Walter F Mondale

Walter F. Mondale said he does not plan to enter the next presidential race but advised fellow Democrats to settle on a nominee early in the primary process and find a way to get the Rev. Jesse Jackson to work for the party candidate.

President Reagan's reelection became official today at a sparsely attended joint session of Congress where the lawmakers opened the 538 Electoral College ballots and confirmed Reagan's landslide. Almost nine weeks after 92.6 million Americans went to the polls, the lawmakers confirmed that Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes to Democrat Walter F. Mondale's 13.

Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, who finished a strong second to Walter F. Mondale for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination, said Wednesday he is setting up an exploratory campaign committee for the 1988 race. Establishment of an exploratory committee will allow Hart to raise funds and hire staff but does not put him under the same campaign regulations as a formal declaration of candidacy would.

Walter F. Mondale's son, Ted, 32, is going to run for the Minnesota Senate. Young Mondale, a lawyer who worked on his father's campaigns for the vice presidency and the presidency as well as Michael S. Dukakis' 1988 campaign, will seek the endorsement of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in challenging incumbent State Sen. Phyllis McQuaid.

The Federal Election Commission on Thursday gave Walter F. Mondale and four of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination another month to submit their claims for matching money to defray their campaign debts. The FEC extended to Feb. 28 the deadline for the five, who can receive matching funds for all individual contributions up to $250 given by Dec. 31.

The loneliest figure at Tuesday's vice-presidential debate had to be the moderator, Hal Bruno of ABC News, who did single-handedly what a four-person panel did at Sunday's presidential debate. As the debate quickly produced heated sparring between the candidates, Bruno dryly observed: "I was a little worried that there might not be a free-flowing discussion." Although Bruno might not have been familiar to some television viewers, he was not without experience in political debates.

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, invoking the memory of his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, called Saturday for a new "commitment to compassion and decency" in government. "Too many would have us look the other way" while poverty grows and government turns away from a commitment to civil rights, the former Democratic presidential candidate said at the unveiling of a bust of Humphrey at Meridian House International, a nonprofit cultural institution.