Walter Mondale doesn't believe John McCain devoted a lot of "personal time and attention" to the selection of his vice president. “As a measure of presidential status, McCain picked Palin and [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-Ill.] picked Biden, and I think that describes brilliantly the dimension of the difference between the two,” Mondale told The Hill.
“Biden is ready to be president if necessary. He can really help the president by giving him advice, by being a troubleshooter, by working with Congress and by handling crisis situations. I would be hard-pressed to see how any of that could be true of Palin.”
Mondale added, “When I picked Ferraro, I picked her because I thought she would be a strong helpmate if we were elected. She already had a strong record in Congress, and you saw what happened when she debated [then-Vice President George H.W.] Bush — she won that debate, and she was a very good campaigner. Picking a woman because she’s a woman is tokenism. We had a process and we made certain that her name was floated ahead of time. But McCain kept his choice a secret right up to the end.”
