So Who's That in the Gray Suit?

By Janes Kelly

Ferraro and Mandate kick off early with a joint jaunt

No one had to ask Geraldine Ferraro who that man was alongside her, the one with the gray hair and suit to match. On the other hand, not everybody paid him a whole lot of attention either. In their first campaign swing together last week, Ferraro overshadowed Walter Mondale not only in her own Queens, N.Y., but in the South, the region where Democrats feared voters would least welcome a female vice-presidential candidate. From the puffery of the introductions to good-humored bantering with a good ole boy from Mississippi, Ferraro emerged as the star of a road show that trumpeted the new Democratic themes of family, flag and American values.

The only glitch in their tour came at the end, when Bert Lance, the Georgia politico who was expected to help the Democratic ticket in the South, announced he was resigning his three-week-old job as general chairman of the campaign. On the eve of the party's convention last month, Mondale had tapped Jimmy Carter's former Budget Director, who had been indicted and then cleared of charges of bank fraud, to head the Democratic National Committee. When a storm of protest blew up over the choice, Lance was shifted to an ill-defined political post. The nominee made no attempt to dissuade the disheartened Georgian from quitting.

The Lance contretemps, however, was upstaged by Ferraro's first march through the South, where ten states out of eleven went for Reagan in 1980. It was in Mississippi and Texas that she seemed to shine the brightest. In Queens, a crowd of 3,000 proved listless despite the pantheon of New York Democrats on hand. In Cleveland, where the candidates addressed the National Urban League conference, the mostly black audience offered attentive applause. But in Jackson, a throng of 4,000 waited in a drizzly rain for the pair and, when Mondale and Ferraro appeared on the steps of the antebellum Governor's mansion, cries of "Gerry! Gerry!" filled the air. "Do I have to worry about the South?" she asked. The answer roared back: "No!"

Ferraro even handled a brush with Southern chauvinism with an aplomb worthy of Scarlett O'Hara. As the candidates dryly discussed farm issues near a soybean field north of Jackson, the state's venerable agriculture commissioner, Jim Buck Ross, asked Ferraro if she had ever eaten catfish. "No," she replied. "Then you haven't lived, young lady," he said. The talk turned to blueberries, and the 66-year-old commissioner inquired, "Can you bake a blueberry muffin?" Ferraro smiled tightly. "Sure can." Slight pause. "Can you?" Another pause. "Down here," drawled Ross, "the men don't cook." Later Ferraro gamely noted that the next time she visited Mississippi, she would bring blueberry muffins and Ross would treat her to catfish. "He probably never met a female vice-presidential candidate before," she commented afterward.

Mondale and Ferraro won their most exuberant reception in Austin, where 10,000 flag-waving people gathered at the state capitol. In San Antonio, Mayor Henry Cisneros hailed Ferraro as "family." Her reply: "Gracias, Primo Enrique [Cousin Henry]."

One key to how well the Democratic ticket will do in the South will be the turnout among blacks, whose registration has risen 13% since 1982. Jesse Jackson's willingness to get those voters to the polls remains uncertain. When Jackson criticized Ferraro for not appointing more blacks to her campaign staff, she struck back strongly, calling him "an actor" who "should know better." Jackson later announced he was abandoning a hastily devised plan to run for the Senate from South Carolina and instead would devote his energies to Mondale and Ferraro.

Throughout the trip, Mondale and Ferraro sharpened the themes unveiled at last month's San Francisco convention.

Mondale lauded family life, hard work and patriotism, pointing to his running mate as the embodiment of such values. Ferraro in turn talked about how "I've worked for everything I've gotten" and praised Mondale for Rockwellian virtues. "Those are the values my mother taught me, and they're the values John and I have passed on to our children."

Mondale and Ferraro complement each other well on the stump, though the contrast in style can be jarring. Ferraro is breezy and colloquial, Mondale becalmed and formal. Occasionally, as if advised not to act too effervescent, she attempts to rein herself in. When a band in Cleveland struck up New York, New York, Ferraro began swaying, but abruptly stopped. "I just love to dance," she half-apologized. For Mondale's introduction the combo played a catchy disco tune, but he did not even twitch. Yet Mondale seems invigorated by Ferraro; he speaks more forcefully and smiles more readily when she is around.

Some of the public's ardor may be only curiosity about a historic ticket; many in the Austin audience drifted away after Ferraro finished speaking, before Mondale was done. Mississippi House Speaker C.B. ("Buddie") Newman greeted his party's candidates in Jackson, but refused to say how he would vote in November. Yet last week's jaunt seemed to confirm that even in the South, Ferraro is likely to be a strong asset. Said Lloyd Doggett, who is the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas: "If she can win in Archie Bunker's district, she can win in Willie Nelson's." --By Janes Kelly. Reported by David Beckwith with Ferraro and John E. Yang with Mondale

With reporting by David Beckwith, John E. Yang