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05-06-2003, 07:11 PM
'Loose cannon' wife puts new life in race for White House
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 07/05/2003)
As the 2004 US presidential election gathers steam, the crowded field of Democratic challengers has thrown up a genuinely original character - an outspoken, supremely self-confident multi-millionaire.
Teresa Heinz thinks that Hillary Clinton should have shot her husband for being unfaithful, that plastic surgery is essential, and that rabbit meat provides the best diet for children.
The problem for anxious Democratic strategists is that Mrs Heinz, the millionaire in question, is not the candidate.
She is the wife of their leading candidate, Senator John Kerry and, it is rapidly becoming clear, the biggest loose cannon since Hillary Clinton nearly derailed her husband's 1992 campaign by sneering at wives who "stayed home and baked cookies".
Interviewed for Elle magazine, the cheerful Mrs Heinz left a trail of destruction in her wake.
She complained that campaign staffers have made her take her husband's name. "Now, politically, it's going to be Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I don't give a **** you know?" she said.
Campaign aides hate it when she looks bored or tired during his speeches, she adds. "They think I should always be looking adoringly at him." She described how she reluctantly changed her voter registration to Democrat this year, after more than 30 years as a Republican. "I'd rather just be Independent, but then I couldn't vote for my husband, John," she explained.
Mrs Heinz, who has also been known to tap her husband on the arm, mid-speech, to correct him, married Mr Kerry in 1995, after her first husband, the Republican senator John Heinz, only son of the founders of the ketchup empire, died in a plane crash.
Mrs Heinz - a fiery 64-year-old who inherited £350 million from her late husband - is not just very rich indeed. She dresses almost exclusively in Chanel, has a private jet, the Flying Squirrel, and owns a collection of Dutch Old Master paintings so valuable that her insurance company will not allow them to be photographed. Some Washington wits have dubbed her and her husband Cash and Kerry.
Elle's interviewer asked if Mrs Heinz secured a prenuptial agreement from Mr Kerry when they married to secure her fortune. "You have to have a prenup," she replied. "You could be as generous or as sensitive as you want, but you have to have a prenup."
Mrs Heinz has said she will make her money available to her husband if the campaign turns ugly, and impugns "their honour".
Mr Kerry's campaign aides had hoped that Mrs Heinz learned her lesson last summer, after a disastrous interview in the Washington Post.
The Post's reporter asked Mr Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, if he still had nightmares of combat. "Not in a long time," he murmured smoothly.
"But Mrs Heinz had other ideas, mimicking her husband having a Vietnam flashback. "Down, down, down!" she screamed, patting her cascading auburn hair.
"I haven't got slapped yet, but there were times when I thought I might get throttled," she told the startled Post reporter. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Heinz was given a former CNN reporter as her own press minder, and was coached in how to avoid alienating the women of Middle America.
She clearly has some way to go.
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 07/05/2003)
As the 2004 US presidential election gathers steam, the crowded field of Democratic challengers has thrown up a genuinely original character - an outspoken, supremely self-confident multi-millionaire.
Teresa Heinz thinks that Hillary Clinton should have shot her husband for being unfaithful, that plastic surgery is essential, and that rabbit meat provides the best diet for children.
The problem for anxious Democratic strategists is that Mrs Heinz, the millionaire in question, is not the candidate.
She is the wife of their leading candidate, Senator John Kerry and, it is rapidly becoming clear, the biggest loose cannon since Hillary Clinton nearly derailed her husband's 1992 campaign by sneering at wives who "stayed home and baked cookies".
Interviewed for Elle magazine, the cheerful Mrs Heinz left a trail of destruction in her wake.
She complained that campaign staffers have made her take her husband's name. "Now, politically, it's going to be Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I don't give a **** you know?" she said.
Campaign aides hate it when she looks bored or tired during his speeches, she adds. "They think I should always be looking adoringly at him." She described how she reluctantly changed her voter registration to Democrat this year, after more than 30 years as a Republican. "I'd rather just be Independent, but then I couldn't vote for my husband, John," she explained.
Mrs Heinz, who has also been known to tap her husband on the arm, mid-speech, to correct him, married Mr Kerry in 1995, after her first husband, the Republican senator John Heinz, only son of the founders of the ketchup empire, died in a plane crash.
Mrs Heinz - a fiery 64-year-old who inherited £350 million from her late husband - is not just very rich indeed. She dresses almost exclusively in Chanel, has a private jet, the Flying Squirrel, and owns a collection of Dutch Old Master paintings so valuable that her insurance company will not allow them to be photographed. Some Washington wits have dubbed her and her husband Cash and Kerry.
Elle's interviewer asked if Mrs Heinz secured a prenuptial agreement from Mr Kerry when they married to secure her fortune. "You have to have a prenup," she replied. "You could be as generous or as sensitive as you want, but you have to have a prenup."
Mrs Heinz has said she will make her money available to her husband if the campaign turns ugly, and impugns "their honour".
Mr Kerry's campaign aides had hoped that Mrs Heinz learned her lesson last summer, after a disastrous interview in the Washington Post.
The Post's reporter asked Mr Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, if he still had nightmares of combat. "Not in a long time," he murmured smoothly.
"But Mrs Heinz had other ideas, mimicking her husband having a Vietnam flashback. "Down, down, down!" she screamed, patting her cascading auburn hair.
"I haven't got slapped yet, but there were times when I thought I might get throttled," she told the startled Post reporter. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Heinz was given a former CNN reporter as her own press minder, and was coached in how to avoid alienating the women of Middle America.
She clearly has some way to go.