The nation's two major political parties dominated the news last week: Republicans celebrating the Reagan renomination in Dallas and Democrats concerned with the Ferraro family finances. In each case, TIME interviewed the principals out of the limelight, in surroundings that encouraged both spontaneity and frankness.

New York Bureau Chief John Stacks first covered Geraldine Ferraro last spring, when she was still a Queens Congresswoman. For this issue, he and Correspondent David Beckwith talked for an hour with the vice-presidential candidate and her husband John Zaccaro. Recalls Stacks of the reunion: "Less than four months ago, a visit to Geraldine Ferraro's home in Queens was like a visit to any upper-middle-class dwelling. The dog roamed around the house. Ferraro was busy but not harassed. Her husband was gracious and relaxed." This week Stacks found Secret Service agents prowling the grounds, and a house full of aides, accountants and lawyers. A Plexiglas booth had been installed in the front yard to house the night guard. "The dog," Stacks reports, "is still roaming the house, although Missy has developed hip dysplasia. That has the candidate almost as worried as her tax situation. Representative Ferraro may seem as peppy and bright as before, but she has the look of someone who has been through an ordeal. Zaccaro, always a bit reticent, is more so now, his view of the press soured. Yet the Queens couple remain cordial, hospitable sand eager to tell their story."

A newly nominated, newly ebullient President Reagan was also eager to tell his story, in this case to Washington Contributing Editor Hugh Sidey. Sidey has had more than 200 interviews with seven incumbents, starting with Dwight Eisenhower in 1957. "Talking to a President should always be memorable and interesting," says Sidey. "If it isn't, the reporter has a problem, not the President. It never ceases to fascinate me when I come into the presence of a President and realize anew that in a world of 4 billion souls, this man has more power than any other single person. When I finally get through the protective devices and the phalanxes of guards and aides, I am always a little concerned at how fragile and vulnerable the Chief of State appears--just like any other human." Says Sidey of his twelfth interview with Reagan, conducted in the President's suite in Dallas' Loews Anatole Hotel, 26 stories above the convention uproar: "It was one of the best I've had with him. Reagan's juices were flowing: he looked and moved like a man of 40. For half an hour, the political romantic painted his ideas on the grand canvas of a campaign, uninhibited by details and everyday, gritty reality."