Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Anne Ferraro is a politician from
New York who, while serving in the
United States House of Representatives, received the nomination of the
Democratic Party to run for
Vice President of the United States in 1984.
Ferraro is the first woman to be so nominated on a major party ticket, and is the best-known woman to have run for the Vice Presidency. She and fellow Democrat
Walter Mondale were defeated in a landslide by the re-election campaign of President
Ronald Reagan and Vice-President
George H. W. Bush in the
1984 election.
Encyclopedia
Geraldine Anne Ferraro is a politician from
New York who, while serving in the
United States House of Representatives, received the nomination of the
Democratic Party to run for
Vice President of the United States in 1984.
Ferraro is the first woman to be so nominated on a major party ticket, and is the best-known woman to have run for the Vice Presidency. She and fellow Democrat
Walter Mondale were defeated in a landslide by the re-election campaign of President
Ronald Reagan and Vice-President
George H. W. Bush in the
1984 election.
Biography
Ferraro was born in
Newburgh, New York. Her father, an
Italian immigrant, died when she was eight; her mother was a seamstress. Ferraro received her undergraduate degree from Marymount Manhattan College, and a J.D. degree from
Fordham University School of Law, going to classes at night while working as a second-grade teacher in
public schools during the day. Ferraro graduated from law school in 1960, one of only two women in her graduating class.
She is married to real estate agent John Zaccaro, a native of
Queens County who attended Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, a Catholic School in Forest Hills. She raised three children before joining the Queens County district attorney's office. There she started the Special Victims Bureau.
Ferraro was elected to the House of Representatives from New York's Ninth Congressional District in Queens in 1978 and served three two-year terms, compiling a generally liberal voting record on social and economic issues. While in Congress she served on the Public Works Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Post Office Committee. She also served a term as the Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus. She was the Chairwoman of the Platform Committee for the 1984 Democratic National Convention.
In her acceptance speech upon being chosen Mondale's running mate, Ferraro said, "The daughter of an immigrant from Italy has been chosen to run for vice president in the new land my father came to love." As a Catholic, Ferraro came under fire from the Roman Catholic Church for being
pro-choice, which contradicts the Church's dogma.
However, Ferraro's selection may have done further harm to the Mondale campaign, which was already far behind the Republican ticket. One issue that hurt her credibility was her disclosure of her husband's tax returns. In July 1984, she said she would release both her and her husband's tax returns. Yet a month later she backtracked and said she would release only her returns. Then she backtracked again, saying her husband would release "a financial -- a tax statement" on August 20. But she must not have consulted her husband, because Zaccaro initially refused . Post-election polls found that the majority of female voters voted against her, turned instead to re-elect Reagan and Bush.
She published an autobiography,
Ferraro: My Story, in 1985, and in 1992 ran unsuccessfully for Democratic nomination for the
U.S. Senate. She finished second in the heated primary behind State Attorney General Robert Abrams. She placed ahead of Rev.
Al Sharpton and New York City Comptroller
Elizabeth Holtzman in the primary. She has said that if she had not run for Vice President, she would have sought the Senate seat in 1986.
In 1993 she was appointed by President
Bill Clinton to represent the United States at the
United Nations. She served with the rank of ambassador and handled social issues during her time at the U.N.
From 1996–1998 she was cohost on
Crossfire, a political commentary show on the cable television network
CNN. She continues to provide political commentary as a frequent guest on national television news programs.
In 1998, Ferraro ran for the Senate again. She started off as the frontrunner for the nomination but lost ground in the late summer months. She finished second behind Congressman
Charles Schumer and placed ahead of New York City Public Advocate
Mark J. Green. Schumer went on to defeat D'Amato in the general election.
Ferraro serves as president of G&L Strategies, a management consulting firm. In 1998, she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, the second-most common form of blood cancer after leukemia. She has become an avid supporter of the
Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. She is an honorary board member of the National Organization of Italian American Women. She resides in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens.
Trivia
- Although Ferraro was the first woman to be on a major-party ticket for one of the nation's two highest offices, she was not the first woman to receive an electoral vote. That woman was Theodora Nathan, a Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate who got the support of Roger MacBride, a Virginia elector who in 1972 voted for her instead of the pledged Spiro Agnew.
- When asked what she thought of Ferraro, Barbara Bush said she could not say on television, other than it rhymed with 'witch'.
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