Election '84: A Credible Candidacy And Then Some

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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."