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Geraldine Ferraro is better qualified than most to understand what it feels like to be in Sarah Palin’s shoes, having been, back in 1984, the first woman to be nominated by a major political party for vice-president.

That it has taken almost a quarter of a century for either the Democrats or the Republicans to try again says much about the role of women in US politics and about her own chequered experiences.

Ms Ferraro, 73, told The Times: “I had been hoping I wouldn’t be the last,” even though – as a lifelong Democrat – “it would be astounding if I did not end up voting for the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket.”

She sees parallels in the treatment of Mrs Palin over recent days with that dished out to her as Walter Mon-dale’s running-mate. “People did not know how to deal with me, they went after my background . . . they went after my husband and family.” Within a month of her nomination Ms Ferraro, a New York Congresswoman of Italian descent, was besieged by questions over her experience, her family and her beliefs. Her husband, John Zaccaro, was falsely accused of having Mafia ties as a wave of allegations about his tax returns and real-estate deals broke over their family.

Nor were the attacks confined to the press. Asked what she thought of Ms Ferraro, Barbara Bush – the wife of the vice-president of the day – replied: “I can’t possibly say it, but it rhymes with rich.” The Reagan-Bush Administration won a 49-state landslide victory.

These days she does not want to linger on the past other than to point out that the position of working spouses, be it Michelle Obama or Todd Palin, has apparently been “fair game” ever since.

She still believes that her candidacy had an “effect far beyond”, saying: “So many women have come up to me over the past 25 years – including [House of Representatives Speaker] Nancy Pelosi – and said ‘You did make a difference’. They thought, ‘if you can do it, so can I’.”

In Britain, Ms Ferraro said, there are any number of strong female role models, such as the Queen and Margaret Thatcher. “But here in America, in 200-odd years we’ve only seen white male Presidents and white male vice-presidents. This election will change that, whoever wins.” She became a lightning rod for the cultural flashpoints of gender and race when she was forced to quit Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign this year after saying that Mr Obama would not have got so far if he was white or a woman.

Ms Ferraro remains angry at the “sexist treatment” of Mrs Clinton by the media. “In New Hampshire, someone put up a sign saying ‘Iron My Shirt’. Nobody spoke out. Imagine if Hillary’s supporters had said [to Obama] ‘Shine my shoes’. Everybody would quite rightly have been jumping on it. Women in politics should not be treated better than men, just fairly.”

So would Mrs Palin be facing questions about her newborn baby or how she deals with her pregnant teenage daughter if she was a man? “Definitely not,” replied Ms Ferraro. “Most men get round it by giving that parenting job to their wives.” She also said that the Republican vice-presidential nominee – as an antiabortion conservative, liberated without preaching women’s liberation – was cutting across some of the entrenched positions in America’s culture wars.

Issues such as how a largely liberal media dealt with a Republican woman were, said Ms Ferraro, among those that needed to be studied properly once the election was over.

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