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Negotiations with Carter forces failed to produce a compromise, and finally, as ERA Coordinator for NBA Linda Tarr-Whelan said, "it seemed to come down to the fact that we were either for ERA or we weren't, and we couldn't let the message get lost —Democrats are for ERA."
As far as many women delegates were concerned, the strength they showed on the convention floor was just the beginning. Said an elated Daphne Gratiot of Woodstock, Vt.: "It is only a taste of things to come." She may be right. Further bolstering the women's position was passage by the convention Rules Committee of a measure requiring that future conventions, the Democratic National Committee, state Democratic committees—in fact, all Democratic Party bodies—be composed equally of men and women. The consequence: women have good reason to expect that they will soon be moving into positions of power in the party's councils. And as Wallace Hyde, a member of the Carter-Mondale Finance Committee, said, "In politics, votes are power."