Fritz the artisan.

WALTER MONDALE deserves credit for one thing: He not only won the Democratic nomination but managed to do it without tearing the party to shreds, as Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, or even John Glenn would have done. He hung tough after New Hampshire, and his campaign was an exercise in damage control and suicide prevention. No doubt it was largely because Democrats saw that he, unlike some of his more exciting rivals, was no prima donna that he ultimately won a consensus making up in mass what it lacked in fire.

You can count on Fritz. What you see is what you get. No quirks, no hidden depths, no skeletons in the closet: His idea of scandal is being photographed smoking one of the cigars he--we'd better say allegedly--enjoys. He has been a hyper-loyal Democrat all his life, has dutifully moved leftward with the party (one can as easily imagine him moving rightward with it, had fate so dictated), and is now reaping the reward of his spotless fidelity. Even what he now calls his biggest political mistake--failing to oppose the Vietnam War until 1969--was merely the inertia of a herd member: Most Democrats turned against the war the same year, when Richard Nixon took office.

Seldom has there been a more perfect fit between creature and habitat, ideology and interest, than that between Walter Mondale and the Democratic party line at any moment. He adopts on cue a perfunctory enthusiasm for affirmative action, feminism, a nuclear freeze, gay rights, or deficit reduction. He doesn't exactly mean any of it; but you can't call him a hypocrite, because he doesn't mean anything else, either.

He is no monster, but he is the compleat hack, and such types, willing to flatter and nourish any momentary pocket of discontent, can be unexpectedly tough. He has staying power and he can make the most of a weak hand. He had the wisdom not to let himself be pressured into denouncing Jesse Jackson: What he lost in moral stature he more than made up in party harmony. November is a long way off, and this plodding tortoise has already survived several hares.