Election '84: A Credible Candidacy And Then Some

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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."