(7 of 9)
The immediate result will be a burst of publicity for the Democratic ticket and attention that no other choice could buy. "Ferraro will give us the opportunity to get double coverage," exults John Sasso, an aide to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (the white male who probably would have received the V.P. nod had Mondale played it safe). But there is a risk: the slightest hesitancy or overaggressiveness in manner, any fumbled response to a question or verbal gaffe will be enormously magnified. Ferraro is a streetwise campaigner who has won three elections to Congress as a liberal Democrat from Archie Bunker's district in Queens. (She likes to say, "Archie didn't elect me. Edith did.") But she is untested in a national campaign.
At a joint appearance with the head of the ticket for a picnic and press conference Friday in Mondale's home town of Elmore, Minn. (pop. 882), Ferraro got a mixed reception from a curious crowd. As anti-abortion pickets stood on the fringes of the group, Ferraro stated courageously, if more than a bit redundantly, "The choice has to be the choice of the woman facing the choice." That drew applause. But she went on to assert that "the President walks around calling himself a good Christian, but I don't for one minute believe it because the policies are so terribly unfair." It was the kind of harsh, overpersonal and unfair remark that could land her in deep trouble.
The main hope of Democrats is that Ferraro will draw to the polls many women who do not ordinarily vote, convert to the Democratic cause some Republican women who doubt that their party takes them seriously and bring to Mondale's banner legions of zealous female campaign workers. Women already are a majority of the electorate; they cast 6 million more votes than men did in 1980. Reagan took 46% of their vote, to 45% for Jimmy Carter, but that was much smaller than his plurality among men, and since then every poll has shown Reagan running considerably worse among females than males.
There are some early signs that the Democrats' strategy of broadening the gender gap into a chasm may be effective. In Virginia, after Ferraro's selection, women workers in day care centers began asking every parent to register and vote. In Alabama, Mondale campaign headquarters logged within hours 65 calls from women volunteers. But how widespread will this phenomenon be, how long will it last and to what ex- tent might it be offset by a backlash among men and more traditionalist women?
A CBS News/New York Times poll of 747 voters taken immediately after the choice of Ferraro indicated less enthusiasm at the grass roots than among political activists. Majorities of both sexes—62% of men, 54% of women—gave the selection a blah, "all right" rating. But among men, only 13% were excited by the choice; 20% thought it a "bad idea." The margin among women was surprisingly small: 22% excited, 18% saying "bad idea." One possible clue to the results: 60% of all those polled thought Mondale had made his choice in response to pressure from women's groups, vs. only 22% who thought he picked Ferraro because she was the best available candidate.