Teresa Heinz Kerry in NDN Country

At last, "Help Is on the Way" for NDN Country...

--ryan



A look at Teresa Heinz Kerry

By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
July 30, 2004

BOSTON - Democratic activist Peggy Toomey Hammann wasn't sure what to expect when she agreed last January to a request that she take Teresa Heinz Kerry to meet with Navajo nation leaders during a campaign swing through Northern Arizona.

Certainly she didn't expect what she got - a presidential candidate's wife who could speak to Navajos with great sophistication, knowledge and sincere sympathy about the problems they face, including access to potable water, mining pollution and health care.

"These are very complicated issues and she spoke about them with ease," said Hammann, who lives in Page, Ariz. "Her knowledge of native people as well as Native American issues was astounding. There are a lot of Arizona politicians who can't do that ... Navajo issues are dear to my heart. I just loved her after that!"

Heinz Kerry's knowledge of Navajos is due in part to a Navajo roommate she had while living in Switzerland and a niece who worked for a time at a Navajo health facility, Hammann said.

Navajos are just one of many groups of voters that Heinz Kerry has been able to personally connect with. Perhaps more than any other would-be first lady, Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry is truly a woman of the world. Her varied background, spanning three continents, has provided her with a rich multicultural heritage.

Born in Mozambique to Portuguese parents, Heinz Kerry has been known at times to refer to herself as an "African-American." Campaigning for her husband, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, during the Democratic presidential primaries, she spoke comfortably in French with New Hampshire shopkeepers who had emigrated from Quebec.

If her husband wins the election, Heinz Kerry - who speaks five languages fluently, including Spanish - will become the nation's first Hispanic first lady, Hispanic delegates at the Democratic National Convention said.

"Because she is an immigrant and will be the first Hispanic woman to be first lady of this country, she will have a better understanding of our community," said delegate Mary Alice Cisneros, the wife of former San Antonio, Texas, mayor and Clinton Cabinet official Henry Cisneros.

Heinz Kerry, 65, frequently draws on her background as an immigrant to the United States to connect with voters, whether they are of Hispanic or Asian or European descent.

In San Antonio, Heinz Kerry told women voters that she "suffers the same pains as Cubans who have family still living in Cuba, but have not been able to return there," Mrs. Cisneros said. Heinz Kerry's family left Mozambique for Switzerland after Portuguese rule was overturned.

Yet, in spite of her cosmopolitan background and lifestyle - she inherited a mega-fortune when her first husband, Republican senator and ketchup heir John Heinz, died in a plane crash - Heinz Kerry comes across to voters first and foremost as a modern, outspoken, independent woman.

"My name is Teresa Heinz Kerry and by now I hope it will come as no surprise to anyone that I have something to say," Heinz Kerry began her speech to the Democratic convention.

The comment - which drew wild applause from delegates, especially women - was a reference to her widely publicized "shove it" rejoinder to a journalist.

"She was fabulous, she was magnificent," said Angele Wilson Grant, 38, a black delegate from New Orleans. "She was saying, 'I'm an aggressive woman and I'm opinionated and it's OK for women to be opinionated.' "

Clearly, Heinz Kerry is determined to remain her own woman. She's been known to contradict her husband and only agreed to add "Kerry" to her name after the presidential campaign was under way.

Heinz Kerry also has a style that is uniquely her own. While most women her age have either cut their hair short or wear it up, Heinz Kerry lets her longish brown curls fall in her eyes and face.

Sailing through the Democratic convention's red, white and blue sea of political kitsch, Heinz Kerry stood out in her sleek designer suits of rich green and deep red. She eschews campaign buttons and other political geegaws, and speaks uninhibitedly about the wonders of Botox.

"She is absolutely her own woman. She's not programmed," said Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill.

Such independence and individuality have endeared her to Democratic women activists, who gave her a raucous welcome at women's caucus on Thursday.

It remains to be seen, however, whether Heinz Kerry's spontaneity and refusal to be confined to a traditional model of the political wife will be an asset or a liability with the undecided voters President Bush and John Kerry are vying to win. Nearly 60 percent of those voters are women.

Already, Heinz Kerry has become a target of conservative media outlets and talk-radio hosts.

"The campaign will have a great deal of life because of her saying what she thinks even though some people would says that's ill-advised," said Democratic delegate Margaret Greynolds, a retired communications professor from Georgetown, Ky.

However, whether Heinz Kerry is the voters' idea of a future first lady or not may have little effect on the election outcome, said Debbie Walsh, executive director of the Center for American Women and Politics, at Rutgers University.

"I think that by and large what matters to those undecided women voters is the fact that they need jobs - good-paying jobs," Walsh said. "The fact that Teresa Heinz Kerry speaks her mind on things and has strong opinions isn't going to be the thing that decides what they do in the election."