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When the minutiae were beyond her, she did not hesitate to summon one of her lawyers from the wings, and later an accountant. As the accountant started whispering information to her, she showed impeccable instincts: "Irwin," she asked, "why don't you tell them?" She described intimate family decisions to explain some of her actions. In 1971, after her husband's brother and father had died of cancer in quick succession, Zaccaro suggested she get a license " 'in case something happens to me,' to keep the business going and, you know, take care of our kids."
When one reporter suggested that her family lives high on the hog, Ferraro's reply was angled perfectly to catch the prevailing political winds. "You're seeing people who work very hard. We're not flashy—we buy property and we maintain it, and it appreciates. That's what America is all about." When asked if she was being held to a double standard because of her sex, she did not rise to the bait. Nor at other opportunities did she hide her feminism. When she went to a bank to finance her first House campaign in 1978, Ferraro revealed, she was aghast to learn she needed Zaccaro to co-sign for a loan. In order to establish her technical financial autonomy and thus avoid such humiliations, Zaccaro and she began filing separate tax returns. "I can give you a speech about how hard it is for women to raise money to run for office," Ferraro said.
She sounded frank and loving about her husband. "He is a very private person, and he's not the candidate—I am." Before finally agreeing to release his tax returns, "we got through a whole discussion, and ... his reaction then was, 'Gerry, I don't want to hurt you, you know—here they are.' " Still, when a defense of Zaccaro would have been foolish, she demurred. After learning early this year that he had, in 1979, bought back her half-share in the Manhattan building, she said, " 'Why did you do it?'... He said, 'It was legal.' And I said, 'Sure it was, but it doesn't look so hot.' But you know—what can I tell you?" She made a que será gesture of bemusement an actress would have admired.
When it came to explanations of the financial disclosure exemption she has claimed as a House member, however, Ferraro was earnest but unpersuasive. Her tax returns report income from Zaccaro's business, and he pays the property taxes on all four of their homes. Yet to claim an exemption, a House member must get no benefit from a spouse's wealth, nor even have "the possibility of an inheritance from the interest." Ferraro's basic argument is that because she and Zaccaro have separate incomes, his wealth and its sources are irrelevant to her congressional performance.