Ms Ferraro shows fighting spirit

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 28

Ms Ferraro shows fighting spirit

NZPA-Reuter New York

Ms Geraldine Ferraro celebrated her forty-ninth birthday recently, confident that she has turned the corner on a crisis over her family finances. “It’s been a difficult couple of weeks,” she said, “but we’re moving out now — to the rest of the campaign.” ' The Democratic VicePresidential candidate was in an ebullient mood after a whirlwind 30-hour tour that took her to Montgomery, Alabama, and separate meetings with Governor George Wallace and the state’s black Democratic leaders, and to a glittering series of fund-raising cocktail parties in the posh beach retreats of New York City. . , As Ms Ferraro began the trip, close campaign aides

were questioning whether two weeks of intense press and political criticism had taken a toll on the candidate — and Ms Ferraro herself seemed to be brooding about her troubles. However, now they are all claiming that the “spark” is back in the longshot bid of Ms Ferraro and her Presidential running mate, Mr Walter Mondale, to unseat President Reagan. “She was down,” said one top aide, “but she’s a fighter and she seems to have reached back for some extra strength.” Ms Ferraro appeared before more than ,3000 people in four campaign stops. The only visible comment about her finances was a sign at a rally on Long Island, outside New York City, which read: “Ferraro Plus Zaccaro Equal the Mob”. Allegations that Ms Fer-

raro and her husband, a New York real estate broker, Mr John Zaccaro, had something to hide in their financial and tax dealings surfaced when Ms Ferraro reneged on a promise to release her husband’s tax records. When the information was eventually released it showed that the couple had paid more taxes than most Americans, but press probes into Mr Zaccaro’s business dealings have lingered. On her campaign plane, Ms Ferraro said she could not say if she would have pursued the Vice-Presidency had she known the furore her financial affairs would have caused.

“If God had given me a film of what was going to happen in the past five weeks to my family, I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said.