Riding into the Sunrise

The next President makes the final preparations for his New Beginning

It was nearly lunchtime one day last week when Vice President Walter Mondale led 43 Senators into the cavernous and half-empty House chamber, sat next to House Speaker Tip O'Neill on the rostrum and began one of the oddest—but necessary—rituals of American presidential politics. Exactly two months earlier, Ronald Wilson Reagan had been elected President; in exactly two weeks, he would be inaugurated. Yet, under the cumbersome election procedures set forth in the U.S. Constitution, he was not yet officially President-elect of the...

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