Geraldine Ferraro dies, at age 75

[Dos Equis]

RIP.  I liked her.

Geraldine Ferraro dies, at age 75
By the CNN Wire Staff
March 26, 2011

Geraldine Ferraro, pictured in 1998, was the first woman on the presidential ticket of either major party.

(CNN) -- Geraldine Ferraro, a former congresswoman and vice presidential candidate, has died, according to family statement. She was 75.

In 1984, Ferraro was the first female vice presidential candidate from a major U.S. political party when she ran with Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale.
A resident of New York City, Ferraro died in Massachusetts General Hospital, surrounded by loved ones, and the cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, according to a statement released by her family from Boston, Massachusetts.

"Geraldine Anne Ferraro Zaccaro was widely known as a leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice. To us, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and aunt, a woman devoted to and deeply loved by her family," the family statement said. "Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed."

The family statement also described her as the "first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket."

The Mondale-Ferraro ticket lost by a landslide in 1984 to Republican incumbents President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush. In what became the second of Reagan's two terms in the White House, the Reagan-Bush ticket won the popular vote 58.8% to 40% and then nearly swept the electoral votes, 525 to 13.

In 1988, Bush was elected 41st president of the United States.

On Saturday, he and his wife, Barbara, issued a statement expressing "heartfelt condolences and love to Gerry's family."

"Barbara and I were deeply saddened to learn of Gerry's passing. Though we were one-time political opponents, I am happy to say Gerry and I became friends in time -- a friendship marked by respect and affection," Bush said in the statement. "I admired Gerry in many ways, not the least of which was the dignified and principled manner she blazed new trails for women in politics."

In 1978, she was elected as a U.S. representative for the 9th Congressional District of New York and was re-elected in 1980 and 1982.

She was born August 26, 1935 -- Women's Equality Day -- in Newburgh, New York, to restaurant owner Dominick and Antonetta (Corrieri) Ferraro, and later earned a bachelor's degree in English at Marymount Manhattan College in 1956 and then earned a law degree from Fordham University Law School in 1960.

Since 1960, she had been married to John Zaccaro, and during their 50-year marriage, they had three children, now adults.

She is survived by her husband, her three children and their spouses, and eight grandchildren.

In 1974, she became an assistant district attorney in Queens, New York.

After her bid for the vice presidency, she continued, unsuccessfully, to run for elected office -- while working in network television.

Between 1996 and 1998, she was a co-host on CNN's Crossfire. In 1992 and 1998, she ran for a U.S. Senate seat out of New York but lost in the Democratic primaries.

In March 2008, Ferraro was at the center of political controversy when she resigned from her fundraising position with Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign for comments Ferraro made about Clinton's rival, then-Sen. Barack Obama, during the Democratic primaries.

Ferraro remarked that Obama's campaign was successful because he was black.

She later told CNN that she was "absolutely not" sorry for her comments.

"I am who I am and I will continue to speak up," she said.

Ferraro then criticized the Obama campaign for efforts she characterized as trying to block her First Amendment rights.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/26/obit.geraldine.ferraro/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

[Coach is Back!]

That's too bad, I really liked her. RIP

[240 is Back]

Rest in peace.  Prayers with her family.

[BayGBM]

Geraldine A. Ferraro, First Woman on Major Party Ticket, Dies at 75
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Geraldine A. Ferraro, the former Queens congresswoman who in 1984 strode onto a podium to accept the Democratic nomination for vice president and to take her place in American history as the first woman nominated for national office by a major party, died on Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was 75.

The cause was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, her family said in a statement.

“If we can do this, we can do anything,” Ms. Ferraro declared on a July evening to a cheering Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. And for a moment, for the Democratic Party and an untold number of American women, anything seemed possible: a woman occupying the second-highest office in the land, a derailing of the Republican juggernaut led by President Ronald Reagan, a President Walter F. Mondale.

It did not turn out that way — not by a long shot. After the roars in the Moscone Center had subsided and a fitful general election campaign had run its course, hopes for Mr. Mondale and his plain-speaking, barrier-breaking running mate were buried in a Reagan landslide.  But Ms. Ferraro’s supporters proclaimed a victory of sorts nonetheless: 64 years after women won the right to vote, a woman had removed the “men only” sign from the White House door.

It would be another 24 years before another woman from a major party was nominated for vice president — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican running mate of Senator John McCain in 2008. And though Hillary Rodham Clinton came close to being nominated that year in her primary run as a senator from New York, a woman has yet to occupy the Oval Office. But Ms. Ferraro’s ascendance gave many women heart.

Ann Richards, who was the Texas state treasurer at the time and went on to become governor of the state, recalled that after the Ferraro nomination, “the first thing I thought of was not winning in the political sense, but of my two daughters.”

“To think,” she added, “of the numbers of young women who can now aspire to anything.”

As Mr. Mondale’s surprise choice, Ms. Ferraro rocketed to national prominence, propelled by fervid feminist support, a spirited and sometimes saucy personality, canny political skills and the calculation by Democratic strategists that Reagan might be vulnerable on issues thought to be more important to women. Instead, the campaign was hounded by a barrage of questions about her family finances and the business dealings of her husband, John A. Zaccaro — often carrying insinuations about ties to organized crime — that not only blemished Ms. Ferraro’s stature as the first Italian-American national candidate but also diverted attention from other issues.A former Queens criminal prosecutor, she was a vigorous but relatively inexperienced candidate with a better feel for urban ward politics than for international diplomacy. But she proved to be a quick study and came across as a new breed of feminist politician — comfortable with the boys, particularly powerful Democrats like the House speaker, Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., and less combative than predecessors like Representative Bella Abzug of New York.

She was also ideal for television: a down-to-earth, streaked-blond, peanut-butter-sandwich-making mother whose personal story resonated powerfully. Brought up by a single mother who had crocheted beads on wedding dresses to send her daughter to good schools, Ms. Ferraro had waited until her own children were school age before going to work in a Queens district attorney’s office headed by a cousin.

In the 1984 race, many Americans found her breezy style refreshing. “What are you — crazy?” was a familiar expression. She might break into a little dance behind the speaker’s platform when she liked the introductory music. Feeling patronized by her Republican opponent, Vice President George Bush, she publicly scolded him.

With Ms. Ferraro on the ticket, Democrats hoped to exploit a so-called gender gap between the parties. A Newsweek poll taken after she was nominated showed men favoring Reagan-Bush 58 percent to 36 percent but women supporting Mondale-Ferraro 49 percent to 41 percent...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/politics/27geraldine-ferraro.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1301164321-VyQkvVySU1Jfm23AppjEYQ

[Hugo Chavez]

RIP

[Soul Crusher]

I liked her.  She got a raw deal for being Italo-American and them trying to link her to the mob. 

She was not a harpie or a far left freak show like a lot of others and spoke her mind. 


RIP