Walter Mondale – Now I've Heard Everything

Tonight, October 7th, Senator Kamala Harris will meet Vice President Mike Pence in their one and only debate of the 2020 election campaign.

Photo: Univ of Texas-Arlington News Service Photograph Collection

Harris is the first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket, and she is only the third woman ever nominated by a major party for vice president.

The first, in 1984, was Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, who was chosen by Democrat Walter Mondale to be his running mate.

Her one and only debate performance was against then-incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush.

I met Gerladine Ferraro in 1998. The book she had just written was about the strong women who shaped her life, not least of whom was her own mother.

Sp here now, from 1998, Geraldine Ferraro:

Geraldinme Ferraro died in 2011 at the age of 75.

Tomorrow night, September 29th, is the first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

So today on Now I’ve Heard Everything, I wanted to revisit an interview I did over 30 years ago with a man who played a key role in the 1984 presidential debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indrectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.

I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The book promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”

So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:

Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.

Roger Ailes died in 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.