Manatt Says Women Turn Voters Off

Democratic Party chairman Charles T. Manatt said today that the outcome of Geraldine Ferraro’s campaign for vice president in 1984 demonstrated that a lot of Americans “are resistant to the idea of having a woman . . . as the nominee” for national office.

In an interview with wire service reporters, Manatt said “it seemed in the polling that I’ve studied, more are against that idea for the sake of the idea by itself than are for it and that has to be overcome with the election of more and more women to mayorships and the Senate and other offices.”

The Democratic presidential ticket of Walter F. Mondale and Ferraro carried only Minnesota and the District of Columbia in its effort to unseat President Reagan and Vice President George Bush.

Manatt said the candidacies of Ferraro and Jesse Jackson made it “more likely in the future” that women and blacks will be candidates for national office.

But when asked about the impact of Ferraro’s candidacy as the first woman nominated for national office by a major party, Manatt said, “I think it has created some resistance.”

He added that it might take “a term or two” before another woman would be on a national party ticket.