Geraldine Ferraro, First Woman VP Candidate, Dies at 75

March 27, 2011— -- Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket, died on Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital, a spokesman for her family said. She was 75.

The cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, according to a statement from her family.

Ferraro, the first woman and the first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket, was Walter Mondale's vice presidential running mate in 1984 on the Democratic Party ticket.

She earned a reputation for speaking her mind on the issues of the day, sometimes generating controversy for her outspoken opinions.

The 1984 presidential campaign against popular incumbent President Ronald Reagan showed that Ferraro could be comfortable in the men's world of national politics -- at the time there were few women in Congress.

But questions about the financial dealings of Ferraro's husband, real-estate developer John Zaccaro, dogged her throughout the campaign and Mondale was seen by many as uncharismatic.

Reagan-Bush crushed the Mondale-Ferraro ticket in the 1984 election, taking nearly 59 percent of the vote. Only Mondale's home state of Minnesota went to the Democrats that year.

The New York Democrat served three terms in the House of Representatives. In 1998, she ran and lost a bid for the Senate -- her second failed attempt in six years to serve in the Senate. That would be her last campaign.

After making racially charged comments about then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in 2008, Ferraro stepped down as a member of the finance committee for the presidential campaign of then Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Clinton went on to lose the presidential nomination to Obama.

Ferraro had told a California newspaper that if Obama, "was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."