the first question was, can you show me a writing sample? i said, sorry, i don t have any. do you have a written speech? now. i said, i would tell you what, walter mondale is giving a speech next week. i looked up political speeches and i began reading them. it struck me when i first came to washington was the fact that all the monuments are like the monuments in europe, our monuments have boards on them. so i decided i would make that the theme. it. wrote that, they liked it, they used it, they hired me. al he worked for walter monda, democratic candidate for vice president. but this was long before the tribal is asian of politics, the polarization, the two parties facing one another across the barricades of mutual and comprehension. it was a much more gentle kind ofof partisanship. charles: when we got totally crushed in the general election, i got a call from the