like the public is skeptical of any of those initiatives. But I do note that most of the basic things we did during that high tide remain law today. The public has essentially decided that that's the way to do it.

GARY EICHTEN: What role does the state of the economy play in these shifting tides? In the '60s, when all of these pieces of legislation were being passed, it was boom time in America. I mean, every year the economy just got stronger and stronger. And there were exceptions, of course, but in general, people were doing pretty well. By the '70s, certainly by the '80s, boy, it was hard times in America economically. And it seemed at that same time that people wanted to back away a little bit.

WALTER MONDALE: I think that's right. During the early '60s, the economy was growing so abundantly that revenues were rising even when we were reducing the rates. So we were able to fund these programs and get public support for them because they made sense. They were affordable, and people felt good about it. So when the economy reversed, excuse me, and we started to have inflation and people were beginning to worry about their own lives and how they were going to work, I think attitudes did change, and that's a part of it.

Also, I would add war. In other words, when the Vietnam War turned sour and became such a nightmare for America, people, I think, are less willing to consider domestic issues of social justice. Someone said that's the first casualty of a war. And that's the public's interest in social reform. And I think that happened. That was a part of it, too.

GARY EICHTEN: I want to ask you, Mr. Mondale, why it was that you and more to the point, your mentor, Hubert Humphrey, who was then serving as vice president, took so long to come out publicly against the war?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I write about it in my book. When I first was there as a freshman, I looked at this in the same way I was looking at how World War II started. And the failure of the West to stand up to Hitler in those early years allowed him to get momentum, create a much more dangerous war, the worst war we've ever been. And I thought that what we were seeing in Vietnam and the war there was one that required our support in order to stop a similar development with communism.

Then I went to Vietnam, and I spent some time as a young Senator, going around the country talking to enlisted men and officers. And then I realized that this may be entirely different. This was a problem where we looked like an outside occupier, where we looked like we had replaced the French, where the Vietnamese wanted to be free from outside influence. And no matter how we tried to change the formulation, we're there to protect you and so on. That didn't sell.

And so slowly, I began to oppose the war. And over the last three or four years, I was one of the people who routinely stood up supporting amendments and the rest. I think if Humphrey had not been vice president, I think he would oppose it much earlier than he did.

GARY EICHTEN: Help us understand a little bit about Hubert Humphrey, if you would. I mean, he is just a great Minnesotan by anybody's measure and amazing, courageous champion of civil rights standing up, especially in 1948 and so on, giving them a remarkable speech. But why was a man who was that courageous and so strong in his beliefs unable to make that break with Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War, to the point where it probably cost him the presidency?

WALTER MONDALE: And as you know I write about that quite a bit because I lived through it with Hubert. I tried, with Hubert's support, to work out a compromise at the convention, that would start us toward ending the bombing and ending the war. He tried to get Johnson's support for changes that would move away from the war. Indeed, early on in the Johnson administration, he said a big, big memo to the president. He said, this war is full of problems. It's going to be devastating to our country. And we ought to consider a different course.

And Johnson froze him out of the White House for a half a year because he spoke up. Then I think Hubert decided that he had to support the administration on this war. He did. And in his own memoirs, he writes about this being the worst mistake he made and about how he thinks it hurt the positive way that Americans thought about him, that it damaged him in public life. And I don't think he ever got over it.

GARY EICHTEN: Dave's on the line from Waconia with a question for you, Mr Mondale. Dave, go ahead please.

DAVE: Mr. Vice President, honored to speak with you this morning.

WALTER MONDALE: Nice to talk to you.

DAVE: I'm curious as to your thoughts regarding these organizations not affiliated with a party that are running the so-called negative ads or certainly distorting the truth, where the candidates have no direct affiliation with them. The question is, what are your thoughts on putting some limits or controls on the content of those ads? And if so, how would we go about doing something like that?

WALTER MONDALE: I'm very worried about it. All of the post-Watergate reforms that we adopted, that I write about in my book, that were designed to control money in a way that, number one, the source of the money was disclosed so that the public could see who was spending the money. That prohibited corporations from using Treasury money that was continuing a rule, and unions from using Treasury money and in other ways trying to control the-- and also a match for individual smaller contributions in the presidential race.

And then once a president is nominated or a candidate is nominated, they get a check so they don't have to raise any money in the final run to the election. All of those changes, which really, I think, made a difference. Reagan ran under those rules. I ran under those rules, and I think the public trusted it. Now there are basically no rules. Now corporations can spend unlimited amounts out of their treasury. Union treasuries have less money, but they can also spend it.

And there's all of these new ways that you can spend money outside what the candidate controls in ways that the candidate may not agree with, in ways that the public has utterly no idea who's involved. Most times I think it's money from outside the state. I think it's a very dangerous course that we're on. The court used to say that the Congress has the authority to prohibit the use of money that corrupts a politician, a public officer, or appears to corrupt a public officer.

I think all this money flowing into American politics today raises, I would say, justified concern that it's bending and undermining the integrity of our democracy. This is supposed to be a system based upon the public will. The American voter is supposed to decide. And that's still true. I don't want to be heard otherwise. But the encroachment and the pressure of this oceans of money we're beginning to see, the ability of corporations, many of whom have foreign interests involved in the company, is opening up Pandora's Box of compromise and corruption that I think needs to be dealt with.

There's several proposals around how to deal with that. I would require full disclosure. I would try to make giving of small contributions much easier than it is today. Minnesota had the best law on that. The governor vetoed it, but it was designed to get more money, honest money in from individual contributors. We need to do more of that.

And if I could get the votes, I would try to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court decision. And I would try to get some other laws passed through the Congress that would limit and undermine the thrust of those decisions. Because I agree with you. I think it's a very dangerous situation.

GARY EICHTEN: Talking with former Minnesota Senator and former Vice President, Walter Mondale, who's out with a political memoir that details and talks about his remarkable career and some remarkable events in American history the last 50 years or so. He was at the inside, had an inside seat, the front-row seat on what was going on. It's titled, The Good Fight, A Life in Liberal Politics. Full bank of callers, but you can send your question in online at mprnews.org or facebook.com/mprnews. Jack, your question please.

JACK: Senator, thank you so very much for all of your service. My question really--

WALTER MONDALE: Thank you, Jack.

JACK: --probably doesn't relate to your book very much, but it does relate to the previous question. What do you think the impact on politics and the elections-- well, how is that impact in today's YouTube, reality TV scandalous reporting society? And I'll gladly take my answer off the air. And thank you very much, Senator.

WALTER MONDALE: Thanks, Jack. My thinking, in a way, I separate the money problem from the other part of your question. Although they're related. The money problem, the way it is now, can bend and undermine the integrity of our democracy, and we have to deal with it. The new technology now that allows, not only cable television, but Twitter and YouTube and all of these new technologies that I am only dimly aware of. But I know that, first of all, it's built an immediacy into politics.

We used to have what we call a news cycle. If an issue came up, you'd have four or five hours. You'd give your answer. And the evening news would contain the charge and the answer. But now there can be a development, an honest one or otherwise, that can be reported and be national news within 15 seconds. And so I think that has created a kind of a jittery, nervous public being inundated by thousands of these small bullets every day.

I don't know that I have an answer to that. I think the public has to insist-- first of all, it has to be careful about sorting through this stuff. Because one of the advantages of this system, as much as it's changed things, is that a citizen who cares can really get information more broadly than ever before. And so I hope citizens will keep their good sense, think through these issues, and try to help our country solve these problems.

GARY EICHTEN: I wanted to ask you, Mr. Mondale, about 2002. It was almost eight years to the day when Paul Wellstone's plane crashed. On Monday will be the anniversary. And you replaced Paul Wellstone on the ballot just a couple of days before the election. How difficult was that? Do you have any regrets having agreed to get into that race? Because you were out of politics.

WALTER MONDALE: No, I have--

GARY EICHTEN: It was a horrible time, actually.

WALTER MONDALE: It was. I have no regrets. Because Wellstone's life had been taken, Sheila, her family, it was a horrible moment for all of us in Minnesota and for the country at large. And Jeff Blodgett, who was Paul's campaign manager, wonderful Minnesotan, and Paul's two sons came to me. And they said, we fear that Paul's voice will be lost now. And we hope that you'll run. And we only have 10 days, and we have to have somebody who has a name and could be a good senator. And we hope you do it.

And I did it. I had no regrets. I had no illusions either. We had the funeral. I mean, you just didn't feel right campaigning in all of that heartache. And we only had about a real week of campaigning. It was difficult. I accept the judgment, and we move on. But I write about this. It was a very unhappy 10 days for me and for all of us.

GARY EICHTEN: It's the only election you lost in Minnesota.

WALTER MONDALE: Right.

GARY EICHTEN: How tough was that?

WALTER MONDALE: I remember Joey Lewis said, I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better.

GARY EICHTEN: [LAUGHS]

WALTER MONDALE: I've won, and I've lost. Winning is better. Mike's on the line from Cokato. Mike, go ahead, please.

MIKE: Hi, Mr. Mondale. This is going to make my day. It's a pleasure to speak with you.

WALTER MONDALE: Thank you so much.

MIKE: I wanted to see what your opinion is. I'm a truck driver, and I drive to the Southern states just about every week. And I've noticed that racism is alive and well. And I don't think it's that much that a Democrat's in the office is that we have an African American there. And along with fueling-- it's Fox News. I don't see where they say they're fair and balanced. I can't see it. Between the Rush Limbaughs and the Sean Hannitys, there's just so much hatred out there.

And when I try to have a conversation with some of these guys down South, I'm like, OK, so what if the Republicans take over? Do we give you guys 22 months to correct this? Then what happens? And in your opinion, do you notice as much of the hatred as the racism that I'm seeing is maybe as what you're hearing on the news?

GARY EICHTEN: Thanks, Mike.

WALTER MONDALE: I get that question every day. I have no evidence. And I think the presumption should be that people-- the burden should be on people who claim that someone else is racist. And I know of no polling or other kind of data or scholarship that suggests that the problems we see today are traceable in part to the president's color. But let me put it this way. I spent a lot of my time, and I write about it in this book, in the old days when we fought for civil rights, when Martin Luther King lost his life fighting for civil rights, and I know those were bitter, difficult, profound days.

And we did pass all the laws that now prohibit discrimination. But it wouldn't surprise me if, in what people really feel deep down in their hearts-- after all, laws don't deal with that and never will deal with that. We have to work those things out in our own life-- that there is still some residual racial resentments found scattered around our country. I hope not, but that possibility does not seem outrageous to me.

In terms of the steady pattern of intense, harsh, one-way rhetoric that I talked about earlier that seems to spill out from some of the right wing-- I'm trying to think of the right word here People are very sure of themselves. I think people just have to learn how to look through that and keep their good sense. I don't think there's a law that this is free speech. But a lot of bunk is being peddled today, a lot of things that just can't be true.

And your point, I agree. When this election is over, our problems are still with us as a nation. America still must solve its problems. We must move on. And some of these problems are deep and profound, and part of it will essentially involve the wise use of government. And we better be thinking about how we want a civil America, true to its values, moving forward as the preeminent power for justice and decency in the world. Those are sacred responsibilities that we all have, and I hope we'll all take them seriously.

GARY EICHTEN: Richard, quick question before we wrap up.

RICHARD: Well, it's not even a question. It's an observation. Dr. Mondale, I go way back to Stassen and Judd days, and yet I appreciate you as epitomizing what I would call Minnesota fecundity rather than Minnesota nice. There's a political-- a part of our Minnesota Stassen and Professor Wellstone, a dentist from North Minnesota, [? Ressler, ?] all of these people. And I think you, as I say, kind of epitomize this, and I appreciate you very much. I'd like to cut. Can I just take one second?

GARY EICHTEN: Absolutely.

WALTER MONDALE: I think we're special here in Minnesota.

GARY EICHTEN: Still?

WALTER MONDALE: Absolutely. And I think we do care, and I think we do reason. We do want good education. We want to do the right thing. And I think, more often than not, we're civil towards each other. We've got a magnificent state here with great traditions. And I talk about the Elmer Anderson's and the Arne Carlsons and the Al Quies and Luther Youngdahls and leaders that I've known over the years, David Durenberger who have helped chart out. They're Republicans, they're conservatives, but they're civil. And they want to bring the state and the nation together. I applaud that.

GARY EICHTEN: How would you like to be remembered? I mean, you look down this list, and it's just mind boggling, all the things you've done, positions you've held. But if you had to pick one, what would you like to be remembered as?

WALTER MONDALE: I tried, and I fought the good fight.

GARY EICHTEN: Are you satisfied with how things turned out? Are there things that you wish, oh darn it, if I'd have done it differently, this could have been so much better?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I gave it my best shot. And I think we all did. And I think, compared with almost any other period in American history, we got more done than ever before. I wish we'd done better in avoiding some of these wars, the Vietnam War, the Iraq war, were terrible mistakes. And I wish we could have done more in certain areas. Like I tried so hard to try to get help for children in the early years of life, the preschool years.

We still have millions of kids that don't make it in America. And we know that, if we could start earlier and help them thrive, help the families get their job done, that we would be a much more hopeful society. And I hope we can get started doing more. There are some efforts here in Minnesota. We need to do more.

GARY EICHTEN: Are our best days behind us?

WALTER MONDALE: Oh, no, no, no. America has got Minnesota. We've got a great future ahead of us. No nation can touch us. We have a history of resilience, of seeing problems, solving problems, come up with answers, and we will do this with so many-- you hear those questions we had today. Those are thoughtful questions. They're all trying to find a way to answer issues and deal with questions. No, we're going to be all right.

GARY EICHTEN: Well, Walter Mondale, thank you so much for coming in today. Heck of a book.

WALTER MONDALE: Thank you very much, Gary.

GARY EICHTEN: This is really a good book, really worth reading whether you agree with his politics or not. It's a great walk through recent American history and a remarkable career. Good Fight, A Life in Liberal Politics, the new memoir out from former Vice President Walter Mondale, who has been good enough to join us here in the studio this first hour of Midday.

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