A Credible Candidacy And Then Some

By William R. Doemer

Ferraro wrought no miracles, but she broke the gender barrier

In her pioneering quest to become the nation's second-highest elected official, Geraldine Ferraro ran not one campaign but two. On one level, she sought to do what running mates always have: stump long and loyally for her party's presidential nominee and bolster the ticket among his weaker constituencies. On another level, Ferraro was running for the history books. As the first woman ever nominated for the vice presidency by a major party, as well as the first Italian American, she broke new political ground along every step of a grueling four-month journey.

Ferraro failed to become what Walter Mondale, perhaps naively, desperately, hoped she would: an electoral alchemist who would transform the lead of his campaign into White House gold. But in that, both candidates mostly proved what has always been true: presidential nominees win or lose elections primarily on their own. The longer-term impact of Ferraro's candidacy, while it will take months or even years to assess completely, is almost certain to make gender a less rending issue in presidential politics. And in that respect, the consequences of her candidacy are likely to be immense.

Ferraro's dispassionate assessment of her own performance, that she was a "credible candidate," significantly understates the legacy of her campaign. Says her issues director, Steve Engelberg: "The myth that a woman couldn't be up to the stress of a national campaign was exploded." Her press secretary, Francis O'Brien, puts it another way: "No woman will ever again have to be tested on so many fronts ... If she had ever committed the mistakes that George Bush made, she'd have been finished in a day."

The campaign waged by Ferraro was unique in ways both small and large. She was doubtless the only serious contender for Vice President ever to have been presented with a wrist corsage before speaking at a fund-raising dinner (she firmly declined to wear it), or to have had to apologize for the lipstick smears left on babies held up for campaign busses. She was probably the least-known candidate chosen for the No. 2 spot on a major party ticket since Barry Goldwater picked another relatively obscure New York House member, William Miller, as his running mate in 1964. Unlike Miller, however, Ferraro became an overnight sensation who frequently eclipsed the presidential nominee, both in excitement and controversy. Indeed, such were the emotional ups and downs of her race that near its end Ferraro admitted that she probably would not have stepped into her niche in history if she had known the toll it would take on her family. As she summed it up: 'If God had said to me 'Gerry, here's a videotape of the next three months,'... I probably would have said no."

The most severe test came early in the campaign, when controversy arose over her own and her husband John Zaccaro's finances. Having promised full disclosure of both, she created a political fire storm by first announcing that he had decided not to make public his federal income tax forms and then, after Zaccaro changed his mind, by admitting several financial irregularities of her own. Ferraro huddled for long hours with a team of accountants. Then she delivered a bravura performance during a 100-minute televised press conference, crisply ticking off numbers, calmly correcting misinformed questioners and summoning aides to her side. "Her entire career rode on that one sitting, and she knew it," says O'Brien.

Ferraro's sure-handed performance at that make-or-break moment was one of the most exhilarating displays of the campaign. It seemed to infuse the candidate with confidence. Says Engelberg: "She realized, for the first time, that people liked her the way she was." Yet her campaign never fully made up for the loss of momentum caused by the finances crisis, and she continued to be plagued by allegations involving her family. Some of them, loosely connecting long-deceased in-laws with organized-crime figures, were of questionable relevance and may never haVe arisen but for her Italian background. Others may surface yet again: two business transactions involving Zaccaro remain under investigation by a New York grand jury.

The only time Ferraro cracked was when the New York Post ran a story claiming that her parents had been arrested in 1944 on gambling charges. She is deeply attached to her long-widowed mother Antonetta, now 79, and she wept aboard her chartered campaign jetliner. While she declined to confirm or deny the details of the 40-year-old charge, which was never brought to trial, she did lash out at Post Publisher Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, she said in cold fury, "doesn't have the worth to wipe the dirt from under my mother's shoes."

To her credit, Ferraro did not commit any major gaffes on the scores of complex issues that a vice-presidential candidate must be prepared to discuss. But her lack of experience in defense and foreign affairs was evident more than once, notably in her debate with Bush. When she held up the President of tiny Cyprus as an example of a "world leader" who had met with the ruling Soviet leader during Reagan's term, for instance, Bush was easily able to duck the larger issue of why the President had not sat down with his Soviet counterpart. Yet her quick grasp of detail and sharp political instincts served her well. When her staff urged her to deplore the Reagan Administration's failure to provide tighter security at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut before the fatal truck bombing there last year, she demurred. "I don't want to do anything that appears to exploit the death of those Marines," she declared. Says Engelberg: "Her instincts were perfect."

Another of Ferraro's strengths turned out to be a star-quality ability to attract crowds, which were consistently larger than forecast in her many miles of travel: 15,000 in Seattle; 18,000 in Atlanta; 50,000 in Amherst, Mass. In fact, stop for stop, she frequently outdrew Mondale. That was doubtless due in part to the novelty of her candidacy, but Ferraro also became a consummate pro at working audiences, acknowledging chants of "Gerry! Gerry!" with a rakish wave and confident smile.

Ferraro was less successful with the leaders of her own Roman Catholic Church. She was publicly criticized by New York Archbishop John J. O'Connor, among others, for her stance supporting free choice on abortion. Personal acceptance of the church's strict antiabortion teachings was not enough, they said; Ferraro was also obligated to press for their public acceptance. The clerical confrontation, which could not help but cost votes, was all the more galling to Ferraro's staff because it appeared to them to be inspired by the candidate's sex. Says an aide: "Teddy Kennedy had the same position on abortion, yet he was never attacked by the hierarchy in 1980."

Ferraro insisted on facing the abortion issue head on. In Congress, she said, she represented not only Catholics but non-Catholics who were not morally opposed to ending unwanted pregnancies medically. As for the criticism of Catholic officials, she said, "My church doesn't speak for me, and I don't speak for them."

The bishops chose not to press the dispute, but it continued to hound Ferraro in the form of antiabortion hecklers. In handling their taunts, she demonstrated mettle as well as crowd-pleasing adroitness. When pro-Reagan and antiabortion demonstrators erupted noisily at the University of Texas in Arlington, Ferraro shouted, "If I had a record like Ronald Reagan's, I wouldn't want anybody to hear about it either." At another point she silenced hecklers by poking fun at her own staccato delivery: "You've figured out how to stop this New Yorker from talking too quickly."

While Ferraro's negative rating in most polls remained consistently below that of Mondale, she clearly turned off some voters. How much of that was attributable to her individual political style and how much solely to the fact of her sex will be a key political question in the months ahead. But in any case, says Campaign Manager John Sasso, some early estimates of Ferraro's ballot-box appeal were simply unrealistic. "Expectations were very high, maybe too high," he says. "Some people expected she would singlehandedly sweep up all the ethnics, all the women. My god, that's three-quarters of the country."

Nor did Ferraro have a long set of "apron strings," as the female equivalent of coattails has been condescendingly dubbed. Many women leaders now acknowledge that those who thought a breakthrough candidacy would lead to huge gains among female officeholders were hoping for too much. Says Kathy Wilson, head of the National Women's Political Caucus: "It's hard to unseat an incumbent at any price and any gender." Still, Ferraro's high visibility helped carry some women's issues closer to the political mainstream, including increases in the federal funding of day-care facilities and reforms eliminating sexual discrimination in pension benefits. Another part of her legacy may be the increased participation of women in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.

Precisely where the campaign carried Ferraro is already a matter of intense speculation. Few doubt that the Democratic vice-presidential nominee won the right to continue speaking in the months ahead for her party on a national level. New York Democrats take it as an article of faith that in 1986 she will run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Alfonse D'Amato. "This state is dying to elect a woman Senator, and she becomes the logical candidate," says one party insider. "Her recognition factor is 100%."

In an ironic way, Ferraro, who became a historic symbol of how high a woman can aspire in politics, may be limited by the legal problems of her husband. These problems might never have arisen if the spotlight attracted by her candidacy had not also come glaring down on his business. As a result, Zaccaro's real estate income has dropped ("Who wants to be partners with somebody knowing the deal's going to be all over the papers?" Ferraro asks). She is considering writing a book about her unique campaign experience. Such a work could prove both illuminating and profitable. She can expect to command large fees for speeches (perhaps $10,000, an aide estimates). She may join a high-paying law firm. But if her husband were to be indicted, concedes one close aide, "it would be a heavy blow to her career. If he were convicted, it could well be fatal."

Geraldine Ferraro ably met the public challenge posed by her historic selection. She has almost certainly altered forever the role women will play in the U.S. political system. But the personal travail caused by her choice may not be over. --By William R. Doemer. Reported by David Beckwith with Ferraro

With reporting by David Beckwith