Source: all-breaking-news.com
It was 2007, nine years after Geraldine A. Ferraro had received a diagnosis of incurable cancer. I had come to interview her for The Last Word, a New York Times video series featuring prominent people whose recorded words are not made public until after their deaths.
That is a sensitive endeavor by definition, and was especially so in Ms. Ferraros case because of her prognosis. My technical crew and I drew a few curious stares as we walked into her law offices, eliciting Ms. Ferraros bravado. And for the first time I got it. I got why Gerry Ferraro whose career, despite her big national moment, was only modestly successful was such a rock star to so many women.
Shed served only six years in Congress, she didnt win the vice presidency, she could never engineer a political comeback. Why the enduring acclaim? Because she was a pip, I realized, a strong, stubborn, sometimes prickly woman who would have it her way as much and as long as she could.
That prediction about her own longevity was part chutzpah, part denial, part cool, practical analysis of her medical options. She could afford the best medication, research was coming up with new treatments all the time, so forget dying. She would do whatever it took, and lobby for more research and financial help for less fortunate cancer patients.
She was the same way in politics, even when she failed. Maybe thats what so many fans saw, a willfulness that emanated from such a strong sense of self-confidence that, even when wrongheaded, was impressive.
Over the years Id been a bit puzzled about Ms. Ferraro, who was 75 when she died on March 26 of complications of the cancer that invaded her, multiple myeloma. What was all the shouting about? Yes, she was a first, the first woman named to a national ticket by a major party when, in 1984, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale selected her as his running mate. She broke ground, she gave women hope, even if she had been asked to the dance by a man for politically pragmatic reasons: Democrats wanted as many votes from women as they could get in their uphill fight to unseat Ronald Reagan.
Instead, they went down in flames after they ran a shaky campaign marked by missteps, bad judgment and gaffes, especially some infamous whoppers by Ms. Ferraro. She had had her 15 minutes; shed failed. By all rights she should have receded from the public consciousness.
Yet she remained a durable American heroine, a strong, respected role model for millions of women (and some men). Why, I always wondered, why does a woman who ran for national office just once, and unsuccessfully, stir such deep emotions?
Seeing her occasionally on Fire Island, the beach community where my husband and I were neighbors of Ms. Ferraro and her husband, John Zaccaro, never helped me resolve the Gerry enigma, either. The one time we had dinner in their home, Ms. Ferraro was either busy cooking and serving an Italian feast, or talking with the rest of us about such crucial local matters as bicycle safety (teenagers liked to race through our sleepy wooden walks), or whether the villages volunteer fire department would ever relent and permit barbecuing. Not the stuff of gripping political debate.
After interviewing her that day in 2007, and listening to her candid reflections on her life, I think I figured it out. Her long-running celebrity was not merely a byproduct of being the first woman on a major party ticket. That was certainly at the heart of it. She lived a moment that changed the countrys image of itself, and that moment turned her into a strong, if complicated, symbol of change in American politics.
The nomination of Ms. Ferraro was proof that as hidebound, stubborn and rigid as our country can be, it also has the capacity periodically to remake itself. For millions of women, the Ferraro nomination was validation, as meaningful to them as President Obamas election was to African-Americans and John F. Kennedys election was to Roman Catholics. Because of her nomination, Geraldine Ferraro became a transforming figure in the countrys history.
But improbably, as the years went on, Ms. Ferraro continued to be a political force, even though she never again won higher office. She became a host of CNNs Crossfire, and President Bill Clintons ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Her name meant something; she was sought after to support candidates and causes, to provide TV and newspaper commentary.
Why did she endure as a public figure? Maybe because she threw herself into things she wanted, would not give up or give in. That thread of determination ran through her public life and her private one, from childhood until the day she died.
Her willfulness could be impressive. And it could be a real pain in the neck, especially when accompanied by a sense of entitlement as, in her later electoral forays, it seemed to be. Ms. Ferraro tried to become a United States senator in 1992 and 1998, both times proving curiously unequal to and resentful of the always ugly politics of New York. She was a native; the tactics used against her, truly nasty as they were, could not have been a surprise. Years later she was still furious, arguing that victory in the 1992 race had been stolen from her, which could only have been true if it had been hers to begin with.
Another time, Ms. Ferraro complained angrily during the 2008 presidential campaign that Barack Obamas color had propelled him ahead of her candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position, Ms. Ferraro said. And if he was a woman of any color he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.
This from a woman who rocketed to stardom because her party tapped her in 1984 in its pursuit of female voters? Mr. Obama called the remarks absurd; Ms. Ferraro said theyd been distorted. If you point to something that deals with race, you are immediately a racist? she said to me at the time. Give me a break. That was quintessential Ferraro. She said what she believed and that was that.
The same for her stand on issue after issue, notably abortion rights. Ms. Ferraro, a Roman Catholic, personally opposed abortion but thought women should have the right to choose to have an abortion a position that earned her a public rebuke during the 1984 presidential campaign from the archbishop of New York, John J. OConnor. Did she ever make peace with her church? No, she said evenly in that 2007 interview. I dont think there is a way to make peace.
She made no apology, gave no quarter. That brand of intransigence had to impress even those who disagreed with her. Her stubbornness must have resonated in particular with women, many of whom, to this day, know how it feels to hide their intelligence or mute their opinions or avoid confrontation rather than appear challenging to male power. Ms. Ferraro could effectively charm powerful men, but she did not back down on substance.
Gerry Ferraro often said that any woman could have done what she did, given the opportunity. She was probably right that any woman given the chance to break into the all-boys club of presidential politics would have been a game-changer. But maybe it took Geraldine A. Ferraro, the accidental icon, to turn that brief role of a lifetime into a marathon run of show.
Joyce Purnick is a former writer and editor for The New York Times and the author of “Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics” (PublicAffairs, 2009).
No comments:
Post a Comment