Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (born January 5, 1928) is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the Un...
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (born January 5, 1928) is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A United States senator from Minnesota (1964–1976), he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1984 United States presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. In October 2002, Mondale became the last-minute choice of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party to run for Senate after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, but was defeated by Saint Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. Mondale became the oldest living former U.S. vice president after the death of George H. W. Bush in 2018.
Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1951 after attending Macalester College. He then served in the United States Army during the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He married Joan Adams in 1955. Working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was appointed Minnesota Attorney General in 1960 by Governor Orville Freeman and was elected to a full term as attorney general in 1962 with 60% of the vote. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Karl Rolvaag upon the resignation of Senator Hubert Humphrey following Humphrey's election as vice president in 1964. Mondale was elected to a full Senate term in 1966 and reelected in 1972, resigning in 1976 as he prepared to succeed to the vice presidency in 1977. While in the Senate, he supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform, and the desegregation of schools. Importantly, he served as a member of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee").In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential nominee, chose Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate. The Carter–Mondale ticket defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford and his vice presidential running mate, Bob Dole. Carter and Mondale's time in office was marred by a worsening economy and they lost the 1980 election to Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1984, Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt. His vice presidential nominee was Geraldine Ferraro, a Congresswoman from New York, the first female vice-presidential nominee of any major party. Mondale and Ferraro lost the election to the incumbents Reagan and Bush.
After his defeat, Mondale joined the Minnesota-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (1986–93). President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale United States Ambassador to Japan in 1993; he retired in 1996. In 2002, Mondale ran for his old Senate seat, agreeing to be the last-minute replacement for Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election. Mondale narrowly lost the race to Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman. He then returned to working at Dorsey & Whitney and remained active in the Democratic Party. Mondale later took up a part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
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John Kasich
John Richard Kasich Jr. ( KAY-sik; born May 13, 1952) is an American politician, author, and television news host who served in the U.S. House of Repr...
John Richard Kasich Jr. ( KAY-sik; born May 13, 1952) is an American politician, author, and television news host who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001 and as the 69th Governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A Republican, Kasich unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 2000 and 2016.Kasich grew up in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, moving to Ohio to attend college. After a single term in the Ohio Senate, he served nine terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio's 12th congressional district. His tenure in the House included 18 years on the House Armed Services Committee and six years as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Kasich was a key figure in the passage of both 1996 welfare reform legislation and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Kasich decided not to run for re-election in 2000 and ran for president instead. He withdrew from the race before the Republican primaries.
After leaving Congress, Kasich hosted Heartland with John Kasich on Fox News from 2001 to 2007 and served as managing director of the Lehman Brothers office in Columbus, Ohio. He ran for governor of Ohio in 2010, defeating Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland. He was re-elected in 2014, defeating Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald by 30 percentage points. Kasich was term-limited and could not seek a third gubernatorial term in 2018; he was succeeded by Mike DeWine.
Kasich ran for president again in 2016, finishing in third place in the Republican primaries behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. He won the primary in his home state of Ohio and finished second in New Hampshire. Kasich declined to support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee and did not attend the 2016 Republican National Convention, which was held in Ohio. In 2019, following the end of his second term as governor, Kasich joined CNN as a contributor. Kasich is known as one of the most prominent critics of Trump within the Republican Party, and he endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for president in a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
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