For Teresa Heinz Kerry, Spontaneity and Controversy
By JIM RUTENBERG
BOSTON — It was a moment dreaded by the Kerry campaign: Teresa Heinz Kerry, the candidate's wife, running off the carefully laid rails at the Democratic National Convention here.
But none could have predicated it would come in such colorful fashion: With Ms. Heinz Kerry, a billionaire philanthropist who speaks five languages, angrily telling an editor of a conservative newspaper to "shove it" in plain English, in front of a horde of other journalists.
For all of the stagecraft that has gone into the Democratic Convention here, the prevailing images on cable news on Monday were not of Senator John Kerry throwing the first pitch at the Yankees-Red Sox game the night before, but, rather, those of his wife's exchange. And as Mr. Kerry and his campaign aides tried to begin what they have billed as a four-day showcase for the candidate's "positive vision for America," they were repeatedly forced to explain why the prospective first lady had laid into a journalist.
It was a fitting opening salvo for a woman who has shown a flair for saying whatever she thinks, whenever she thinks it, in a way that is wholly foreign to the political operatives overrunning this city this week.
When Ms. Heinz Kerry speaks here Tuesday night, it will mark the culmination of a months-long journey for her and her husband's campaign staff in which a "let Teresa be Teresa" philosophy has come to prevail, in part, campaign aides say, because she is among the best promoters of her husband but also because there is no other choice.
It is a philosophy that Mr. Kerry's campaign aides say has been a net positive to his candidacy, infusing it with some welcome spontaneity and excitement despite its third-rail quality. But it has not come without a great deal of bumping and grinding for her, for her husband and his staff members, who have learned over the course of several hard months to finesse her unpredictability.
Though Mr. Kerry's aides were clearly rankled at having to contend with an unforeseen and unwelcome development at the hands of the candidate's spouse that undercut the campaign's calls for civility this week — and her own that very day — they and their surrogates found a way to use it for red-meat, partisan advantage.
Referring to the reporter's newspaper, The Tribune-Review of Pittsburgh, which has been critical of Ms. Heinz Kerry for many years, a campaign spokeswoman, Deborah DeShong, said, "She was approached by a conservative local rag that over the year has consistently misrepresented her and her family — and she's always going to stand up for herself when she feels like someone misrepresenting the truth."
But it did not always come so easy for Mr. Kerry's campaign, which struggled early on to cope with a personality that refused to go along with any sort of script.
Ms. Heinz Kerry said she believed it probably could not have been any other way. "I tell you something: I would say probably any campaign in this town would have had a hard time figuring out how to use me because they were not used to having someone with my clout, or baggage, or whatever, or experience," she said. She continued, nearly stream of consciousness-like: "Do you feel that you're being railroaded, or do you feel that you're being absorbed do you feel inferior, or do you feel superior? What is it you feel? So I think any campaign would have had to adjust to that, because most spouses that have come in have kind of fitted into whatever it is."
The bottom line, she said, "I can't be packaged, I won't be packaged. If I have to be packaged, then I can't be part of the process."
The New York Times 2004
BOSTON — It was a moment dreaded by the Kerry campaign: Teresa Heinz Kerry, the candidate's wife, running off the carefully laid rails at the Democratic National Convention here.
But none could have predicated it would come in such colorful fashion: With Ms. Heinz Kerry, a billionaire philanthropist who speaks five languages, angrily telling an editor of a conservative newspaper to "shove it" in plain English, in front of a horde of other journalists.
For all of the stagecraft that has gone into the Democratic Convention here, the prevailing images on cable news on Monday were not of Senator John Kerry throwing the first pitch at the Yankees-Red Sox game the night before, but, rather, those of his wife's exchange. And as Mr. Kerry and his campaign aides tried to begin what they have billed as a four-day showcase for the candidate's "positive vision for America," they were repeatedly forced to explain why the prospective first lady had laid into a journalist.
It was a fitting opening salvo for a woman who has shown a flair for saying whatever she thinks, whenever she thinks it, in a way that is wholly foreign to the political operatives overrunning this city this week.
When Ms. Heinz Kerry speaks here Tuesday night, it will mark the culmination of a months-long journey for her and her husband's campaign staff in which a "let Teresa be Teresa" philosophy has come to prevail, in part, campaign aides say, because she is among the best promoters of her husband but also because there is no other choice.
It is a philosophy that Mr. Kerry's campaign aides say has been a net positive to his candidacy, infusing it with some welcome spontaneity and excitement despite its third-rail quality. But it has not come without a great deal of bumping and grinding for her, for her husband and his staff members, who have learned over the course of several hard months to finesse her unpredictability.
Though Mr. Kerry's aides were clearly rankled at having to contend with an unforeseen and unwelcome development at the hands of the candidate's spouse that undercut the campaign's calls for civility this week — and her own that very day — they and their surrogates found a way to use it for red-meat, partisan advantage.
Referring to the reporter's newspaper, The Tribune-Review of Pittsburgh, which has been critical of Ms. Heinz Kerry for many years, a campaign spokeswoman, Deborah DeShong, said, "She was approached by a conservative local rag that over the year has consistently misrepresented her and her family — and she's always going to stand up for herself when she feels like someone misrepresenting the truth."
But it did not always come so easy for Mr. Kerry's campaign, which struggled early on to cope with a personality that refused to go along with any sort of script.
Ms. Heinz Kerry said she believed it probably could not have been any other way. "I tell you something: I would say probably any campaign in this town would have had a hard time figuring out how to use me because they were not used to having someone with my clout, or baggage, or whatever, or experience," she said. She continued, nearly stream of consciousness-like: "Do you feel that you're being railroaded, or do you feel that you're being absorbed do you feel inferior, or do you feel superior? What is it you feel? So I think any campaign would have had to adjust to that, because most spouses that have come in have kind of fitted into whatever it is."
The bottom line, she said, "I can't be packaged, I won't be packaged. If I have to be packaged, then I can't be part of the process."
The New York Times 2004
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