“We probably had two hundred people and all of them horses, all of ’em passionate, all of ’em hardworking,” says Butler. “So somebody had to set an agenda. Somebody had to set the tone and say, this is important, and this isn’t. And that wasn’t easy to do.” At the urging of Eizenstat, Vice President Walter Mondale was drafted to prioritize issues according to the level of attention required: presidential, vice presidential, cabinet. But even this did not solve the problem. As Eizenstat points out, “You needed to have someone to execute them. And that couldn’t be the vice president.”
