Gerry, We Hardly Knew Ye

Geraldine Ferraro, who died Saturday at 75, will likely be remembered as a figure in American history more for what she didn't achieve than for anything she actually did accomplish. She was, of course, the first woman to run for Vice President of the United States on a major party ticket, as well as the first Italian-American vice presidential candidate for a major ticket. What she didn't achieve was the Vice Presidency itself - the 1984 Democratic national ticket on which she appeared suffered a 49-state loss. But is her nomination all she will be remembered for? And is that enough to ensure her a place in history alongside other major American political figures of the 1980s?

True, she is not associated with a great deal of legislation in Congress. In fact, she was only in the House of Representatives for six years. But she was a natural leader and a key member of the House Democratic caucus, serving as its secretary and also serving as a member of the House Budget Committee. She championed chemical waste cleanup efforts an even supported some military programs like the Pershing II missile, among other things. She was known for her toughness and her traditionalist New Deal background; though a woman, she was not exactly a wild-eyed left-winger. (She represented a district in Queens that included the neighborhood represented in TV show "All In the Family," which was just as conservative as Archie Bunker himself.) She did, though support pay and retirement fund equity for women, as she believed in fairness. I doubt anyone would have questioned her record and her integrity. The shady business dealings of her husband, John Zaccaro, were a separate matter.

When Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale selected her as her running mate in 1984, I expected her to become a monumental figure even if the Democratic ticket lost. It's no secret that failed vice presidential candidates are forgotten by history, except for Franklin Roosevelt (the 1920 Democratic vice presidential candidate) and Earl Warren (the 1948 Republican vice presidential candidate). After all, no one remembers John Logan, the losing vice presidential nominee of 1884, a hundred years before Ferraro - and Logan founded Memorial Day. But while Ferraro's gender and ethnic origin seemed to be enough to ensure her lasting fame as a vice presidential nominee, she had a distinguished career as a lawyer and as a public servant that suggested a greater future in American politics - and also suggested that she would not be as easily forgotten as Logan.

It didn't quite work out like that. Ferraro's attempts to win a Senate seat from her home state of New York in 1992 and 1998 were unsuccessful, and a feud between her and Democratic Senate primary candidate Elizabeth Holtzman in the 1992 campaign - prompted by a negative Holtzman ad Ferraro thought linked her unfairly to the Mafia because of her Italian heritage - was seen as a disaster for the women's movement. She served with distinction as the American ambassador to the United Nations Commission of Human Rights in President Bill Clinton's first term, which didn't exactly get her a lot of media attention. Ironically, she got plenty of media attention as a host of CNN's "debate" show "Crossfire," a program long since discredited, in the mid-nineties. I got to wondering if Ferraro would become more than a trivia question in the history books after all.

She may yet become an important figure in history. But her legacy, as it pertains to greater female participation in American politics, remains a mixed one. I came across this quote from Judy Goldsmith, president of the National Organization for Women in the mid-eighties and a fierce critic of the modern conservative movement: "No one asks anymore if women can raise the money, if women can take the heat, if women have the stamina for the toughest political campaigns in the country. Geraldine Ferraro did them all." Goldsmith said this in December 1984. Of course, Mondale had lost to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide the previous month, the Equal Rights Amendment had failed two years earlier, and neither party came under a great deal of pressure to select a female vice presidential candidate in 1988, as Gerald Ford had predicted they would.

Call me cynical, but Ferraro's impact on American politics was no greater than the impact of the Go-Go's, the first girl group that played their own instruments and wrote their own songs to break through commercially, was on American popular music. Have you seen any all-female rock bands lately?

More importantly, how many more women in America hold elective office? Not as many as you might think. Despite Hillary Clinton's presence - and her own spirited 2008 presidential run - women are still underrepresented in government in this country. I saw one statistic showing that the United States ranks 72nd among 186 countries in the female share of seats in the lower houses of national legislatures. (We're tied with Turkmenistan; Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, South Africa [!] and all three Baltic states are our superiors there.) Nancy Pelosi's tenure as Speaker of the House proved to be short-lived; now the House is run once again by a conservative male Republican who opposes abortion rights.

And if Geraldine Ferraro's only living legacy is Sarah Palin - and possibly Michele Bachmann as well - it doesn't bode well for the future. :-(