The Ferraro Effect (redux)

[Honeycombe8]

I'm old enough (either fortunately or unfortunately) to remember the Mondale/Ferraro ticket. I was of voting age but still a young woman. I paid attention to politics probably more than the average young person, but still not that much.

I certainly paid MORE attention once Ferraro was named the Vice Presidential nominee. I mean, that was historical! And strange! And weird! And great! And odd! And threatening! And superfantastic! All rolled up into one feeling.

This was many years ago. I lived in a small city in the deep south that had no women lawyers, no women doctors. Women who worked generally worked as librarians or teachers or nurses or secretaries. So...a woman VP? Interesting. A woman in a suit? Expecting to be taken seriously?

If you recall, Mondale's chances went way up after her nomination. Then, as quickly as they had gone up, they went down. I remember at least part of what did it. Ferraro's husband's business dealings had been called into question. She gave a press conference. I remember her fatal answer to the question of her husband's business dealings. It was something like, "My husband's business affairs are HIS business affairs. I stay out of his business." Something like that. The typical wife answer of that decade. But she wasn't a typical wife, was the problem. She was asking to be elected to the second highest office in the nation.

Anyway, I remember one particular political talk show I was watching. It was two or more male journalists/pundits discussing the Ferraro Effect. How advantageous or harmful it was to have her on the ticket. They talked on and on about it. Blah blah blah. I'm a young woman sitting there watching this, and the issue seemed SO OBVIOUS to me. I was baffled that they could not see it. I was perplexed as to why they were spending all this time discussing the Ferraro Effect. Because the PROBLEM was OBVIOUSLY not Ferraro and what effect SHE would have on the ticket. The PROBLEM was OBVIOUSLY MONDALE.

Since I didn't follow politics closely, I saw Mondale as the average person saw him. I was unfamiliar with him in the political-junkie way. I didn't know whether he was a knowledgeable man, a good person, a good leader, etc. To me, and to many others, Mondale was a face in the crowd. An ordinary person. No one you'd notice, much less listen to or vote for for President. I didn't belong to a political party at the time, so I had no interest in either presidential candidate. I had only started paying attention because of Ferraro.

Mondale lost, of course. I think he won only one state, or something really terrible like that.

The reason I mention this is twofold:

For the ordinary person who is undecided, the Ferraro Effect may become the Palin Effect. Which is to say....the nomination of a woman for the first time is exciting and interesting. It draws interest. It may draw a few votes that stay. But in the end, the new, exciting, historical, younger, cooler Vice Presidential nominee cannot overcome a weak presidential candidate.

Secondly, on the point of sexism - if you want to see sexism in its raw form (which I have not seen regarding Palin), you shoulda seen those male pundits sitting around discussing Ferraro all those years ago, as if she were such a danger to Mondale's chances. They were SO biased, SO sexist, that they could not even see that they were. It was so ingrained in them that they could not see that it was the male on the ticket, Mondale, with the problem.

Here's hoping to see a Palin Effect. Lipstick won't mask the you-know-what at the top of the ticket.

[DemFromMem]

1. my one memory

Of Ferraro was the SNL spoof from that year with Mary Gross as Ferraro singing the song "Why Can't the Woman be on Top?"

[Honeycombe8]

2. Ha! I don't remember that, tho I watched SNL all the time back then. I'll have to look...

for reruns of that. They show oldies every now and then.

[EC]

3. I didn't like Mondale, felt he was a lite weight

paid more attention when she was added but she wasn't likeable either, she was another lite weight added to the ticket...she was much like she is now spoke before thinking, inserting foot in mouth and she was a bit too conservative for me...then I remember her flirting with newscasters in a very low-key way (the tilting of head and batting eyelashes) and just couldn't stand her...I voted for them, but sadly because of the lose, it cost me a my college degree then, with the cuts in pell grants, I had to wait until the 90's to finally finish school...