♪ My mother was very careful to make sure that I was not treated differently from my brother.

My mother always felt that the same opportunities that she was affording him, she was going to give to me even though I was female.

Every Halloween, we always had the snazziest costumes, and one year, I said, "Can I be Uncle Sam?"

And she didn't say to me, "No you can't, because you're not a boy."

She said, "Sure, you can be anything you want to be."

I mean, and that's what she told me all my life.

You can be whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do.

All you have to do is work hard.

My fellow citizens, I proudly accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States.

(cheers and applause) ♪ She had an impact, she had an absolute impact on the American public, whether they voted for her or didn't vote for her.

She was the most famous face for women in politics and inspired others to run.

Are you with us?

(crowd cheering) Then let's go!

What it really encouraged, I think, that may have been more powerful, was women to see themselves differently in every sector.

I'm delighted that there is no longer that big sign outside that door that says, "White Male Only Need Apply."

She spent her entire adult life both building her own American dream, and trying to give it to other people.

It's time to see all the colors of the rainbow when we utter the words, "We the People of the United States."

It didn't end on election night, Gerry really helped break through the glass ceiling.

What Gerry did was not only to lay the groundwork but also, to lay down a marker that we can't go back.

When they write the history of gender in American politics 100 or 200 years from now, the first woman president will be the most significant figure, the second will be Gerry Ferraro.

♪ ♪ When I was a very little girl, I remember living in Newburgh, and it was a bustling boomtown.

My mother owned a five and ten cent store and next door to it was a restaurant and bar that my father owned, and my father used to work nights and my mother used to work during the day in order to contribute to the house.

I can remember I was about three years old and my father, because he was off in the afternoons, used to take me to see Shirley Temple movies and I had this great memory of him walking into the theater, holding his hands and sitting through these movies.

Shirley Temple was the idol of all of us kids so my mother used to do my hair in curls so that I looked like Shirley Temple.

I was the princess and I had something like 53 dolls.

I had everything.

My brother, Carl, was seven years older than I.

My brother Gerard, had he lived, would have been four years older than I.

He was killed in an automobile accident when they were hit by a drunk driver.

He was only three.

My mother used to wash and iron all of his clothes to keep the memory there.

I always knew that I was named after my brother Gerard and when my mother called me Gerry, because she never used Geraldine at home, people said to her, oh, you have her as a substitute, and she said, no, no, no.

She said, I love her, she is mine, she is different and she said, but I am naming her after her brother.

And so I kind of felt, I guess, as a child, you know, this almost an obligation and I think that's gone through life, to fill in a little bit for what my mother lost.

My husband always said to me, "I don't want you to work after we're married."

And I looked at him and I said, "Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean you don't want me to work, I'm a lawyer."

And he said to me, "Well, my mother never worked."

And I said, "John, I love your mother but she's not a lawyer."

I said to her that as long as you stay home, whatever you want to do after, when the kids go to school, I will support you.

GERALDINE: And I said, suppose I were to stay home until our youngest is in school full time, then go back to work, how do you feel about that?

And he felt very strongly about family and he said to me, that'll work, and so I stayed home and was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years.

♪ WOMAN: She just was much more enthusiastic and more engaged than some other mothers, but it felt normal to me.

When I was little, she used to have to watch me in the swimming pool and she couldn't just watch, she actually was one of the volunteer lifeguards.

She'd blow the whistle a lot and I just remember thinking like, why can't you just watch like every other mother?

She was much more of sort of an activist mother.

She always told us, God gave you a mouth so use it.

You had to speak up for those that didn't have a voice in whatever capacity you could.

After we were all in school and a little bit more self-sufficient, she applied to become a district attorney and had to go back and restudy the law because it had changed from when she was in law school, but she started prosecuting all the sex crimes, senior citizen crimes, and child abuse cases in Queens County and felt that the victims should be treated differently and so she actually came up with the term "Special Victims Bureau" and created the first Special Victims Bureau that existed.

She was 37 at the time and they were all younger people in the DA's office, so she had to prove herself.

I know she was apprehensive, but she got right into it, became friends with most of the judges and her fellow workers.

WOMAN: It was the beginning of women emerging into the field of law and Gerry was a great lawyer and a great assistant district attorney.

She had a wonderful presence in the courtroom.

She was very well respected by the judges and also by the defense bar as well as her own colleagues.

She excelled as a bureau chief.

Those were horrific, horrific cases and it took a very special individual with empathy and sensitivity to the needs of those victims, to shepherd them through the criminal justice system.

GERALDINE: I was in the DA's office, I was there for four and half years -- I loved that job, I was kind of running around with cops and all that stuff, it was terrific, but I was getting tired of that.

I was getting tired of handling the emotion of the different cases.

I wanted to do something more than that, than just putting people in jail.

I wanted to figure out how we could deal with the issue of crime.

JOHN: The opportunity came up for her to run for Congress.

The only thing I was concerned in those days, if you are elected, when do you come home?

DONNA: My mother decided to run for Congress in 1978.

Her slogan in her first campaign was "Finally, A Tough Democrat."

We worked every day from 6:00 AM to midnight and she felt that if she could meet every voter, she would convince them to vote for her, and she did.

Anywhere where there were ten people who were going to be congregating, she would show up and talk to them about why she wanted to go represent them in Congress.

You're terrific!

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it.

JOHN: It was a tough campaign, money was a problem.

She was promised by three people that she was going to get about $150,000 and she said to me, I have no money, so we opened a bank account, I put money in the account and I started beginning to learn about campaigning and made a couple of mistakes along the way, which I was criticized for, and then I was penalized by the FEC and I paid a fine and I learned a lesson.

That was my first lesson.

But she won, you know, the first time out, out of the gate.

♪ I heard about her and remembered calling her the day after her election and calling her Congresswoman Elect Ferraro, and she said it was one of the sweetest phrases she had heard since her husband had proposed.

She came on to the hill with a great breath of fresh air and a little bit tough talking, which was unusual in a female member of Congress.

MAN: A gentlewoman from New York is recognized.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to discuss the procedure.

I want to discuss the substance of the Equal Rights Amendment... COKIE: She was somebody that you just paid attention to from the minute she got there.

MAN: She was so smart, she was so savvy, she was so quick and she had that wonderful smile, and I do remember just being struck at that time by, boy, this is really an interesting new member.

I don't know if you have to walk around telling your kids life isn't fair.

I think it's up to all of us to make it fair.

BARBARA M.: Gerry came out of Democratic constituency politics, knowing who your constituents are, what are their day-to-day needs, who was going to speak up for them in Washington, bread-and-butter, FDR, Jack Kennedy Democrats.

I like my district.

(applause) WOMAN: There was a community in Queens, Ridgewood, that had a zip code that put them in the Brooklyn district and that meant that their insurance rates were much higher.

They wanted to be part of the Queens zip code community.

First thing she did when she got to Congress was lobby her colleagues and get on the post office and civil service committee.

That gave her the clout to call in the Postmaster General and he learned very quickly that you don't say, "we can't," "I don't think so," "we've never done that before."

What he said to her is, "poll your constituents," which she did, 75, 80 percent said, yes, they wanted it, zip code got changed.

She put in the time and effort to do this, nothing glamorous.

She had lost Ridgewood overwhelmingly when she first ran.

She won it overwhelmingly when she was reelected.

BARBARA M.: In the time Gerry and I came, it was really the second wave of the American women's movement.

I'm proud to be from a state that's adopted its own ERA...

The early days often were described by the public feminist advocates as kind of women versus men.

We didn't approach it that way.

Ours were coalition politics and less polarizing.

MAN: Some members of Congress resented some of the other feminists that served in the Congress because of their attitude, because of the way they did things, they were attacking.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I quite agree with my colleague.

TONY: Gerry pushed the same things, but didn't say, "Because you're a male member of Congress, you're wrong."

We didn't think of ourselves as the woman.

We were part of an established Congress.

We worked very hard and we got ahead and we loved being in Congress.

Geraldine Ferraro had a tough job in Congress because she was really too liberal for her district and so she had to constantly do this balancing act of representing the people who had sent her there and representing her own views.

MAN: Queens is a place that doesn't necessarily sit on the left wing of the Democratic Party, so she understood a lot of the Republicans and where they were coming from and when she could reach out, she did.

She didn't approach things in a partisan way.

She approached things because they were right or wrong, and so she started developing close relationships on the other side of the aisle.

Now I'd like to yield to the gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Ferraro.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding... We were sort of like sisters in arms.

We both joined forces on women's issues and we may have had differences on other issues, but we certainly worked together to make sure that we could change the Federal laws that were discriminating against women in both the workplace and at home.

But I believe we now have legislation which provides true economic equity and genuine fairness for women who have worked inside or outside the home.

OLYMPIA: We recognized that if we didn't do it, who would?

There were so few women in the legislative process.

There was only 16 of us in the House of Representatives and one in the United States Senate, and so we had a unique responsibility.

Whether it was on pension reform as Gerry had initiated, equal pay, child support enforcement, these were very new and progressive ideas.

Who were you dealing with?

Let me have the name and I'm going to call them up myself.

I find this outrageous.

OLYMPIA: If she was on your side, you knew you were going to win the argument.

BARBARA M.: We didn't always want to be the girls on the outside with their face pressed up against the glass.

We wanted to be inside at the table and we actually strategized on how to do that.

SPEAKER: House will be in order!

I covered the House for the Wall Street Journal for some of those years and I would talk to the Speaker, usually privately, once every week or so.

I remember one time he said to me, "Gerry is one of us."

And what he meant by that was, it didn't have anything to do with gender, it had to do with she was a pol, and that was the highest compliment that Tip O'Neill could pay anyone.

She was very popular with the women members, but she knew how to work those old guys, you know, Tip O'Neill just loved Gerry.

ALBERT: He wanted to advance her career.

Behind closed doors, he would say what he thought of people.

With Gerry, he felt that she was somebody that could influence people and move people.

VIC: As a result, she began to make her name known and her rise in leadership began.

ELEANOR L.: She became a secretary of the Democratic Caucus, which is the committee of party elders, party leaders, party men, and she could wheel and deal and trade just like the male colleagues.

It never occurred to me as her daughter that being a mother and working, that they were ever going to be mutually exclusive.

She used to fly down on Monday morning and then she would often fly back on Tuesday and make it home before I went to bed, and then she'd fly back Wednesday morning, and then she'd fly back Thursday for dinner.

MAN: It's amazing how much of a schedule she kept, how many activities she went to and how active she was in our lives, continuing to be active in the community.

♪ GERALDINE: I'm rather convinced that my father's death in some ways changed my life totally.

♪ My father had a heart attack when I was eight years old.

I remember I walked into the bedroom and my mom said, "Gerry, go back into your room."

My father turned around, looked at me, and died.

Had he not died, I would have done what the girls with the private school education and all the rest of that stuff did.

I probably would have gone out with and married somebody from West Point because that was kind of what everybody did.

I think because my father died, it pushed me into a different place because my mother and I had to change how I was going to approach life in order to get the success at the end that I couldn't get because my father wouldn't be giving it to me.

My mother found herself in terribly harsh financial circumstances because it was the '40s.

My father handled everything and when she went to sell the businesses, she ended up with almost nothing and she had to go back to work as a crochet beater, which is a skill she learned as a child in a factory in a sweatshop.

So we moved to the South Bronx.

We moved to 1148 Longfellow Avenue and my mother showed me the apartment.

She said, "Gerry, what do you think?"

And I said, "Oh mommy, it's so small."

And it was, but it was filled with love.

My mother came from peasant stock.

My grandmother did not appreciate education.

My grandmother was illiterate, you can't blame her!

And so as a result, my mother was denied an education.

My mother, though, recognized because she did see others who, the only way they could pull themselves out of a tenement with a bathroom and a hall, which is where she was living, was you do that by getting an education.

When I was at Marymount, thank God I had the help that I did from both my mother and the nuns, but I had to rely upon myself.

Nobody was going to give me anything.

Gerry just was one of those persons you gravitated towards and she used to kind of give me words of advice to keep me out of trouble.

She was more law abiding than I was.

She would say, "Patsy, you know, maybe you should cool it a bit."

Of course, those words weren't in vogue at that time, but yeah.

She was driven in her studies.

She skipped her junior year and went straight into senior year.

She was very involved in all the sports from hockey through to baseball.

She was editor in chief of the yearbook.

She was on the debating team.

She was touted as the most likely to succeed in the class.

♪ Our faith was very strong in those days.

It was post-war.

Our senior class was 24 students, and eight of us entered religious life A lot of it was due to the fact that women could not be in professions that men were in.

We could be housewives, we could be telephone operators, we could be nurses, or teachers.

GERALDINE: I remember going to visit Patsy Busch for her birthday and it's this huge estate out in the Hamptons.

I had never been served by a maid and there were lots of them.

I had never played croquet.

Was I equipped to handle that?

Yeah.

Teaching you at Marymount at that time was how to deal with social circumstances.

I knew what I had and I knew what I didn't have and what I would probably never have and that was okay.

♪ Vice President Bush and I would like to have your continued support and cooperation in completing what we began three years ago.

I am therefore announcing that I am a candidate and will seek re-election to the office I presently hold.

WOMAN: In 1984, Ronald Reagan was peaking.

His advantages really started to emerge.

The perception was the economy was getting better.

He was asking the question, are you better off than you were four years ago?

TV: It's morning again in America.

CELINDA: So they really emphasized "Morning in America" which had a family-oriented theme to it.

TV: Under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better.

COKIE: Even though women had voted for Reagan overwhelmingly, they had voted for him by a smaller percentage than men did so that was the beginning of the gender gap, which is now, of course, a huge part of our politics, but because it was brand new, the politicians were all kind of, "Wow, what do we do about this?"

The stage was set for something to happen for women and women were really getting involved politically at a different rate.

They were running for office.

They were electing the governors.

I mean, it was almost more momentum than we have right now.

Women's organizations said, this is our opportunity.

Let's talk about a woman for Vice President.

Well, you know, this is pie in the sky type of thing.

In 1983, right after the Equal Rights Amendment is defeated, we passed a resolution at our annual conference that there must be a woman on the ticket.

For the first time in history, we now have a serious discussion of a woman being on a major party's ticket.

We didn't see ourselves as a special interest.

We saw ourselves representing half the country.

If there was not a woman nominated, we were going to urge a floor fight on the convention floor.

A woman as Vice President, a superb and qualified person with experience and background, I think would bring enormous insight, strength, understanding that this country can use.

I knew I was in trouble, the polls showed me down 15, 20 points, depending on who was doing the polls and I thought I had to shake it up.

ELEANOR S.: We had endorsed Mondale in December of '83, so there was no question we were for him.

The question is, who was going to be the running mate?

MONDALE: Selecting a woman was one of my options, but I did not want this to be just a token selection.

There were a lot of names out there -- Senator Feinstein, Representative Mikulski -- that were being talked about and considered.

BARBARA M.: We wanted women in high positions in the campaign.

Why be helping the guys get elected, why not get elected ourselves?

So that's when the A-team came together.

I was part of a small group that had decided that maybe a woman for Vice President was going to be how we could have an impact.

We said, you know, that's great to talk about a woman for Vice President, but we have to be sure.

We didn't want to do it symbolically.

We really wanted it to be a woman who could really make the right contribution.

We all really came to the conclusion that Geraldine Ferraro had all of the right characteristics for this.

She's a Roman Catholic, she's Italian, she comes from New York, she has this sort of working-class background.

And we were like euphoric.

So I was asked to approach Eleanor about meeting with her to kind of give her a heads up about what we were thinking.

I said, there's a small group of us that would like to meet with Gerry about running for Vice President.

And I was stunned into silence, there was a pause.

Vice President of what?

Of the United States?

And I said, yes, and she said, okay, I'll ask her.

JOANNE: So once Gerry gave us the sort of go-ahead, the next issue was, well, what were the steps that we should take to put this in motion?

And we said, the platform committee, this is the thing you should be.

Let me first of all explain to you what a platform is.

It's a statement by the party, Republican or Democrat, as to where that party stands on issues.

WOMAN: She had been named by Tip O'Neill to chair the platform committee for the 1984 Convention, which is a very prestigious job.

She had only been in Congress for three terms, and yet, obviously, was a comer, and at that time, a woman comer was an oxymoron.

We're going to adopt a platform that our nominee, that the senators, that the members of Congress, that the Mayors, that the Governors, that all of our local elected officials will be able to run on, win on, govern on, and deliver on.

I was going to run for the Senate in 1986, so my goal in 1983, '84 when they were talking about Vice President was to use, which sounds terrible, which is to use my position as someone "talked about" to get around the country.

I mean, I was all over the place, getting lots of good press, people getting to see me.

I was meeting people and I was making up a list of people that I could go back to for my Senate race.

Someone said to me, don't you feel badly about all this stuff, the attention you're getting, and you know, would you get it if you were not a female?

I don't feel the least bit badly about it.

Not at all!

(applause) JANE: She was no nonsense.

She had very clear ideas of what she wanted and that's what I love and I've tried to emulate that style of leadership ever since.

She was blunt without being tough.

If you did something that she wasn't satisfied with, she would say so.

She did it with humor.

She always looked gorgeous, perfect hair, actually, come to think of it, I think I hated her.

Vice President is just about the second best one there is.

You're right and I think if the opportunity arose come July and I were asked if I would take the job, I would probably say yes.

You haven't decided yet?

Oh, I haven't been offered it yet.

Why do I get the feeling that you really want to be the Vice Presidential candidate?

I have no idea.

Why?

Do I have a look on my face?

Yeah.

I took advantage of the fact that people were talking about me, but I never for one minute really believed that it was going to happen.

Needless to say, I regard Gerry Ferraro as being qualified and clearly in contention for nomination as Vice President.

JOAN: We were delighted when Gerry told us she had been invited out to interview with Presidential Candidate Mondale.

She said the interview went pretty well, but she was pretty convinced she wasn't going to get it and we all could understand that.

We had come much further than I think we really did dare dream.

The opportunity to come out and speak to the Vice President about the possibility of being on a national ticket is very, very exciting.

MONDALE: Tip O'Neill, old friend of mine, said, she's the star here and if you're looking for a Vice President, I'd recommend her.

JOHN: Before she accepted, she said, what do you think of it?

Should I take it?

And I said, you have to take it.

She said, are you sure?

I said, yes.

If I did say, do not do it, I don't think she'd ever, she would not do it, but she would never forgive me.

GERALDINE: Fritz Mondale said to me, are you willing to give up your congressional seat, and I said, yes.

And the reason I was willing to do that was because I recognized immediately how important this job obviously of Vice President would be.

That if we won, Fritz would make a difference.

If we lost, I was convinced a campaign, if I did the job right, would make a difference in the future for woman.

I would never have said yes if for one minute I thought that if we were elected, I could not do the job of Vice President.

Would not have said yes.

BARBARA M.: I'm home in Baltimore and the phone rings at 7:00 in the morning.

It was Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly, saying to me, "She got the call!

She got the call!"

And there's the press and they wanted to interview me and there I am, you know, in my sleeping togs, picking up the window, yelling down at the media, saying, "Mazel tov, it's a girl!

Mazel tov, it's a girl!"

(applause) TV: In St. Paul, Minnesota, now, Geraldine Ferraro and Walter Mondale at the Minnesota State Capitol.

JOAN: Coming out in her red dress with pearls, big smile, the crowd erupting.

And it's the first time you see them together, it sort of takes your breath away, and they wave, and they're figuring out whether they wave at the same time, I mean, it was one of those wonderful moments that you knew things were going to be different.

Today I'm delighted to announce that I will ask the Democratic Convention to nominate Geraldine Ferraro of New York to run with me for the White house.

(cheers and applause) JOAN: Seeing his face beaming, the way he started his introduction of her, I think he was very proud to make history.

This is an exciting choice.

I want to build a future.

(applause) I was pretty sure this would be a popular choice, but the public reaction was incredible.

Let me say that again.

This is an exciting choice!

(cheers and applause) When somebody says, will you do it?

You feel the responsibility.

Fritz Mondale knows what America is really about and I'm honored to join him in this campaign for the future, thank you.

(applause) That responsibility, I think, has been something that I felt with every job I've ever taken, but those words kept on coming through -- "You can do whatever you want to do.

You can be whatever you want to be."

♪ I wish every mother had one like her.

She has the stamina, she's got the push, she's got the courage.

The only thing I ask to God, give her the strength and the health, but I know if she got there, she'd be very good.

It's up to the voters naturally, momma has nothing to do with if she'll be in the White House in November.

(laughing) ♪ GERALDINE: When I graduated college, I owed that degree to my mother, and so on graduation day, when I got my degree, I gave it to her.

I said, this is yours as much as it is mine, and it was, I wouldn't have done it without her.

And so I became a teacher, I was licensed in New York City.

I was the first representative from our school to what was the Teacher's Guild, which was the precursor of unions, but as much as I loved the kids and all the rest of that stuff, I needed more.

Law school was something that I could do at night and Fordham was a Jesuit school and I went up to see the president of Fordham and I said, I really want to go to law school.

Now remember, at that time, it was very, very tough to get in, and when I graduated in my session, there were only two women.

And he said to me, "Gerry, your marks are good and everything is fine, but I hope you're serious because you're taking a man's place, you know?"

And I graduated, I think, in the top ten percent of my class, which was not so bad.

I took the Bar July 13th and 14th, had my nails done on the 15th and my hair, and I got married on the 16th and any of the forms that I would be filling out in the future would be using my married name after July 16th, but when I was filling out my applications for admission to the Bar, I said to my husband, "John, how would you feel about my keeping my maiden name professionally in honor of my mother?"

I said, I think it's great, so she said, does it bother you?

I said, absolutely not, and I've had a lot of men come up to me and say, how could your wife use her maiden name?

It shouldn't be Ferraro it should be Zaccaro.

I said what she does professionally and she did it for her mother is fine.

It doesn't bother me, I don't think it should bother you.

From the time I met her, not only we became a team, but after marriage, we helped each other with whatever we had to do.

She wasn't selfish and I wasn't selfish, so if there was a way I could support her or do something for her, I'd be happy to do it.

I had no idea that she was gonna go into politics.

(crowd cheering) I had many people tell me, it's the best National Convention we've ever had, people were thrilled.

The crowds were building up outside the hall to be close to what was going on.

I nominate Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be the next Vice President of the United States of America!

WOMAN: It was as emotional an evening as I had ever seen at the Convention, thunderous, the response -- I get emotional to talk about it -- it was so spectacular.

ELEANOR S.: The floor of the Convention was virtually all women and women who had fought so hard for women's rights, and oh my God, it was such a wonderful moment.

Her standing up there all in white, looking like this tiny little figure, but looking beautiful and looking female.

GERALDINE: I was stunned by the reception.

All of a sudden, I look down and there were all women and children and so many of them were crying.

I remember thinking, I just don't want to make a mistake, I have to talk slowly.

I had never used prompters before then.

I also took my speech because I wanted to be sure if the prompters went out, that I could look down and read it.

I told my daughters whatever you do, don't cry because we can't.

Women can't cry over these things.

It's too emotional and it's a tough job and you have to be tough to be Vice President of the United States.

So I looked out and I said, my name is Geraldine Ferraro.

My name is Geraldine Ferraro.

(cheers) And the place went crazy.

(applause) Ladies and gentlemen of the Convention... (crowd cheering) I got two words out of my mouth and they'd applaud and were cheering, it was very, very slow.

It was almost like a dance between me and these people.

I stand before you to proclaim tonight, America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us.

As much as I was the Vice Presidential nominee to be, I don't think it really registered.

I was still Gerry Ferraro from Queens.

We will place no limits on achievement.

If we can do this, we can do anything!

(cheering) I was on the floor when she gave that speech and it was one of the most electric moments I've ever seen in American politics.

We must not go backwards.

We must and we will move forward to open the doors of opportunity.

(applause) MARIE: You don't know how that's going to affect you until you actually see it.

When they saw it, it was like the history washed over them.

What it meant for them washed over them and what it meant for their daughters.

(cheers and applause) To not see your personage reflected in the public world as a woman was a pain and when they saw her on stage and when they saw her in person, it was like a healing.

It was such a powerful message.

Even my Republican friends were thrilled that a woman was the Vice Presidential candidate and so there was this sense of it being a watershed, a historical turning.

GERALDINE: To all the children of America I say, we will pass on to you a stronger, more just America.

Thank you.

(applause) God, was I fortunate to have been chosen and the honor, the recognition of how great this country is, grandchild to two illiterate peasants.

I think there are a lot of people out there who are saying, never thought I'd live to see this day.

MONDALE: When that convention started, our chances of winning according to the polls we were taking were down about 15 percent behind Reagan and before the convention was over, we were even and in one poll, we started pulling out ahead and a lot of that was due to the popularity of that selection.

CELINDA: You saw the Democrats for the first time really energized and you saw people really say, oh wow, this is exciting, this is new.

People took a second look at this ticket.

I would like to introduce the next Vice President of the United States.

(applause) ELEANOR L.: We were in North Oaks meeting with Mondale and his staff and they made a presentation to Geraldine Ferraro of what the campaign was going to look like over the next four months and it was in ink and Geraldine Ferraro was livid.

MONDALE: She said, why is all of this in ink?

Why isn't it in pencil?

Why aren't I being asked before it's put in?

ELEANOR L.: And she got up and walked out.

She was not a partner in the decision making.

She was being told this was going to be her role.

This is not who Geraldine Ferraro was.

MONDALE: Finally, I said, well, let's meet again tomorrow morning and start over again.

I think that there was more room for her decision making than would have been the case if I had a male Vice President.

We were more inclined to say, this is where we want you to go, here's your staff, this is your schedule.

We didn't do that with Gerry, didn't have to.

I think she made up a better campaign for us as a result.

CROWD: We love Gerry!

We love Gerry!

The first lady of the Big Apple, the Queen of Queens, the next Vice President of the United States -- Geraldine Ferraro.

She really, in many ways, was all the best aspects of a rock star.

People had never seen crowds like that for a Vice Presidential candidate.

She had much bigger crowds than Walter Mondale or anybody else and I can remember them chanting, "Gerry!

Gerry!"

Huge crowds she had, scared me to death.

She was so attractive, but she just was a magnet for people.

DONNA: She loved to campaign.

She loved being around people.

She just got so much energy from the crowds and she was just very comfortable in her own skin.

We've chosen to come out to California because we're going to win California.

You don't have to be poor to hate poverty.

And you don't have to be black or Hispanic or Asian to loathe bigotry.

Every American should and most Americans do.

CELINDA: One of the things that people loved about her was her story of the immigrant family and the hard luck and Geraldine Ferraro always had such a common touch with people.

How did Archie Bunker ever elect you?

(laughter) Well folks, and I'll spread it to you here, Archie didn't, Edith did.

She was at home in the diner as she was on the world stage.

And she had a capability, I'll never forget, she'd kind of lean onto the podium and be talking to people directly.

MARIE: She looked at you like she valued you.

You felt like you actually were present and you mattered.

LAURA: I didn't think it was that big of a deal at the time and I had gone to an all-girls school and I had pretty much been given the message my whole life that I could do anything, so I think when people were so surprised, I thought, was it not true that anybody could do anything?

I want to prove that if we can do this, we can do anything.

LAURA: I have a memory of a woman thanking me for sharing my mother with the country and I thought, wow, this woman really needs my mother.

I think I started realizing that not everybody had been getting the message that I'd had been getting at home my whole life.

Let me introduce my family to you... Laura, Donna, John and John!

MONDALE: She's obviously not a phony.

She hasn't been programmed.

It's herself and she didn't let up, she went hard.

The time to elect Fritz Mondale President of the United States and Gerry Ferraro Vice President is not later, it's now!

Thank you!

MADELEINE: She asked me to be her regular foreign policy advisor and I did travel with her.

A group of us went up to brief her on issues during the campaign and it really was amazing.

I walked in and she put her arms around me and whispered in my ear, "Madeleine, do you have a half-slip?"

And that was really one of the funnier parts, in terms of this bond and the boys all wondered what she wanted with me because I was having a certain amount of trouble asserting myself as a woman doing national security, but we gave her a very strong briefing.

Gerry asked amazing questions.

This was like having somebody that was like a sponge.

I mean, she loved all this information.

ELEANOR L.: We were writing her speeches well into the early mornings.

Got her up at the crack of dawn, briefed her, she read her speech, she was quick to make changes that she thought were appropriate.

She had very little time, but she would rehearse.

WOMAN: She seemed indefatigable, Gerry was never tired.

COKIE: Her charisma was just incredible, not to mention her ability to just keep going forever and ever, amen.

JOAN: You're on this plane, you're trying to make all the major media markets with three or four take-offs and landings.

We as staff were exhausted all the time and all we had to do was show up and do our jobs.

She actually had to show up and do her job in front of thousands of people four times a day.

GERALDINE: And every city we go, we're breaking records, Atlanta, yesterday, 20,000 people.

Where did you just fly in from?

We came in from Harrisburg and we were in Dayton this morning.

How does your Queens-ese go over in a place like Iowa or Dayton?

Do they understand you?

I don't think I sound like a New Yorker, do you?

Did you know in Mississippi, we've had three Miss Americas?

MONDALE: We were down together in Mississippi and there was a politician out there and he asked, I think something like "Little lady, can you prepare a good blueberry muffin?"

Can you bake a blueberry muffin?

Sure can't.

(laughter) MONDALE: She bumped into stuff like that a lot on the trail.

Can you?

(laughter) CELINDA: She had this wonderful combination.

She could show her toughness and yet, be likeable, too.

She could stick the stiletto in smiling and it's just a model for women candidates.

I think that things are said still about women running for office that would never be said about a man.

Things like the word aggressive being applied to a woman is a negative, whereas, applied to a man, it's not.

I'm capable of leveling with the American public.

I'm capable of dealing, again, the hard things I'm willing to do.

And if you weren't a woman, do you think you would have been selected?

I don't know if I were not a woman, if I would be judged in the same way on my candidacy.

Whether or not I would be asked questions like, are you strong enough to push the button?

TV: This morning, Ferraro did exactly what she usually does, despite the rain, the reporters, and the secret service, it was Saturday and she and her husband went shopping.

She seemed determined that despite her historic nomination, that life would go on as usual.

Mrs. Ferraro, will it ever be the same again?

Maybe eventually when you guys get tired of going shopping with me.

CELINDA: Three things that we found that were very different for Ferraro -- more coverage of her appearance, which remains true today of women candidates, more coverage of her spouse, which remains true today of women candidates, and asked way more often than the man, what is your position on abortion?

GERALDINE: I've said on numerous occasions that I would never have an abortion if I were to become pregnant, but I don't know if I were ever to become pregnant as a result of a rape, whether or not I would be as self-righteous on the issue.

I don't know.

The choice though would have to be mine.

It's never too early to fight for children's rights?

What about the unborn, Gerry?

What about civil rights for them?

Hold it!

If this gentleman would be good enough, if you want, I'll meet with you afterwards and we'll discuss.

I really will.

CELINDA: Many candidates were very intimidated about talking about the abortion issue.

It hadn't even been legal for a decade at that point so this was a relatively new phenomenon.

It amazes me how people are supposedly pro-life don't care about the living.

(applause) I didn't come to my position on choice lightly.

I believe I'd deal with it according to my own religious views, which are unshakeable.

LAURA: We had gone to church every Sunday of my entire childhood so it was hard going to church and walking out and seeing pictures of dead fetuses and people screaming at you as you walked down the steps.

I remember talking to her about it and saying, I feel like we can't really win with this.

If we don't go to church, then they kind of won and they stopped us from going to church and then I think if she had changed her views, then, of course, she would have lost the point she was trying to make about separation of church and state.

It's the law of the land and it was decided by the Supreme Court.

What would you like me to do?

I wouldn't like you to do anything you wouldn't want to do, but it's not the law of your church.

Well I'm a public official of the government, not of my church.

They could not disqualify her on qualifications.

They went after her personally.

TV: The new Ferraro roadshow already has been somewhat overshadowed by her failure to disclose her husband's assets.

The reaction was, Gerry, I'm not going to tell you how to run the country, don't tell me how to run my business and at this point, no.

The finances had been kept separate.

They had filed separately for years and the original decision was, no, my husband isn't releasing his finances.

That turned out to be very, very controversial.

MONDALE: I think that decision was used by our opponents to just make hay out of us.

I would characterize it more as an attempt to politically embarrass me.

I'm not embarrassed.

Being a private person, I really didn't want anybody to know my business.

It's something I don't have to do and it really invades my privacy of what we do.

I think there's going to have to be something worked out.

Unfortunately, the issue became whether Mr. Zaccaro would disclose his income tax returns even though the law doesn't require that.

I didn't feel I should call and press her.

If I got into a position where I'm asking her, forcing her, or demanding that, I think our campaign would have been all over.

I think this was something that they had to decide what they were going to do.

I didn't release my taxes right away because they gave us 30 days and there were I think 14 accountants that went over our returns and scrutinized them and it took a lot of time.

Ferraro and her husband today released six years of income tax returns and a fact file detailing their holdings, their net worth.

The early indications are that they paid more in taxes on average than couples with similar incomes during that same period.

For Geraldine Ferraro, it was a make or break performance, a 90 minute news conference with more than 100 reporters.

You've got no sound.

GERALDINE: There's a mult-box on the table with one mic and I sat at the mic and it didn't work and I went outside and I said, I'll wait until you fix it and I went back after about ten minutes, and it still didn't work and I said, tell them to put all the microphones up because I wanted the public to see what I was going through.

Did I take advantage of the full amount of time the law allows me?

Absolutely.

Why?

Because I wanted to make sure this time it was absolutely right.

It becomes a contribution.

Hold on just a minute.

Let me check the law, wait just a minute.

REPORTER: A loan of $25,000 to the campaign was made by your husband.

We pay our taxes separately so I don't know... What's your point that you're trying to make?

Let me get one of the accountants up here to explain it more completely... Again, I will repeat, this is a very unusual situation.

I've been sitting here for close to two hours and I think I have answered that question several times.

The President of the United States gives you a half hour press conference with all the concerns of the world.

I gave you two hours and that's it.

I'm answering them, I can't answer anymore.

When it was all over, I felt I had answered everything that I could have and the press still wanted to focus on...

I think they wanted to write a story on my campaign of how the first woman didn't quite make it up to election day.

Geraldine Ferraro has passed a test of leadership and strength that will be reassuring to the American people.

The irony was when you get all done, there was no issue.

Those taxes were clean.

There were no issues really at all, but we lost the better part of a month on that issue.

We dropped dramatically in the polls and we never really got it back.

Today is the first day of the rest of this campaign.

Geraldine, we love you!

We love you, Gerry!

NANCY: The other side saw the power of Geraldine Ferraro's candidacy and they had to try to diminish it as soon as possible because in their view, it was important to stop this phenomenon.

TV: The Reagan/Bush campaign has been running an undercover operation designed to undermine the Mondale/Ferraro campaign.

There's not a master strategy laid out by this campaign to do the various things that are going on.

There was a covert operation, no question about it, and there were three or four people who were involved.

Mrs. Reagan was the catalyst.

Mrs. Ferraro had made a comment about the President not being a very good Christian because of his public policies.

The President walks around calling himself a good Christian.

I don't for one minute believe it because the policies are so terribly unfair.

ED: Mrs. Reagan became very irritated by that and she got one of her longtime political consultants out of California.

This counter-group that got started in the campaign, didn't know about it at the time, they were feeding two papers that were very aggressive.

What she went through was probably the toughest scrutiny anybody's ever, Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate, in history.

TV: The strategy is to have groups not officially connected to the campaign demand investigations of Geraldine Ferraro's finances, orchestrate a campaign of damaging leaks to the press, organize anti-abortion demonstrations, and encourage criticism by the Catholic hierarchy.

Mrs. Ferraro has misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic church.

GERALDINE: My religion has always been an integral part of my life, in the '84 campaign, they raised politics to a very large level.

TV: In May, greeting the pope in Alaska, in July, eating spaghetti at St. Anne's Church in Hoboken, and just last Sunday, John Cardinal Krol all but endorsed Mr. Reagan.

The Republicans were so smart because it was operating on so many levels.

It was operating on the level of knock her off the pedestal, stall the momentum that she had created.

This was the first time that a spouse had been used to bring down a woman and that has become a very tried and true strategy now, investigate the spouse.

TV: John Zaccaro hurried into a Queens' courtroom for a civil hearing.

JOHN: I wound up trying to defend myself from accusations and things that happened over my 40, 50 years in the real estate business.

I was not familiar with the technicalities of the law.

GERALDINE: I knew it had to come from someplace else.

I knew it had to be some sort of an investigative agency that was involved.

I remember at one point saying to my husband, I can't believe this is happening to us.

I'm an American.

Why don't they just come out and say that they're out discrediting Geraldine Ferraro?

Why don't they just say that that's the aim of this campaign?

I'm a political animal and I play hardball and I take the view, if you want to be in politics, you better be prepared for hardball.

What I got upset about was the attacks on Gerry's husband were totally unfair.

What did the media do with it?

They let it keep going.

TV: Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting in this morning's edition that the organized crime figure Michael La Rosa contributed money to Ferraro's last three congressional campaigns.

This building was granted by the Zaccaro firm, headed by John Zaccaro's father to a reputed mob leader for eight years.

You go through life suffering discrimination.

You just don't think they're going to stoop this low to imply that my husband has any sort of connection with organized crime.

I'm absolutely outraged.

COKIE: There was that underlying prejudice that is there that there's something about Italian-Americans, where they're just trying to get around the law, they're thieves in some way, or crooks.

(speaking Italian) I thought that the Italian-American community could have stood up and done something, but they didn't.

In fact, I think a lot of them continued to support Reagan instead of being proud of the fact that the first Italian-American woman is running for Vice President and could well be the President of the United States.

JOHN: Being Italian-American I guess is a problem.

It's offensive, but what are you going to do?

It's a part of life and being an Italian-American.

A lot of questions came up which I was not used to and didn't anticipate.

GERALDINE: When so much of that stuff came at us, I knew I was strong enough, I always wondered if he was strong enough because he had a very good life and all of a sudden, he was being pummeled by everybody in sight and I was so worried.

I have seen my father cry three times in his life.

One of them was during the campaign.

It was very difficult for my father who was not in his element there and I think it was very frustrating for him because he couldn't one, protect mom, but two, couldn't control the situation.

JOHN: I said, listen, for the kids' sake, we have to get through this the best we can and we have to stay strong.

GERALDINE: I'm the candidate, my husband is not.

Whatever happens after this election, I'm going to spend the rest of my life making it up to my husband, and I'll make it up to my mother, and I'll make it up to my kids.

JOHN: Even if I knew what I was going to go through, I would still tell her to go for it.

George Bush, you face him this Thursday night.

Are you looking forward to that debate very much?

Are you nervous about it?

Sure, I'm a little nervous.

I'd have to be a sick person if I weren't a little nervous about the fact that 15 million people will be watching.

TV: Pennsylvania Hall at the Philadelphia Civic Center, the site of tonight's Vice Presidential debate between George Bush and Geraldine Ferraro.

MONDALE: This is the second televised national Vice Presidential debate in American history and she was debating against a sitting Vice President.

This wasn't just another candidate.

ANNOUNCER: Good evening from the Civic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

DONNA: It's actually incredible that Vice President Bush agreed to debate her at all because that wasn't the precedent before.

There had been one Vice Presidential debate prior.

It had been with Mondale and Dole.

George Bush hadn't debated before this.

I didn't want to be referred to as a chicken and afraid to do something.

I don't think there was ever a question of not doing it.

It is very difficult to get the source information that you need to go after something as shadowy as international terror.

ED: She stood on the stage with a man who had basically been in politics, in very high level jobs, been Vice-President for four years, had been the United Nations Ambassador, a whole line of... and she held her own.

Let me first say that I wasn't born at the age of 43 when I entered Congress.

I did have a life before that as well.

I was worried about coming out looking too aggressive and too smarty-pants type of thing because I had my Queens sense of humor and so I was worried about how I was going to tone myself down.

I think what I'm going to have to do is I'm going to start correcting the Vice President's statistics.

I did not want him looking down on me.

He's tall and I'm all of 5'4", so we cheated a little bit.

We negotiated where I could walk up a ramp which nobody would see and where the platforms would be at almost the same level, and that by the way, has been used by every other candidate who has been, shall we say, vertically challenged, ever since.

Do you think in any way that the Soviets might be tempted to take advantage of you simply because you're a woman?

Are you saying that I would have to have fought in a war in order to love peace?

I'm not saying that.

I'm asking you... (applause) You know what I asked.

I think what happens is when you try to equate whether or not I've had military experience, that's the natural conclusion.

It's about as valid as saying you would have to be black in order to despise racism.

I had to show that I was serious and that I had sufficient experience, not only to be Vice President, but if the need ever arose to be President of the United States.

If I were in a position of leadership in this country, they would be assured that they would be met with swift, concise, and certain retaliation.

MODERATOR: Vice President Bush?

BUSH: All I remember is just being tense about everything.

Part of it was, everybody said, you're debating the first time a woman has ever run for national office like this.

You've got to be very careful and you've got to be sure you don't seem overbearing and rude.

Let me help you with the difference, Mrs. Ferraro, between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon.

Iran, we were held by a foreign government... Hard for a man to run against a woman, the first woman, because you're apt to be patronizing.

Let me just say first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy.

(applause) I have been a member of Congress for six years.

I was there when the embassy was held hostage.

BUSH: Got a huge hand, particularly from the press.

It was a good line and it was memorable and, of course, I was saying to myself, I'm not patronizing the woman.

Secondly, please don't categorize my answers either.

Leave the interpretation of my answers to the American people who are watching this debate and let me say...

I tapped my best friend, she was beside me and I said, isn't she fabulous?

I'm not going to let you lay on me the intrusion of state politics into religion or religion into politics by my comments with reference to the President's policies.

And my friend turned around and said, you can't make a man look this bad and live.

Walter Mondale and I have just begun to fight.

(cheers and applause) ELEANOR S.: We were so happy after that debate, we had stood toe to toe, I mean, it was us standing toe to toe.

CELINDA: Women thought she had absolutely trounced him, absolutely won the debate.

Men thought he won the debate, raised good questions about her confidence.

So there was a huge gender effect in terms of response to the debate.

Did I win that debate?

(applause) I think most people thought she'd be taken to the cleaners, but instead, I think, and the public opinion polls indicated they thought she had won.

The fighter from Philly, the winner and new champion, the next Vice President of the United States -- Gerry Ferraro!

While everyone was arguing about who won last night, Bush offered his own judgment and it immediately got him into trouble.

He said, "We tried to kick a little ass last night."

Well, it's an athletic expression and I stand behind it, I use it all the time, my kids use it, everybody that competes in sports use it.

I just don't like to use it in public.

Mr. Bush was about as accurate in his assessment of the results of the debate as he was in the facts and figures he put forth during the debate.

I do not think she is as well qualified to be President as my Vice Presidential candidate, but I...

In an off-the-record remark, Mrs. Bush called Geraldine Ferraro a, "Four million dollar, I can't say it but it rhymes with Rich."

Well, I was really talking about a witch, it was Halloween, not the other word.

I don't think it and I don't feel it and I hope I didn't cause her any embarrassment.

I called George in tears and said, I've lost the campaign for you.

This is terrible!

Mrs. Bush called and apologized and was very gracious and very nice.

MRS. BUSH: And she said, oh, don't be silly, that's nothing.

Don't even worry about it, she was so sweet about it.

She said she didn't intend to call me a name and she did not call me any names.

Do you believe her?

Yes, I do, she's a very nice lady, and I said, I'd see her Thursday.

CROWD: Gerry!

Gerry!

Gerry!

TV: In the Northwest, there were more big enthusiastic crowds, but crowds don't erase the reality of how far behind the Democrats are.

I'm convinced more than ever that the pollsters and the pundits are wrong, wrong, wrong!

Today we have a brand new race.

Can we beat Ronald Reagan?

If you believe in your kids, you give them the best possible education you can get your hands on.

You can like Ronald Reagan, but just don't vote for him!

MONDALE: The polls show that most of the basic arguments about where we wanted to take America, the American people were on our side, so in a sense, we made the sale on issues, but something else was missing.

If Fritz Mondale had gotten Jesus to come back and serve on the ticket in 1984, he would have lost.

It just wasn't to be.

It was going to be a Republican year and a Republican landslide no matter what.

TV: NBC news now is able to project the re-election of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 73-year-old President of the United States, the winner of this contest in one of the most impressive Presidential victories in American history.

CROWD: Four more years!

I think that's just been arranged.

(cheers) In the end, women voted for Ronald Reagan.

The ticket was trounced among men and women.

ED: It was just one of these years in which everything came together for us.

I like to think we ran a great campaign, and equally important, we had a very strong candidate and the country was feeling good about President Reagan so I don't think anybody would have beat him or touched him.

I was absolutely convinced we'd win, you know, and it was very hard not to because there was such enthusiasm for her, but definitely she was not the problem.

A few minutes ago, I called the President of the United States and congratulated him on his victory for re-election as President of the United States.

MRS. BUSH: She wasn't running for President.

Vice President doesn't necessarily win an election, which is maybe good or maybe bad, but it doesn't.

JOAN: I remember that night Gerry sitting on the couch with her family and listening to the results.

It was not a sad moment at all.

It was like a sense of having done the good fight.

GERALDINE: I have more than once said that if God have ever said to me, "you know, Gerry, sit down and I'm going to show you a videotape of the next six months of your life, this is what's going to happen if you get the nomination," I would have done it because I do think that as difficult as it was for me on a personal level, the campaign and the candidacy did make a difference for women in this country.

We fought hard.

We gave it our best and we made a difference.

(applause) After the campaign on election night, I called up George Bush to concede and congratulate, he got on the phone and he said, well we're going to have to have lunch.

BUSH: I just wanted her to know that you win some, you lose some and it doesn't hurt to be civil.

GERALDINE: I didn't think that he would ever call up.

That's not something you say to somebody, oh, let's have lunch, oh okay.

BUSH: It was pretty easy for me to be pleasant to Geraldine and so I'm glad we reached out.

GERALDINE: So we went down to the old executive office building into his office and we had a great lunch.

BUSH: It was almost like there were never any competition or any worrying about that.

George is innately polite and innately kind and he liked her.

I would prefer to have been the host today, but under the circumstances, I'll take what I can get.

Free lunch.

(laughter) BARBARA M.: Though she lost the election, she was determined that she would not lose her way.

She was deeply committed to public service and she wanted to continue to find a way to serve.

GERALDINE: My mother taught me that if something goes wrong, move on.

This is what my set of circumstances are.

Let me figure it out and let me deal with it as best I can.

People keep asking if that Italian-American from New York has decided about their candidacy.

Well, I want you to know, I appreciate your interest.

(laughter) DONNA: In 1992, she decided to run for the Senate.

Going into the weekend before the primary, she was in first place and it seemed like she was going to win.

TV: Questions Gerry Ferraro won't answer -- collecting $340,000 in rent from a child pornographer... CELINDA: Her opponents ran very tough negative ads on ethics, on finances, resurrecting some of the attacks that many of us thought had been put to rest.

Those smears and lies, they have attempted to destroy my candidacy.

DONNA: And we watched my mother's lead dissipate over the course of the weekend.

And we need someone in the U.S. Senate that doesn't need to be told how to get rid of a child pornographer... CELINDA: The fight between two women candidates let the man win the nomination.

She did not fade from the scene.

She stayed active on behalf of issues and causes that she knew were important.

People wanted to use her star quality for raising money, getting votes, and so forth.

There are not a lot of people who can do that.

GERALDINE: I've taken advantage of where I am in order to say, yeah, let me not stop here and say, great for me, terrific, that's it.

If you don't take advantage of where you are to make it better for the next person, why are you there?

One of the things I've done over the last number of weeks is I've been out campaigning for the Clinton ticket throughout the country.

I didn't think her career was over.

I thought she had a lot of talent and I needed her.

She was from a different part of the country.

I thought she'd help with women voters.

She was interested in creating opportunity for everybody.

She spent the night in the White House and we talked half the night.

I got her to tell me a lot of New York political stories.

At the time, I never lived in New York and I was fascinated about it and you could tell how totally rooted she still was in the place she grew up.

And I think that's important.

I think people give up something if they willingly walk away when they're very successful from where they start.

HILLARY: My husband asked her to serve on the Human Rights Commission at the United Nations because she had been a symbol of women's rights and of human rights and she'd been a fierce advocate for both.

Very many countries practice a tradition of female circumcision.

That is a violation of women's human rights... MADELEINE: We spent a lot of time talking about what the issues were.

How women's rights and human rights went together and she was an excellent representative of those kinds of things.

GERALDINE: There is not equality yet in this country or anywhere in its force throughout the world.

I've had some impact.

Enough?

Never enough.

Not unless it's equal.

Nobody viewed her as a politician anymore.

They viewed her as a leader without the political, shall we say, designation.

When she spoke, she validated whatever she set out to support and nobody thought, oh, she's doing this for political reasons.

TV: From Washington, "Crossfire."

On the left, Geraldine Ferraro... GERALDINE: Doing the things I was doing on CNN where I was a spectator of what was going on here in Washington, I decided that this was the one opportunity that I would have to once again get back into public service and make a difference for the future, so I'm back into the fight.

DONNA: In '98, she still wanted to be senator, but she got into the race a little bit late and she lost very decidedly that time and I think she knew then that that was the end of her political career.

♪ GERALDINE: After it was all over, I couldn't understand why I was so tired and so that December, I went for my annual checkup.

My doctor said to me, you have either leukemia, lymphoma, or multiple myeloma.

I said, I get what the first two are, but what's multiple myeloma and he said, it's a blood disease as well.

And he mentioned that she, with this blood disease and cancer, she has three to five years to live, which was a shock to us.

GERALDINE: I felt worse for my husband because he just couldn't get over the fact that this very healthy vibrant woman is now being given a death sentence.

JOHN: She's not going to do this alone, I'll be with her.

Every doctor's appointment, what hospital she had to be at, what operation she was involved in, I was there, took her, and stayed with her.

We'll just ride this wave as long as we can.

Hopefully, we can keep it going for forever.

I wasn't going to become public about this.

I was no longer a public figure and I had a right to keep my private life private and so we kept it quiet for a year and a half.

She just was never a victim and she kept going, so I don't know many people that have that much resilience and energy.

JOHN: She wanted to help raise money for cancer, multiple myeloma.

She was upbeat and she felt good at that time and she thought it was the right thing to do.

Cancer doesn't only eat at your body.

It is a disease that can destroy you both emotionally and psychologically.

We'll be there for you.

GERALDINE: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senator Mikulski, my buddy down there, put in a bill for $250 million for blood cancer research and the $25 million education bill named the Geraldine Ferraro Education Bill, for me, and it was to educate people on this whole issue of multiple myeloma.

A very close member of my family is Geraldine Ferraro.

I regard her like a sister and when I heard of this information and her situation, I was determined to work on a bipartisan basis on this.

She would call me from time to time and say, you know, there's no money going into research here.

There's just not enough of advocacy or understanding about this.

She said, I'm going to fight it.

You know me, I just don't give up.

GERALDINE: I will help raise awareness.

I will help raise money.

I will nudge people I know who can make a difference as far as research is concerned.

This is a race I may not win, but I've lost other races before so it's not the end of the world.

You have been a role model for so many women who are in politics.

I being one of them and I just want to thank you so much for all you've done for so many of us.

GERALDINE: George Bush actually signed the bill.

I went down to the White House and afterwards at the signing, I said, can we take a picture?

And he said, I'm liable to ruin your reputation, and I said to him, well, if your father didn't, you won't, so the two of us took a very nice picture which he signed and I now have in my office.

(applause) Thank you very much.

I did not ever think I would run for office.

I cared deeply about politics and the values that I thought were the right ones for the country, but I didn't see myself in electoral politics and then when I ran for President, she was 100 percent behind me, in part because she saw it as unfinished business.

BILL CLINTON: And we had such a good time together in Hillary's campaign.

She was always kidding me about how Hillary was smarter than I was and didn't I recognize that this was evidence of the natural superiority of women?

She was always goading me on it, and I always looked forward to seeing her every time because I knew there would be something she'd say to just try to make sure I wasn't too puffed up, you know, to make fun of me.

I loved that.

HILLARY: And of course the fact that it was such a historic race, a woman running against an African-American, was an incredibly complicated political environment to navigate through.

GERALDINE: I looked at the candidates who were there.

To be quite frank, I didn't even think of Barack Obama because I didn't know him, I never met him.

You know, she's my senator, I've seen her at work, she's delivered, but God, she's a woman and every time a woman runs, it does have impact on what women and girls think they can do.

So I endorsed her.

TV: The Clinton campaign is under fire after supporter Geraldine Ferraro made some provocative comments about Barack Obama... TV: I think if Senator Clinton is serious about putting an end to statements that have racial implications... TV: Statements from Geraldine Ferraro seems to be the headline right at this hour.

My problem is that I've always been very, very honest and it's a good thing I think and when I'm asked a question, I give an answer, and the question to me was, "Why do you think Barack Obama is doing so well?"

And I said...

If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for Hillary?

If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he's in?

Absolutely not.

TV: Geraldine, are you playing the race card?

One of the things that I've said is, in my candidacy, and I've said it numerous times, and I added it in this interview, that if I were not a woman, I would not have gotten the nomination.

If my name were Gerard Ferraro, if I had been elected, I would still be in Congress now and so I made a statement.

There was nothing racist about it.

And I speak about his start -- wait, wait, wait!

And I fought back and my family said, why don't you just let it go?

And I couldn't.

And I couldn't because it wasn't true.

I couldn't because I knew that there were people here that I really cared about and I certainly didn't want them to think I was racist and dear God, I certainly didn't want that to go down to my children and my grandchildren.

Gerry was her usual straightforward self, called it as she saw it.

I thought she was unfairly criticized and yet, I knew and she knew, we're not novices, we knew that it kind of came with the territory, but I was always proud to have her stalwart, outspoken support.

GERALDINE: When I walked into the booth on Election Day, she was going to do what I couldn't do and I looked up at her name and I swear, you know, Susan B. Anthony was standing beside me.

It really...

I'm sitting there saying to myself...they're saying to me, pull it, well of course I'm gonna pull it, but all of a sudden, I felt that all the work that had been done...you've got to give me a minute.

Let me get off of this for a minute.

♪ I felt the work that had been done for over 100 years has finally reached fruition.

It was the first and only time I ever cried when I voted.

I didn't cry when I voted for myself in 1984.

We knew we were going to go down.

It was probably one of the proudest moments of my life, was being able to pull that lever for a woman for President.

♪ HILLARY: She talked to me about what was really important in life, she said, you know, you're out there running for President and I really want to see you win and I'm going to do everything I can, but, she said, we all have to be reminded about what's really important in life.

When it comes to the hard stuff, you have to stand up for the people that you love no matter what the world says.

I am very grateful because that was important to me in my own life.

GERALDINE: What's happened over the past eight months, and evidentially the past ten years, is that my bones have lesions all over them due to the myeloma so as a result, I've had something like eight fractures and I didn't do anything, I didn't even fall down.

I just, I lift a pot of water and I break a rib.

I go for a walk and all of a sudden, a bone chips off of my hip.

JOHN: She did very well for several years, but the last couple of years, it caught up with her.

It just got worse.

She was more worried about me than herself.

Really.

What's going to happen to me?

And I'm sure that she told the children, gave them directions.

DONNA: The night before she died, I was sitting at her bedside and there was an email from President Bush.

I opened it up and I read the letter to her.

BUSH: Dear Gerry, I hear you've been badly under the weather and I'm very sorry about that.

I often think of our strange but wonderful relationship and I hope you know that I consider you a real friend.

In fact, I hope it's okay if I say I love you.

Barbara is fine and life for us in Houston is good.

Warmest regards, GB.

♪ DONNA: And it was the last thing that she heard from anyone who wasn't in our family.

BUSH: That's the way I felt and from the heart.

♪ GERALDINE: I don't know what my greatest accomplishments are.

And maybe they were little ones, but there were little ones in a whole bunch of different places, with the next step for somebody else to pile upon, but I think that I've delivered.

I've delivered on my mother's dream and I've delivered for myself as well.

Would I still like to have input?

Yeah, but there's lots of people out there who can do what I can do, so I'm okay, I'm okay.

There are things left to do but it's not necessary that I have to do them.

CROWD: Gerry!

Gerry!

Gerry!

♪