Ferraro, Geraldine Anne [key], 1935–2011, American political leader, b. Newburgh, N.Y., grad. Marymount College (1956), Fordham Law School (1960). A Democrat from Queens, N.Y., she began her career as a criminal prosecutor and later served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1979–85). In 1984, as Walter Mondale's running mate, she became the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major U.S. politcal party. Allegations concerning her husband's business connections and questions about their tax returns were raised during the unsuccessful campaign, and these surfaced again in her narrow defeat in the 1992 Democratic senatorial primary. After a period as a television commentator and U.S. representative on the UN Human Rights commission, she again ran for the senate and lost (1998) the primary.
See her memoirs (1985, with L. B. Francke; 1998, with C. Whitney).
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