Every other person pushing through the subway
turnstile outside Shea Stadium seems to know Geraldine Ferraro. “Hey Geraldine,
how are ya?” they shout to the U.S. Senate candidate, who on a recent afternoon
transformed a patch of pavement near the ticket windows into a campaign stop. Hundreds
of baseball fans stop to meet Ferraro. Sweaty, shirtless men squeeze the former
congresswoman around the shoulders. And middle-aged women pull out disposable
cameras to snap her picture.
Quick-thinking parents seize the chance to deliver a
history lesson featuring Ferraro as Exhibit A. One particularly enthusiastic
supporter drags over his daughter. “This lady ran for vice president,” he says.
Ferraro, 63, crouches down to shake the small girl’s hand. As he leads her
away, the father explains to his daughter: “She’s going to be the next
governor.”
Oops. Not quite right. Ferraro whips around. “Senator!
Senator!” she shouts.
Such is the candidate’s predicament. Everyone knows
her name, even if they don’t know she’s running in the Democratic primary on
September 15 for a chance to unseat GOP senator Al D’Amato. Since Ferraro began
her march down the campaign trail last January, she has posed for hundreds of
photos, signed countless autographs, and received far more than her share of
hugs. Fourteen years after Ferraro became the first woman to run for
vicepresident, she is still reaping the benefits of her moment in the national
spotlight.
But to win the U.S. Senate primary, Ferraro needs
much more than fame. She needs votes--enough to beat two tough opponents,
Public Advocate Mark Green and Brooklyn congressman Chuck Schumer. In this
race, Ferraro has been the front-runner, and she’s embraced a front-runner’s
strategy--a light public schedule, few detailed proposals, and hardly any
debates. But in recent months, Ferraro’s sizable lead has shrunk so much that
she and Schumer are now running neck and neck. Critics charge she has been “coasting
on her celebrity” and failed to give New Yorkers a convincing reason to vote
for her.
“What is the rationale for her right now?” says Henry
Sheinkopf, a political consultant. “That’s the question people need answered.
They like her. They just need to be pushed over the edge.”
Some political experts wonder if Ferraro’s true
motive is a desire to avenge her 1992 defeat in the U.S. Senate primary. That
year, she lost to former attorney general Robert Abrams by just one percentage
point. After details of mob ties surfaced in the Voice, Ferraro’s
Democratic opponents used them to slam her. She accused critics of anti-Italian
bias and denied any mafia connections.
In a January meeting at Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe, Ferraro
made an unsuccessful pitch to the chairs of the state’s largest counties
explaining why they should back her unanimously. “She basically said she was
running because... she was so mistreatedin 1992,” says an attendee, who is
supporting one of Ferraro’s opponents. “This was her rationale. It was a
horrible, arrogant presentation.”
But the question that could determine Ferraro’s fate
is: Does anyone besides political insiders really care how ill-defined Ferraro’s
message is? “I like her because she’s a woman,” says Sonya Delgado, 63, who
bumped into Ferraro while the candidate was glad-handing beachgoers at the Fire
Island ferries. “It sounds like a stupid reason, but why not? I like what she
stands for.” Asked exactly what Ferraro stands for, Delgado pauses, and says, “I
can’t think of one thing right now.” The race is now in its final days, and
Ferraro will win only if she manages to transform her celebrity into votes--and
to convince supporters like Delgado to pull the lever for her.
Ferraro’s journeyfrom little-known congresswoman to
Walter Mondale’s running mate is one of those political events that is frozen
in the memories of late 20th-century Americans. She is indeed a historical
icon. And her two-year stint as a co-host of CNN’s Crossfire--getting
into spitting matches with Republicans--only enhanced her celebrity.
As soon as they meet Ferraro, people blurt out the
ways in which her life has intersected with theirs:
“You spoke at my brother’s graduation.”
“I wrote you when I was four years old.”
“My mother has the same hairstyle as you--she’s had
it ever since you ran for vice president.”
“You spoke at my community college in 1984, and you
waved to me!”
When Gail Brick heard that Ferraro was visiting the
county fair at her hometown in Long Island, she showed up with a copy of the
candidate’s 1985 autobiography. Ten minutes after Ferraro signs the book,
Brick, 61, is still beaming. “Ever since she ran for vice president, I thought
she was admirable,” Brick says.
All this affection may be flattering, but Ferraro
says she knows it is not enough. “If they’re not paying attention on election
day, what good does celebrity do?” says Ferraro as she strolls through the
fair, past vendors peddling homemade potholders, wooden birdhouses, and pickled
green tomatoes. “I’m just hoping that it translates into votes because, if it
does, in November Al D’Amato is going to be emptying out his office.”
The path to the U.S. Senate is a long and gritty one.
Forget about basking under the lights in CNN’s television studio or commanding
crowds of thousands or zooming about town in a long black limo. Ferraro may be
a millionaire, but her husband, John Zaccaro, is the one shuttling her around
the city these days. Her campaign bus is actually a silver Lincoln Continental
with a “Ferraro for Senate” sticker on the back bumper.
While Ferraro shook hands along the Long Beach
boardwalk on a recent muggy Sunday, her husband stayed in the car, hidden
behind a pair of dark sunglasses. He remained by the wheel again a day later,
while his wife courted several thousand reggae fans at a late-night concert in
Bedford-Stuyvesant. But when the campaign trail led to a Greenwich Village
street festival on a recent Saturday, Zaccaro walked the streets with his wife.
Once again, fans scramble to be close to Ferraro. One
of the first is Richard Cogliandro, a 47-year-old schoolteacher. Concerned
about organized-crime connections, Cogliandro asks: “Do you have anything to
hide?”
Ferraro’s grin tightens slightly. “I have nothing to
hide and I never had,” she says.
Cogliandro tells a reporter later that he found
Ferraro’s reply convincing. And the candidate is spared any queries about other
ethical issues that have popped up during this campaign, including charges that
sweatshops operate in a building she partially owns. “Her husband was the pain
in the ass; she’s a doll,” cassette vendor John Rivera explains to his
customers as Ferraro and Zaccaro walk by. “He’s the one who got her in trouble
last time.”
When Michael Diehl meets Ferraro, he grills her about
the Defense of Marriage Act. This legislation, which opposes same-sex marriage,
passed Congress last year. Schumer voted for it.
“Would you vote for DOMA? That’s what a Mark Green
supporter told me,” Diehl asks.
“Well, as long as you didn’t say that,” says Diehl, a
27-year-old attorney.
Ferraro pauses for a moment to digest Diehl’s
question. Then she changes her answer. “I would’ve voted for the Senate bill...
Mark Green’s guy is right.”
Diehl is not pleased. “That’s bad,” he tells Ferraro.
As she saunters away, Diehl turns to several friends, announcing that he’s
going to vote for Green instead of Ferraro because, he says, “She’s pandering
to her Catholic base.”
Ferraro has turned down invitations to debate her
opponents, and her performance at a recent candidate forum in Brooklyn Heights
may explain why. First up is Mark Green, and then Ferraro. Standing behind the
podium in the auditorium of St. Francis College, Ferraro rattles off the
reasons voters should pick her. Near the top of the list is her own life story.
“My grandmother had to sign her signature with an X
because she didn’t know how to write,” she tells the 200-person crowd. “When my
father died when I was eight... my mother said, ‘The one thing I want my
children to have is an education.’ That would be my priority in the Senate:
making sure every child has an education.”
Ferraro’s personal history may be inspiring, but it
doesn’t always persuade her listeners. Nor do her frequent references to her
legacy as a feminist pioneer. In July, Ferraro gave a speech emphasizing the
importance of electing women because “we bring another dimension to the
political process.” But playing the gender card may not be enough, especially
when there are now 62 women in the House and Senate and female politicians are
no longer a novelty.
At the candidate forum, Green boasts of his longtime
career as a consumer advocate and promises to keep fighting for reforms of
campaign finance and HMOs. Then he dazzles the audience with detailed answers
to their questions about everything from the Gowanus Expressway to the Brooklyn
waterfront.
Asked what she would do about congestion on the
Gowanus, Ferraro says, “I would work with the Gowanus Expressway Coalition... I
would look at alternatives to what the city is proposing... We’ve got to do
something about it... We’ve got to look at what we can do.”
Afterward, two friends linger on the college steps to
have a smoke and swap opinions. As Democrats who are closely following this
race, these women are exactly the sort of people who actually go to the polls
on primary day--the type of voters who could decide Ferraro’s fate. “I thought
her presentation was flat and vague,” says 45-year-old Erica Zurer. “On local
issues, either she had no knowledge, didn’t do her research, or didn’t care.
That was very disturbing.”
Her friend agrees. “I’m offended by the fact that she
appears to think she’s entitled to the nomination,” says Susan Breslin, who
trekked from Manhattan to hear the candidates. “She has to prove she’s better
than the others. She has to fight for it.”
The two women do not hold their tongues as Ferraro
herself exits the building. But Ferraro ignores them. Even as she clicks down
the stairs in her black pumps, a man is moving into the sixth-floor window of
the building across the street. “Hey, Gerry! Gerry! Up here!” he shouts.
Ferraro grins and waves. Then she climbs into her Lincoln Continental and her
husband drives off.
Research assistance: Jennifer Del Medico
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