I knew, when I left the voting booth on Election Day, 1984, that my candidate wasn't going to win the highest office in the land, but I didn't care. I was proud to vote for a native son, Walter Mondale, for president. And I was ecstatic to cast my vote for the first woman, Geraldine Ferraro, to ever be nominated for the vice-presidency by a major political party.

In this post-Hillary Clinton, post-Sarah Palin world, it is easy to forget those giddy days in the summer of 1984 when Mondale announced that his choice for a running mate would be a woman. It was everything that people said at the time, and what they are saying again as we remember the life of Geraldine Ferraro; it was historic, and it was powerful. When Representative Ferraro took to the floor at the Democratic convention in San Francisco and said: "I stand before you to proclaim tonight: America is the land where dreams come true for all of us." We believed her. We believed her because never before had we seen a woman at that podium, in that position. Around the country, parents watched her acceptance speech with their daughters because they knew it was history in the making. Though it would be another 24 years before the next woman would be nominated for the vice-presidency, the glass ceiling had been shattered. The impact that Geraldine Ferraro's nomination had on the nation as a whole, and women in particular, cannot be overstated. It ignited the debate about the role of women in politics and leadership. It seems humorous now, but I remember men saying that they wouldn't vote for the Mondale/Ferraro ticket because women didn't have the "constitution" for politics. And, I remember my mother saying that she was born the year that women received the right to vote and now she had lived long enough to vote for a woman for the second highest office in the land. That was monumental. Critics said then, and I'm sure some will remind us over the course of the next few days, that Geraldine Ferraro was not the most qualified candidate that Walter Mondale could have selected. There is no arguing that. But nor is there any arguing the fact that Mondale's bold choice changed the landscape of politics in this country. As all trailblazers do, Geraldine Ferraro paid a price for being the first. Some time after her defeat, I went to hear Ms. Ferraro give a talk. She told the assembled audience of thousands that had she known the toll her selection would take on her family, she would have rather that Mondale chosen Diane Feinstein as his running mate. I don't doubt that she believed that, but how fortunate for the country that it was Geraldine Ferraro who holds the spot as the first woman to run for the vice-presidency. In those months leading up to the '84 election, Geraldine Ferraro conducted herself with strength, fortitude, intelligence and grace. She simultaneously shattered the ceiling and raised the bar for all who have followed her, and for all who will follow her in the future.