Election '84: A Credible Candidacy And Then Some

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."