"Anyone who has followed my husband's public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with," she said, acknowledging that whoever wins the nomination will have to heal the wounds of a bruising, historic contest.
"Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee," she said.
The Clintons have long enjoyed overwhelming support from black voters, but arguments over the role of race and gender have flared up repeatedly throughout the contest between Obama, who would be the nation's first black president, and Clinton, who would be its first female one.
Ferraro Familiar to New Yorkers as Having a Quick Temper
Ferraro is well known to New Yorkers as having a quick temper -- which showed during the 1984 campaign. Mondale -- who was booted out of office along with President Jimmy Carter four years earlier by Reagan -- was already far behind in his quest to unseat Reagan when Ferraro joined the ticket, and her credibility was quickly undermined by a controversy over disclosure of the tax returns of her husband, John Zaccaro, a New York real-estate agent.
In July 1984, Ferraro said she would release both her own and her husband's tax returns, in keeping with financial-disclosure laws. Yet a month later, she backtracked and said she would release only her own returns -- which tiggered questions about Zaccaro's finances.
Farraro, feeling the heat, backtracked again, saying her husband would release "a financial — a tax statement" on August 20. But she must not have consulted her husband, because Zaccaro initially refused, triggering a chorus of questions: Where is Zaccaro's money coming from? Rumors soon surfaced of alleged Zaccaro links to the Mob.
To Farraro's astonishment, news quickly surfaced that when she was a baby, both her parents had been under federal criminal indictment for gambling. The charges were dropped when her father, an Italian immigrant, died in 1943, when she was eight years old.
But the stories only added fuel to the rumors. Ferraro exploded, accusing the media of playing to old stereotypes of Italian-Americans. Nonetheless, the controversy led to an investigation of Zaccaro by the Manhattan district attorney.
Zaccaro was subsequently indicted by a grand jury on charges of scheming to fraudulently obtain financing for a multi-million-dollar real-estate deal. Zaccaro pleaded guilty.
# # #
Volume III, Number 16
Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.
"Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee," she said.
The Clintons have long enjoyed overwhelming support from black voters, but arguments over the role of race and gender have flared up repeatedly throughout the contest between Obama, who would be the nation's first black president, and Clinton, who would be its first female one.
Ferraro Familiar to New Yorkers as Having a Quick Temper
Ferraro is well known to New Yorkers as having a quick temper -- which showed during the 1984 campaign. Mondale -- who was booted out of office along with President Jimmy Carter four years earlier by Reagan -- was already far behind in his quest to unseat Reagan when Ferraro joined the ticket, and her credibility was quickly undermined by a controversy over disclosure of the tax returns of her husband, John Zaccaro, a New York real-estate agent.
In July 1984, Ferraro said she would release both her own and her husband's tax returns, in keeping with financial-disclosure laws. Yet a month later, she backtracked and said she would release only her own returns -- which tiggered questions about Zaccaro's finances.
Farraro, feeling the heat, backtracked again, saying her husband would release "a financial — a tax statement" on August 20. But she must not have consulted her husband, because Zaccaro initially refused, triggering a chorus of questions: Where is Zaccaro's money coming from? Rumors soon surfaced of alleged Zaccaro links to the Mob.
To Farraro's astonishment, news quickly surfaced that when she was a baby, both her parents had been under federal criminal indictment for gambling. The charges were dropped when her father, an Italian immigrant, died in 1943, when she was eight years old.
But the stories only added fuel to the rumors. Ferraro exploded, accusing the media of playing to old stereotypes of Italian-Americans. Nonetheless, the controversy led to an investigation of Zaccaro by the Manhattan district attorney.
Zaccaro was subsequently indicted by a grand jury on charges of scheming to fraudulently obtain financing for a multi-million-dollar real-estate deal. Zaccaro pleaded guilty.
# # #
Volume III, Number 16
Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.
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