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Mondale is primarily known for his devotion to easing the plight of the neglected and the disadvantaged. "I've spent a lot of time suffering over human rights, and I've had some notions based on my personal life," he says. "There's just millions of kids in this country that are utterly destroyed before they have a chance. I think it's the most costly, unfair, outrageous thing that happens in America." To get a better feeling for the problems of the deprived, Mondale has marched with Cesar Chavez' United Farm Workers, visited Indians in the West and Eskimos in Alaska, and—with his wife —gone on a welfare diet for a week.
Trying to convert his concerns into legislation, Mondale has established an impressive record in the Senate. Now chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Youth, Mondale sponsored a comprehensive child development program in 1971, which would have provided $2.1 billion for health care, nutritional aid and educational assistance for preschool children. The bill containing his plan was vetoed by Richard Nixon.
Remembering his own problems, Mondale has worked to help deserving students afford a college education. In particular, he has tried to ease the plight of middle-income families by making more of them eligible for federally backed student loans for college. Now chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Social Security Financing, Mondale sponsored the plan that provides automatic cost-of-living increases for recipients of the benefits.
Carter would certainly go along with Mondale's general approach to these programs, and there is general agreement between the two on a number of other basic issues that are bound to arise during the campaign. Like Carter, Mondale is in favor of tax reform to help the poor and the middle class. (Mondale sponsored the $35-per-taxpayer and dependent income tax cut that benefited millions of Americans last April 15.) Both men would oppose building the B-l strategic bomber (total cost when fully deployed: $22 billion) until more test results are in, but both would keep up research and development funding for the program. Both men have paid far more attention to domestic concerns than foreign policy. They basically feel that detente should be continued, although they advocate a tougher stand by the U.S. Each believes the nation should strive to create stronger ties with the Third World.
In other areas, Carter and Mondale will have to iron out some differences. The Senator, for example, favors breaking up vertically integrated oil companies (those that not only pump oil but ship it, refine it and retail it as well); the Governor does not. There is a mild difference on the right-to-work law: Mondale opposes it, while Carter does not, although he says that if Congress passed a bill changing the law he would sign it. Abortion is a more difficult subject for the two men. Carter supports the present system of legalized abortions, while saying that he would do everything within his power to sponsor programs that would eliminate unwanted pregnancies. Mondale admits that he has not made up his mind on abortion. Says he: "I realize that doesn't satisfy anybody. I'm not satisfied with my own position—but it does trouble me."