After her controversial statement to a California newspaper last week, Geraldine Ferraro should take a few minutes to reconsider the history of US presidential campaigns;

1) From 1928 to 2004, 20 presidential races occurred. In 11 of those races, at least one New Yorker was on the ticket of one of the two major parties. In 8 of those 11, a ticket with the New Yorker aboard won. The exceptions? In 1928, amid the Roaring Twenties, Herbert Hoover defeated New Yorker Alfred Smith. In 1948, Harry Truman defeated New Yorker Thomas Dewey. Out of the next 14 presidential contests since, the only other exception occurred in 1984 when Ronald Reagan defeated Civil Rights champion Walter Mondale, with New Yorker Geraldine Ferraro aboard his ticket. Mondale carried his home state. Ferraro didn’t deliver hers.

2) From 1960 through 2004, there’s been 12 presidential elections. New York was reliably Democratic in 75% of those contests. The three exceptions? In 1972, Nixon/Agnew won a blow-out victory over the inept McGovern/Shriver ticket. In 1980, Reagan/Bush won an electoral college blowout against Carter/Mondale because of the rise of OPEC, rampant inflation and the Iranian hostage crisis. And in 1984, Reagan/Bush won a blow-out victory over Mondale/Ferraro because, after Reagan oversaw the worst US recession since the Great Depression, the economy recovered to a level only slightly better than the one he won office on in 1980. But consider some key points, from Wikipedia:

Mondale chose U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York as his running mate and she was confirmed by acclamation, making her the first woman nominated for that position by a major party.

Aides later said that Mondale was determined to establish a precedent with his vice presidential candidate, considering San Francisco Mayor (later U.S. Senator) Dianne Feinstein and Governor of Kentucky Martha Layne Collins, who were also female; Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African American; and San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, a Hispanic, as other finalists for the nomination. [2] Unsuccessful nomination candidate [Jesse] Jackson derided Mondale’s vice-presidential screening process as a “P.R. parade of personalities”, however he praised Mondale for his choice.

So how did Ferraro repay the compliment of Jesse Jackson in 1984?

Via Ben Smith of Politico, comes this cite of an April 15, 1988 Washington Post story:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, “Millions of Americans have a point of view different from” Ferraro’s.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, “We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I’m making history.”

3) By percentage of the popular vote, the biggest winning margins in presidential history were:

1936: FDR/Garner over Landon/Knox 60.8% - 36.54% (in the depths of the Great Depression, after FDR sponsored popular reforms)
1964: LBJ/Humphrey over Goldwater/Miller 61.05% - 38.47% (Goldwater’s hawkishness was viewed as too dangerous and extreme)
1972: Nixon/Agnew over McGovern/Shriver 60.67% - 37.52% (a culmination of the polarized 60s and first GOP use of the Southern Strategy)
1984: Reagan/Bush over Mondale/Ferraro 58.77% - 40.56%
1932: FDR/Garner over Hoover/Curtis 57.41% - 39.65% (after the Great Depression had begun)

Thus, Ferraro was part of the fourth worst popular vote loss margin ever. Worse than Hoover’s loss after the world took the worst economic plunge ever.

4) By percentage of the Electoral College vote, the biggest winning margins in presidential history were:

1936: FDR/Garner over Landon/Knox by 523 - 8 electoral college votes.
1984: Reagan/Bush over Mondale/Ferraro by 525 - 13 electoral college votes.
1972: Nixon/Agnew over McGovern/Shriver by 520 - 17 electoral college votes.

Again, from Wikipedia:

Ferraro, as Catholic, came under fire from the Roman Catholic Church for being pro-choice on abortion, in opposition to Church doctrine. Further controversy erupted over statements regarding the release of her husband’s tax returns.

And:

Mondale ran a liberal campaign, supporting a nuclear freeze and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). He spoke against what he considered to be unfairness in Reagan’s economic policies and the need to reduce federal budget deficits.

And:

Reagan was re-elected following the November 6 election in an electoral and popular vote landslide, winning 49 states. Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. Mondale’s 13 electoral college votes (in Minnesota and District of Columbia) marked the lowest total of any major Presidential candidate since Alf Landon’s 1936 loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

And most notably:

The 1984 election was the last time that a Republican presidential candidate won the states of Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.

In 1984, nearly 80% of the country was white and nearly 50% of the voters were women. Yet that granted her and her ticket mate no advantage in one of the most lopsided losses ever.

Now consider her defense of those remarks yesterday, where she complained she was a victim of racism and sexism. TRex provides the details adding a few more about the ‘disadvantages’ her son endured i