Seven weeks ago, TIME posed a question on its cover: "And for Vice President... Why Not a Woman?" Last week the Democrats answered it resoundingly. It was obviously a question the nation was prepared to address as, for several increasingly intense weeks, it waited and watched while Walter Mondale pondered his choice of a running mate.

The person selected by Mondale last week not only appeared on the cover that asked the fateful question but has been watched by the magazine for years. As early as 1978, when Queens, N.Y., Lawyer Geraldine Ferraro was completing her first campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives, TIME's NATION section described her well-organized political operation and asked why, after a decade of feminism, there are "so few Geraldine Ferraro's" putting their education, insight and ambition on the line in pursuit of office.

Five years later, in October 1983, in a bellwether article on the idea of a woman Vice President as "the logical next step," TIME suggested that Ferraro, by then a three-term Congresswoman, "would bring an ethnic and urban balance" to the campaigns of several of the then presidential contenders.

In this year's June 4 issue, when TIME bannered the female Vice President question across its cover, the NATION section took a long, tough look at the female aspirants and declared, "The thought of a woman Veep, which sounded a little farfetched just a few months ago, has suddenly acquired a life of its own. The right woman might bring a feeling of something fresh and new to a campaign that so far has sounded like a large, heavy suitcase being tumbled, slow motion, down an interminable flight of stairs." That cover story, applauding the "bold aplomb" that took Ferraro from School Teacher to Assistant Prosecutor to prominent national Politician, went on to say, "It could, if the timing and political climate were precisely right, put her on the Democratic ticket in July." While taking due notice of her lack of expertise in arms control and foreign policy, TIME concluded, "People who know Ferraro would not lose any sleep if she were next in line for the presidency."

If Mondale had selected any one of several other vice-presidential candidates, whether a woman or man, TIME would have been prepared to make a thorough presentation of that choice to its readers. (The other figure on TIME's June cover was San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, whom Mondale considered up to the last moment.) Still, we are pleased not only to have given the idea of a woman vice-presidential candidate national and international attention but to have helped zero in on Walter Mondale's eventual choice.