By Richard Lee

Walter Mondale ran for president in a different era than Nikki Haley — and as a member of a different political party.

But the paths of the Democratic who sought the Oval Office in 1984 and the Republican seeking her party’s 2024 nomination could intersect today.

Haley is facing the sad reality that she is likely to lose today’s primary in South Carolina, a state she led for two terms as governor. To lose a presidential primary in one’s home state is more than embarrassing. Such a defeat could be devastating to one’s chances of winning the nomination.

Forty years ago, Mondale found himself in a similar — but not identical — predicament. For Mondale, who had been Jimmy Carter’s vice-president, a defeat in Carter’s home state of Georgia on Super Tuesday could have spelled disaster.

At the time, Mondale’s campaign — much like Haley’s — was struggling. He was lagging behind Gary Hart in several Super Tuesday states. But with a clever strategy and a bit of spin, Mondale emerged victorious on Super Tuesday — or at least that’s the way his campaign made it look, even though he lost seven of the nine states that held primaries.

In his 1999 book Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game, Chris Matthews described the strategy Mondale’s manager, Robert Beckel, employed. Beckel, made the race about one state –- Georgia. He spent hours on the phone with reporters delivering a singular message: If Mondale loses Georgia, the race is over. If he wins, the nomination is his.

Then he went to work on the optics. Beckel turned to the phone again and told Mondale supporters to come to the Capitol Hilton on primary night. He used a partition to cut down the size of the room and make the crowd look larger than it actually was. When news of Mondale’s victory in Georgia broke, network television cameras captured images of an overflow crowd celebrating the victory.

The following morning, a triumphant Mondale appeared on the Today show and accepted congratulations from host Bryant Gumbel.

“Mondale lost seven lost seven contests out of nine. But that was just the arithmetic,” Matthews observed in his book.

Forty years later, the Mondale story could provide some hope for the Haley campaign, but when your campaign is down by double digits, spin can only do so much.

Richard Lee, executive director of the Jandoli Institute, covered politics and government as a reporter and later served as Deputy Director of Communication for two New Jersey governors.

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