On the Campaign Trail, Teresa Heinz Kerry's Specialty Is Straight Talk
The New York Times
July 15, 2004
By JODI WILGOREN
BOSTON, July 13 - But for the microphone, Teresa Heinz Kerry
could have been gossiping with the girlfriends she takes with her on her
private jet while campaigning solo across the country.
"When you get married when you're older, it's not the same as
when you get married when you're a young little thing," Mrs. Heinz Kerry
confided to a mostly female crowd of 1,400 here the other day,
all wink and nod. "It's better, and it's not the same."
A few hours later, on another stage, she had more to share.
"I have to say that John Edwards is very beautiful," she said in her trademark
stage whisper, as a ripple of giggles spread across the crowd
of 5,000 at a fund-raising concert. "And my husband is very smart."
For all the talk about the new political partner Mr. Kerry picked
in Mr. Edwards on July 6, the past week has also been a showcase for the
partner he has had for the past nine years, the woman who sometimes
stole the spotlight as she - and her eight hanging bags of pantsuits -
traveled by his side. There was Mrs. Heinz Kerry, fielding foreign
policy questions on CNN's "Larry King Live." That was her reaching across
the dual family portrait to dislodge the thumb from the mouth
of Mr. Edwards's young son, Jack. Watch her dancing onstage after rallies,
nuzzling Mr. Kerry while others speak, grabbing, somewhat awkwardly, for his hand.
And then there are the surprises that spring from her mouth,
like the one about how women mind the details like dates, while "the guys
think about big things," or how she and Elizabeth Edwards
plan to keep the candidates "honest," or how the word "values," the new theme of
the Democrats' campaign, "has kind of been loaded one way or the other."
"I have a certain kind of sense of humor, but it's not necessarily
other people's sense of humor, so I have to get used to other people's sense
of humor as well," Mrs. Heinz Kerry, 65, confided at the luncheon here.
"I had initial doubts about my ability to be a good partner in this
campaign, whether or not I would hurt, whether or not I would help,
whether youth and strength was better than age and wisdom," she
continued. "And I am completely convinced that age and wisdom
wins every time."
From the onset of Mr. Kerry's campaign, some Democrats
have worried about Mrs. Heinz Kerry, the Mozambique-born heiress who speaks
five languages and says what she thinks, when she thinks it.
But Mr. Kerry and his aides seem now to revel in letting her be herself, and
she has been on the road relentlessly since September.
In June, Mrs. Heinz Kerry campaigned alone 20 days, with her husband 2;
this week was the first time she had been to her home in Boston
(to be fair, she has four others) in three months. At joint appearances,
Mrs. Heinz Kerry goes beyond the typical spousal cheerleading to give
longer, free-wheeling remarks. On the campaign plane, Mrs. Heinz Kerry,
in large, dark sunglasses and toting a glass of wine - in the
afternoon, a spritzer - is often the first to venture into the reporters' cabin.
Later this month, Mrs. Heinz Kerry will give a prime-time speech
at the national political convention nominating her husband.
"She has a different style; it's not the conventional
you-get-three-minutes-to-introduce," said Ann F. Lewis, the White House
communications director in the Clinton administration who is now
national chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Women's
Vote Center. "Teresa can talk to large political crowds the way women
who are just getting to know each other talk at a neighborhood
meeting."
It seems to work, at least among audiences at high-dollar fund-raisers
where many of the women share her fondness for Chanel shoes and
silk scarves. "We'd vote for her in a heartbeat," said Jean Verbridge
of Marblehead, Mass., an interior designer who is part of a Republican
women for Kerry group. "She needs to be out more."
Across the room, Doe Coover, a literary agent from Winchester, Mass.,
said she had previously thought Mrs. Heinz Kerry kept herself "a little
bit at arm's length," but found her talk "very intimate."
Mrs. Heinz Kerry's regular riff, sometimes hard to hear in her
accented hush, describes growing up in a dictatorship, not seeing her doctor
father vote until he was 71, marching against apartheid while
attending university in South Africa in the 1950's and longing for the days
when "the face of America abroad was that of a Peace Corps volunteer."
About half of her solo events are geared toward women, focusing on
child care, health care, the environment - issues she knows through
her work at the United Nations and the foundation named for her first
husband, Senator H. John Heinz III, a Pennsylvania Republican
who was killed in a plane crash in 1991.
Then there are those unscripted lines.
"You can talk to the simplest person about any issue,"
she told the women in Boston, seemingly unaware that the people she was referring
to might not appreciate that description. To a crowd of 3,200
in New York a few days before, she exulted, "Women for Kerry need birth
control, you've gotten so huge," then went on to say, of her sex,
"It's time that we who clean up should have a say in how the dirt should be
made."
"It is long overdue that the opinions and knowledge of women be
part of the governance of the world," she told a huge rally in Raleigh, N.C.,
on Saturday afternoon, just after saying that she and Mrs. Edwards
were counting down days to the election so their spouses could think big
thoughts. "And I hope that at the end of this campaign and from next
year on, no woman who ever ventures to give an opinion be called
opinionated, and that instead she be called smart, thoughtful,
or well informed - all of it, just like men.
"We have to cherish women, their health, their wellness," she added,
"because a home without a healthy mother or wife is an unwell home."
While Laura Bush often says she became a Republican by marriage,
Mrs. Heinz Kerry did not switch her party registration until after the
2002 elections, to protest Republican attacks on Senator Max Cleland
of Georgia (she still votes in Pennsylvania, and thus skipped a chance
to cast a ballot during her husband's hard-fought 1996 re-election).
Yet she has sometimes been the harsher critic of President Bush,
suggesting Monday night that he is "fazed by complexity."
On "Larry King Live" last week, Mrs. Heinz Kerry said that
"most Americans subconsciously believe" another terrorist attack will happen,
adding that the way Mr. Bush went to war in Iraq was "not diplomatic."
"I would never have gone to war this way," she said, sounding more
candidate than companion. "Remember, this vote was to give the
administration, and Colin Powell specifically, the mandate, so to speak, to
try peace. And they did till the end of February. They actually wanted to go
to war in September. So, we were able to maintain peace till
then. Why not wait a little longer?"
Noelia Rodriguez, who was until seven months ago
Mrs. Bush's press secretary, said Mrs. Heinz Kerry's outspokenness was refreshing.
"Teresa is comfortable saying things that are off the script,
and Mrs. Bush would never do that, or rarely do that," Ms. Rodriguez said. The
two could have an intriguing dinner conversation - or, perhaps,
a summit meeting on "Oprah!" - Ms. Rodriguez observed, adding that Mrs.
Heinz Kerry "definitely needs to see Mrs. Bush's hairstylist"
to tame the unruly mane that often hides her eyes.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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