"Stand on Principles"

Geraldine Ferraro tells Democrats the party is not over

Ever since Election Day, when Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro took a memorable drubbing at the polls, political pundits have been analyzing how the Democratic Party should reposition itself for the future. Last week, in her first speech since the campaign, Ferraro offered her own analysis, cautioning the party not to lose sight of its "core" belief in equal opportunity as it strives to attract new voters. Said Ferraro: "The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties."

Ferraro, who delivered her address at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was the second participant in TIME'S Distinguished Speakers Program, which twice a year sponsors lectures by the magazine's cover subjects at a college of his or her choice. President Reagan, who spoke last February at Eureka College in Eureka, Ill., his alma mater, was the first speaker in the series.

Looking tanned and relaxed after a postelection vacation in the Virgin Islands, Ferraro told the enthusiastic audience of 1,300 that she rejected the popular perception that the Democratic ticket lost because it clung to the gospel of Big Government. "Read the speeches," she said. "We didn't call for massive new federal jobs programs, but for more responsible monetary, fiscal and trade policies to promote and strengthen the private sector." In the course of her half-hour address, Ferraro spelled out her vision of the party's future. Some excerpts:

"In security matters, we are told that we Democrats must prove that we are tough ... Of course the next Democratic President will use force, if necessary, to protect America's vital interests. In the campaign we said that. The Democrats believe that the United States should always try negotiation before confrontation. In my opinion, it's better to send in the diplomats before we send in the Marines.

"I hear people say that we must not let our party be dominated by the narrow agendas of special-interest groups ... But when the critics get around to naming the groups whose agendas they object to, they usually name blacks, teachers, women and unions. And never mention oil interests, the banks, the right-wing PACs or the apostles of religious intolerance. And then in the next breath the reappraisers tell us to appeal to whites, to the middle class and to men. In other words, the objection to our party is not that we speak to special groups, but that we are speaking to the wrong groups of people and that we must begin appealing to groups with more clout, with more money, with more votes. Now if there ever was a soulless solution to a party's problems, that's it...and I won't go along.

"If there was one thing my campaign stood for this fall, it was the great idea of equal opportunity for every American ...

Above all, a party must stand for something. We have taken our stand on principles. The last thing we need to do is trim them now.

"Some have said 1984 marked a great political realignment. But I don't see that ... President Reagan increasingly sounded like a Democrat as the campaign went on. He stepped up contacts with the Russians to resume nuclear arms-control discussions, and promised not to cut Social Security . .. Now that, by the way, was the Democratic platform. I welcome the borrowing of it by the Republicans. But I think the ones who wrote the platform are probably the best ones to implement it. And I predict that in 1988 we will get the chance."