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Generally, defeated vice presidential candidates are automatically considered prime contenders for their party's next open presidential nomination: Sarah Palin after 2008, John Edwards after 2004, Joe Lieberman after 2000, and so on. Even Jack Kemp, his political career briefly resurrected when Bob Dole unexpectedly added him to the Republican ticket in August 1996, was talked up as a 2000 prospect after that campaign -- even if his dull performance on the campaign trail soured many Republicans on the idea of making him a future standard-bearer.

But that's not how Ferraro’s story went.

After she and Walter Mondale suffered their epic defeat in November 1984, virtually every prominent and half-prominent Democrat in America was discussed as a potential party savior for 1988, from Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart to Bruce Babbitt and Michael Dukakis. But almost never did the name of the first woman ever to run for vice president on a major party ticket come up.

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With that remark (and a few brash follow-ups), Ferraro risked sweeping away her status as a herald of groundbreaking social change, to become a symbol of the opposite: a reactionary unable to keep up with the times and celebrate our first black president. Sadly, she told my colleague Rebecca Traister in 2009 that the controversy was something "I probably will go to my grave with."

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A family friend acting as a spokeswoman for the family say Ferraro, who was diagnosed with blood cancer in 1998, died Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ferraro was an obscure New York City congresswoman when she was catapulted to national prominence at the 1984 Democratic convention. Walter Mondale chose her to run with him against incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

In the end, Reagan won 49 of the 50 states, the largest landslide in nearly half a century.

Some observers said legal troubles involving her husband and son were a drag on Ferraro's later political ambitions, which included her unsuccessful bids for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in New York in 1992 and 1998.

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"I sat next to her once. Thought she was beautiful," the former first lady tells the CNN host. "And she's very happy in Alaska. And I hope she'll stay there."

Bush's apparently dim view of Palin as a politician isn't exactly surprising. While she's largely stayed silent on policy issues through the years, she has on several occasions distanced herself publicly from the GOP's right-wing base. In her 1994 memoir, she confessed to supporting abortion rights under some circumstances and lashed out at the far-right tone that Pat Buchanan struck in his infamous speech at the 1992 Republican convention. In many ways, she and her husband typify the wealthy, Northeastern, culturally moderate WASP aristocracy that ruled the GOP before the Goldwater/Reagan forces took over. When he ran for president in 1980, don't forget, George H.W. Bush dismissed Ronald Reagan's tax cut plan as "voodoo economics" and expressed support for abortion rights.

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In an interview with PBS' "Now," Ferraro looked back at the primaries, saying:

People at that time were so angry. I was [hearing] "I cannot vote for Obama for what they did to Hillary and I cannot vote for McCain, so I'm either going to write in her name or maybe I will vote for McCain." They were ambivalent; they just didn't know what to do with this thing, but they were definitely not voting for Obama. I think a lot of that has moved since then and I think time has healed some of this. I think Hillary has healed some of it. And believe it or not, I think even Sarah Palin's nomination has [helped to heal the anger]—not that they see her as equivalent to Hillary Clinton.

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Palin is the epitome of tokenism, exactly what conservative Republicans have always claimed to scorn, until today, as the politics of quotas and political correctness. Even Rush Limbaugh is a feminazi now (at least until Election Day).

But if Palin's résumé is limited, to put it politely, she possesses the only two qualities that McCain now seems to consider essential: She is a right-wing religious ideologue with female gender characteristics. Suddenly that is all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief of the world's most powerful military. We probably won't hear so much from now on about "experience" and "judgment," McCain's vaunted standard for the presidency until ... today. We certainly won't hear again about the "person most prepared to take my place," the phrase he has used more than once to describe his main criterion for a running mate.

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“I understand that a lot of people are asking, 'What does Hillary want?'" She ticked off three or four policy priorities, but her real answer was this: "I want the nearly 18 million people who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, to be no longer invisible."

The pro-Hillary crowd at Baruch College roared, and so did the pundits on television. But it was a different kind of roar. They were outraged that she hadn't conceded. Over on MSNBC they had the vapors all evening over Clinton's refusing to die. Chris Matthews doubted she could be Obama's running mate no matter what she said Tuesday night, because for him the question is: "Can she obey? Can she accept the subservience?"

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Ferraro, who resigned from Hillary Clinton's finance committee after the controversy, writes that she and a group of other women "have requested that the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and others conduct a study, which we will pay for if necessary, to determine three things." Those things are, she says:

First, whether either the Clinton or Obama campaign engaged in sexism and racism; second, whether the media treated Clinton fairly or unfairly; and third whether certain members of the media crossed an ethical line when they changed the definition of journalist from reporter and commentator to strategist and promoter of a candidate. And if they did to suggest ethical guidelines which the industry might adopt.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/05/30/ferraro_2/feed/ 323 http://www.salon.com/2008/04/04/randi_rhodes/ http://www.salon.com/2008/04/04/randi_rhodes/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2008/04/04/randi_rhodes With progressive pundits like Randi Rhodes, who needs wingnuts?

During a recent appearance in San Francisco, the radio shock jock became the latest poster child for mean grown-up of the year. First she called Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "fucking whores," along with an inchoate tribute to Eliot Spitzer: "At least [he] spent $80,000 on women." If you must watch the drivel firsthand, get thee here.

Thursday Air America Radio announced that Rhodes had been suspended because of the comments, so good for it. Yet such suspensions won’t offer but a drop in the bucket against our wasteland of media vitriol. Forget sex and violence; I think playground cruelty is the source of the most obscenity. Have you seen the outdoor ad campaign for the new romantic comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"? The black-and-white billboards proclaim: "I'm So Over You, Sarah Marshall," "You Suck Sarah Marshall," "My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall," and "You Do Look Fat in Those Jeans, Sarah Marshall." It's the first time I've wanted to shield my daughter's eyes from a spectacle in the city.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/04/04/randi_rhodes/feed/ 103 http://www.salon.com/2008/03/28/surrogates/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/28/surrogates/#comments Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/28/surrogates The loose-lips rogue's gallery includes a mega-billionaire Hollywood dealmaker, a retired Air Force general, a legendary Democratic political consultant, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Kennedy School professor, the former Iowa Democratic chairman, an African-American billionaire businessman, the husband of a popular two-term former Democratic governor and a history-making feminist political icon. Even without their names (which range from David Geffen to Geraldine Ferraro), any hardcore cable news viewer or insatiable political Web surfer probably recognizes them instantly. They are the Chastised Eight, all campaign surrogates guilty in the court of public opinion of shouting (or writing) fighting words on the fringes of the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton presidential brawl.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/28/surrogates/feed/ 99 http://www.salon.com/2008/03/14/ferraro_clinton/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/14/ferraro_clinton/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:37:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason//2008/03/14/ferraro_clinton Can we please, please hear no more from Geraldine Ferraro? Unless, of course, she opens her mouth to offer an abject apology to Barack Obama, which doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

After her recent excursions into political commentary, which have so badly embarrassed her and her preferred presidential candidate, a period of discreet reflection might be advised. Unfortunately, the very first line of her embittered letter of resignation to Hillary Clinton hinted otherwise: "I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself ..."

That is fair warning, but also an opportunity to examine a living historical relic with candor instead of mere courtesy.

Until lately, Ferraro was an admired waxwork, a symbol of national progress and a brief entry in a child's textbook. Then she confided her opinion of the Democratic presidential front-runner to a California newspaper. "If [Barack] Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/14/ferraro_clinton/feed/ 497 http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro/#comments Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:28:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2008/03/13/ferraro Several readers have asked me why I hadn't covered the controversy over Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Barack Obama during the initial frenzy. First off, we just don't have time to cover everything. We also missed out, regrettably, on covering a good Wall Street Journal article about the NSA and domestic spying, and were a day later than I would have liked to have been on McClatchy's story about a Pentagon-sponsored report showing no direct operational links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaida. But if there was reader complaint about those omissions, I didn't see it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro/feed/ 186 http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro_resigns/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro_resigns/#comments Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:14:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2008/03/12/ferraro_resigns After becoming for a time the center of the attention devoted to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Wednesday Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from her position as a member of Hillary Clinton's finance committee.

Ferraro, a former congresswoman who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984, had touched off the controversy when remarks about Barack Obama that she made to the Daily Breeze, a small California newspaper, came to national attention earlier this week. Ferraro told the paper:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/13/ferraro_resigns/feed/ 185 http://www.salon.com/2008/02/04/undecided/ http://www.salon.com/2008/02/04/undecided/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2008/02/04/undecided Here are some comments that I make, every four years or so, when the television networks cut from the end of a presidential debate to a living room full of mysteriously undecided voters: "Where do they get these people?" "Who is dumb enough to be undecided this close to an election?" "Do they not read newspapers?"

And here's a comment I've made many times in recent weeks, before the Democratic debates, after the Democratic debates, at my office, at restaurants with friends, over professional lunches: "I have no idea who I'm going to vote for."

Much to my consternation, it's almost Super Tuesday, and I am an undecided voter. I am a political junkie, a Democrat; I read the papers. But for the first time in my life, barring some truly dramatic last-minute development, I am going to walk into a voting booth on Tuesday, pull a curtain closed, and see how the spirit moves me.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/02/04/undecided/feed/ 660 http://www.salon.com/2007/11/05/debate_7/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/05/debate_7/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:58:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/11/05/debate The debate over the debate has devolved into a sniping match among the surrogates.

Former Rep. and vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, tells the New York Times that the way Clinton was treated at last week's Democratic presidential debate shows that it's still "OK in this country to be sexist."

"John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours the way they attacked her," Ferraro says. "I think if Barack Obama had been attacked for two hours -- well, I don't think Barack Obama would have been attacked for two hours."

Kate Michelman, the former NARAL Pro-Choice America chairwoman who is now an advisor to John Edwards, counters with a blog post and statement (posted online by the Edwards campaign) in which she accuses Clinton of trying to "have it both ways" when it comes to gender.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/05/debate_7/feed/ 34 http://www.salon.com/2007/04/03/fox_news_democrats/ http://www.salon.com/2007/04/03/fox_news_democrats/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:06:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2007/04/03/fox_news_democrats So far the lefty blogosphere is one for two in its campaign to keep Democratic presidential candidates from debating on Fox News. On March 9, after both John Edwards and Bill Richardson announced that they would not participate, the Nevada Democratic Party dropped plans for a debate to be broadcast by Fox. On March 29, the Congressional Black Caucus announced that it would go forward with its own Fox-sponsored Democratic presidential debate in the fall.

But boycotting debates is not the same as boycotting a network. Most of those national Democrats who've criticized Fox, like former Clinton advisor Paul Begala and pollster Mark Mellman, have stopped short of calling for the party to avoid Fox altogether. They would just like Democrats to realize what they're getting into. "As long as you're willing to treat Fox News as a political adversary, and you think you can use Fox News to further your arguments, you should do it," says Matt Stoller, a blogger at MyDD.com and a leader of the charge against the debates. "But don't go on there assuming that Fox News is a neutral news outlet."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/04/03/fox_news_democrats/feed/ 148 http://www.salon.com/2001/04/11/china_27/ http://www.salon.com/2001/04/11/china_27/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2001 00:22:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//feature/2001/04/10/china After meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II Tuesday, President Bush did something about the spy plane standoff with China he had until then refused to do: He answered reporters' questions about the crisis, as it entered Day 10.

"Diplomacy sometimes takes a little longer than people would like," Bush told reporters, in a press conference that featured no flashes of diplomatic or political acumen, but no flubs, either.

Bush's defense of diplomacy might have seemed a simple, Stuart Smalley-style affirmation, but it actually took some courage, in the face of mounting criticism of his cautious China policy from conservative allies.

Tuesday's other major China news involved an American political leader doing something that comes much more naturally for him than press conferences do for Bush: The Rev. Jesse Jackson offered to travel to China to negotiate the return of the 24 crew members being held against their will, pending a resolution of the stalemate between the U.S. and China.

The Bush administration is said to have given the Democratic leader a gentle brushoff. Though Jackson was no doubt eager to burnish his image after a love-child scandal forced him to take a leave from public life earlier this year (a leave that lasted only a weekend), he did successfully negotiate the release of American POWs during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2001/04/11/china_27/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/2000/05/05/cardinal/ http://www.salon.com/2000/05/05/cardinal/#comments Fri, 05 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2000/05/05/cardinal The doctors gave up and said that there was no hope; the cancer had spread to my mother's brain. They recommended that we find a hospice where my mother could spend the remaining months of her life. We got her a room at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, an Archdiocese of New York facility where terminally ill patients are treated with dignity and extraordinary care, where the aim is comfort, not cure.

When we arrived at the hospice, we were greeted by the medical director. He said he would personally supervise my mother's case. We met with the social workers and the staff chaplains, who were particularly concerned with making arrangements so that we, an Orthodox Jewish family, would be entirely comfortable in a Catholic hospital. They arranged for kosher food and took down the crucifix in my mother's room.

The check-in procedure at the hospital, while highly emotional, went smoothly. After it was over, I commented to the director about the amazing attention the facility's staff gives its patients and their families.

He thanked me and explained, "Well, it's not every day the cardinal calls."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2000/05/05/cardinal/feed/ 0 http://www.salon.com/1999/11/15/vp_2/ http://www.salon.com/1999/11/15/vp_2/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/11/15/vp Back in 1984, when Walter Mondale was interviewing potential vice presidential candidates, he announced that he intended to share the Democratic ticket with a woman. But, he said, memorably, "there are certain realities" he had to face, namely that women "wouldn't have the same range of experience" as men -- nor could anyone expect that they would.

When Mondale chose Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, she was one of only 24 women in the House. Today, there are 56. And while Nancy Landon Kassebaum and Paula Hawkins were the only female senators in 1984, today there are nine.

Fifteen years and four elections later, Ferraro remains the only woman ever to have graced the presidential ticket for a major party. But the picture -- and the VP pipeline -- has changed. The buzz created by Elizabeth Dole's short-lived grass-roots presidential campaign and the rise of politicians like Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is helping fuel speculation that the leading presidential candidates may tap women as their running mates in 2000.

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