Zaccaro Troubles Not Seen as Politically Fatal to Wife

WASHINGTON —  John A. Zaccaro’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor fraud charge Monday cast a pall over the political future of his wife, former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine A. Ferraro, but the development will not necessarily be fatal to her career, political observers said Monday.

“This has to hurt, coming when it does right after the 1984 election,” Norman J. Ornstein, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said. The continuing controversy will allow critics to suggest that the Democrats’ loss to President Reagan “was not entirely the fault” of presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale, he added.

Like others, however, Ornstein added that Zaccaro’s indictment is “anything but a fatal blow.” If there are no further damaging disclosures, the observers agreed, Ferraro’s political ambitions will probably not be inhibited.

As the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major party, Ferraro appeared to have a rosy future even though she and Mondale won only Mondale’s home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia in the presidential election.

But the controversy over her husband’s taxes and business dealings increasingly detracted from her candidacy and left questions about how much of a factor she would be in national politics over the long term.

Now those questions have surfaced again as Ferraro, a former House member from New York, contemplates running for the Senate in 1986 and decides whether she should lay a base for seeking the presidential or vice presidential nomination in 1988.

In a statement Monday, Ferraro addressed neither of those possibilities, and, in the past, she has remained circumspect about them.

Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), whom Ferraro would challenge if she decided to run next year, said through spokesman Gary Lewi in New York that “one would make a great mistake to underestimate anyone” as a candidate.

Democratic officials said that they see nothing in the Zaccaro affair to permanently tarnish Ferraro’s image.

Laurence J. Kirwan, chairman of the New York Democratic Party, said he has “every confidence” that New York voters will judge Ferraro on her own record, not her husband’s.

Terry Michaels, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, added: “There was nothing to suggest that Geraldine has not adhered to the highest ethical standards in her own personal and public life, and that’s how she should be judged if she seeks public office again.”

But the latest development, Michaels cautioned, means that Ferraro could lose support from voters who will “use any excuse” not to vote for a woman.

Many Democrats are counting on 1986 to be a good year for their party, and D’Amato’s Senate seat is one of their targets.

But Ornstein said that if Zaccaro’s financial and business problems continue, they would make his wife vulnerable to an intense challenge within her own party. He said that the issue sets the stage for a “knockdown, drag-out race” in 1986.