FERRARO WAS MONDALE'S VP CHOICE 30 YEARS AGO TODAY
San Francisco, California (JFK+50) Thirty years ago today, July 12, 1984, leading Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota announced Representative Geraldine Ferraro* of New York as his running mate.
Ferraro, representing New York State's 9th District, became the first woman on a national ticket of one of the major political parties. She potentially could have been the first woman to serve as Vice-President of the United States.
On the day of the announcement of her selection, Ms. Ferraro said...
"I am absolutely thrilled."
The Mondale-Ferraro ticket, however, was no match for the popular incumbent Ronald Reagan who was re-elected along with Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush.
The Republicans won the Election of 1984 in a record-breaking landslide.
Geraldine Ferraro
San Francisco, California (JFK+50) Thirty years ago today, July 12, 1984, leading Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota announced Representative Geraldine Ferraro* of New York as his running mate.
Ferraro, representing New York State's 9th District, became the first woman on a national ticket of one of the major political parties. She potentially could have been the first woman to serve as Vice-President of the United States.
On the day of the announcement of her selection, Ms. Ferraro said...
"I am absolutely thrilled."
The Mondale-Ferraro ticket, however, was no match for the popular incumbent Ronald Reagan who was re-elected along with Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush.
The Republicans won the Election of 1984 in a record-breaking landslide.
Geraldine Ferraro
*Geraldine Ferraro (1935-2011) was born in Newburgh, NY. She earned her B.A. in English at Marymount Manhattan College in 1956. GF began her career as an elementary school teacher in Queens, but by 1980 had earned a degree from Fordham University School of Law.
GF worked 13 years in civil law and in 1974 became Assistant District Attorney for Queens County, NY. She headed the Special Victims Bureau in 1977.
Ms. Ferraro was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, 1980 and 1982 and was co-sponsor of the Economic Equities Act.
After the Election of 1984, GF returned to the practice of law but later made two attempts to win Democratic primaries for the United States Senate.
She lost in her first bid in 1992 to Robert Abrams by 1% of the vote and by 25% to Chuck Shumer in her second bid in 1998.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ms. Ferraro to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Upon her death from complications of cancer in 2011, Mr. Clinton said...
"Geraldine will forever be remembered as a trailblazer who broke down barriers for women and Americans of all backgrounds..."
