The more things change, the more they stay the same.Walter Mondale's opening statement in the 1976 Vice Presidential debate, 32 years ago:

I believe that most Americans would agree on the problems that this country faces and that the next - and which the next administration must solve. They include the need once again for an economy that works. The economy today is in very, very bad shape - the highest unemployment since the Great Depression, 50 percent higher than when Mr. Ford took office; raging inflation, with the latest uh - wholesale price indexes once again raising the specter of double-digit inflation. The purchasing power of the average American has slipped so much that it is now the equivalent of the purchasing power in 1965. It is not getting better. It is getting worse. All the leading indicators now point downward, and stock investors are now losing confidence and over $50 billion of value has disappeared from the stock market in less than a month. We need a government that works, and we need a government that cares, and once again we have to get back to work on education, on health, on housing, on the environment, on energy; and we need a foreign policy that once again reflects the values and the beliefs of the American people. This will take leadership, and we need leadership, too. The Republican administration, the Republican party has had eight years to solve these problems. All of them have gotten worse. The Republican ticket does not offer new plans for their solution but is engaged in a frantic effort to defend the past. This nation desperately needs new leadership. The Carter-Mondale ticket would offer a new generation of leadership dedicated to solving the problems which I have listed, and that is the basis of our appeal.

Well, the Democrats may be full of hopey changiness, but that playbook sure hasn't changed much.