Opinion

Walter Mondale reinvented the vice presidency. Both Biden and Harris should thank him for it.

Walter F. Mondale, who died Monday at the age of 93, will be remembered for many achievements during his nearly four decades of public service in Minnesota, on Capitol Hill, in the White House and as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

But his most enduring contribution may well have been the invention of the modern vice presidency, and his creation of a template that has been followed to some degree ever since. Mondale’s activist model as an all-purpose adviser and troubleshooter is one for which President Biden, a former vice president, and Kamala D. Harris, the current occupant of the office, should be grateful.