"Tested in Heavy Combat"

By Sam Allis

Walter Mondale looks at the clouds above Phoenix, and they are silver. The day before, he had won his big victory in Pennsylvania. Now his life is back on track. His coat off, his shirt collar open to show the kind of white undershirt that Clark Gable never would have worn, the candidate talks in the darkened cabin of his chartered jet.

Mondale confesses that his true moment of fear in the race came not after his upset defeat in New Hampshire, but in Michigan 2 1/2 weeks later, where a Midwesterner like Mondale is expected to do pretty well. "I was told that 150,000 people were showing up at the caucuses that day. Nobody was planning on that many. I thought to myself, 'This is it. What's the point of going on?' Then I found out they were all turning out for me." He seems uncommonly serene as he sips his coffee. "You know, I've never been through anything like it in my life."

When he tells stories about politics, chewing on his cigar, Mondale's voice drops to a conspiratorial tone. He has the timing of a delightful dinner partner. This personal side, relaxed and humorous and even charming, does not often seep through to the public. When he walks back in the plane to swap stories with reporters, he hides a glass of Chivas Regal handed to him by an aide, joking, "Oops, they better not see this."

Mondale feels that the tough battle with Gary Hart has been useful. "The things people needed to see in me could only be tested in heavy combat. There has always been a question about how strong I am. I think this has filled in that blank. And this fight has developed my own sense of confidence that I could not have done in any other way. I really believe I am going to beat Reagan.

"These polls are almost mind warping," he says, instinctively rubbing his hand through his thick, gray hair. "Before New Hampshire I had this uncomfortable feeling that people thought I was taking them for granted."

He shakes his head as if in disbelief. "I wasn't." He sees a fundamental value in the exhaustive testing. "You end up knowing the American people as you would never know them otherwise."

Phoenix, brown and flat, grows larger below. There is money to be raised. When the door of the plane opens, Mondale strides down the ramp smiling at anything that moves.

His tie is back on, his dark suit is crisply pressed. Every hair is at parade rest. The unlit but badly mangled cigar is gone. Neat, crisp and controlled, ready to face the public, Walter Mondale is once again in what his aides call his "full Norwegian" mode.

-By SamAllis