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If you're at all sensitive about being judged on your value as a w-o-m-a-n, there could be no worse lot than being a politician's wife. The scrutiny is intense and unrelenting: Are you domestic enough? Adoring enough? Smart, but not too smart? Feminine? Fashionable? Gracious? Pretty? The scrutiny intensifies if your husband is, or wants to be, the president of the United States. The first lady (or first lady wannabe) is expected to represent The Ultimate American Woman, from her affability and ingenuity right down to her red-white-and-blue X chromosomes. There she is, Mrs. America — the ever-pleasant wife, mother, hostess, helpmeet and role model, basking in her husband's radiant glow; the moon to his sun, illuminated by his glory while reflecting it back into the public eye.
Being first lady, or a first lady in the making, is as much a performance as it is a relationship. Both have tremendous potential to wear a gal down. One imagines these women must tire of all the demographically appropriate power suits and tasteful coifs immobilized by hairspray. Surely they get sick to death of smiling.
But Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, doesn't play the shoulder-pads-and-smiles game. In her, we've got a prospective First Lady who is more about shawls than Chanel suits, whose ash-highlighted curls fall disobediently in her face when she's out on the campaign trail, who doesn't beam numbly like a Stepford wife when her husband is speaking. And she doesn't apologize. "I have a serious face when I'm thinking," she has said. "I mean, I frown. I have a very expressive face. I hear everything (my husband is) saying, if that makes any difference."
Her candor, defiance of D.C. convention and blowsy style (well, beltway blowsy, anyway — it's all relative) make her quite the hot number. Teresa Heinz Kerry ("My legal name is still Teresa Heinz. Teresa Heinz Kerry is my name . . . for politics," she'll have you know) is revolutionizing the profile of the political spouse, and those of us with an eye for stylish, erudite rebellion can't get enough of her.
There have been a handful of memorable wives who had or coveted a White House address: Jackie Kennedy, Martha Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton spring to mind. But for the most part, the wives of presidents and presidential aspirants remain indistinct, a Mamie-Kitty-Babs-Nancy blur of charitable works and Pappagallo flats. Yet even in comparison to other high-profile better halves, Teresa Heinz Kerry is unique. Born Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira on Oct. 5, 1938 into a strict Catholic household, she was raised comfortably as the daughter of the first oncologist in Mozambique. She speaks five languages (including her native Portuguese) and went to college in Johannesburg, where she protested apartheid. Before marrying John Kerry, she enjoyed a twenty-one-year marriage to the late senator and condiment heir John Heinz. Having inherited her husband's tremendous fortune, she makes Croesus look like a streetcorner bum. What really sets her apart, though, is her headline-grabbing brand of outspokenness — she is caustic, clever and occasionally wicked.
Check out her diatribe about the fate of Democratic senator Max Cleland. In 1968, Cleland lost his right arm and both legs in Vietnam. In 2002, he lost re-election after an acrimonious campaign in which Republicans attacked his patriotism.
What's so appealing about this mouthy broad? It could be context-specific.
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"All I could think was, 'What does the Republican Party need — a fourth limb to make a person a hero?'" said Heinz Kerry. "And this coming from people who have not served. I was really offended by that." She went on to call the matter "unscrupulous and disgusting." Can you think of another politician's wife who'd put the opposition on blast that way?
To be fair, Ms. Teresa speaks out from a cosseted position, so her risky quips aren't all that risky in the final fiscal analysis. Her big, gorgeous mouth holds a silver spoon, so it's not like she's going to lose her day job for sassing back. It's still hot, though.
What's so appealing about this mouthy broad? It may be context-specific. Since the '90s, the entertainment industry has become rife with outspoken women — Madonna, Roseanne, Rosie O'Donnell, to name but a few. But until THK arrived on the scene, the only other notably outspoken politician's wife was Hillary Clinton. The right-wing press wastes no time in comparing Teresa to Hillary. Given how detested Hillary is in the red states, it's the ultimate partisan bitch-slap.
But aside from an independent streak, a Democratic affiliation and a willingness to opine in the face of scrutiny, Hillary and Teresa don't have much in common. Even their approaches to the notion of marital infidelity seem disparate. In that notorious 1992 interview with 60 Minutes, Clinton responded defensively to questions about Bill's dalliances, claiming she wasn't "some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." Meanwhile, Teresa Heinz Kerry has said, more pragmatically, of her spouse: "I don't think John could be married to somebody who didn't interest him mind-wise, intellectually. He'd maybe play around but not marry them." Despite Hillary's pledge that she'd never be the long-suffering spouse of a do-wrong man, she did indeed stand by her man in the post-Monica glare. One gets the sense that if Kerry ever were accused of infidelity, Teresa would shrug it off, polish her wedding ring to a nice territorial gleam and keep right on truckin'. So tarring Teresa with the Hillary brush doesn't quite work.
It feels somehow scandalous to assess the sexual attractiveness of a political candidate's wife, especially the wife of a presidential candidate. But one of the most ardent extollers of THK's sex appeal is her own husband. John Kerry has called Teresa "saucy, sexy and brilliant." Teresa, no shrinking violet, has conceded his point: "I mean, I'm cheeky, I'm sexy, whatever," she says. "You know, I've got a lot of life inside."
Remarkably self-possessed, she not only owns up to her erotic charisma, she has the brass to take Americans to task on our sexual obsession with figures numerical and anatomical. "It's like if you don't have a size forty-eight bust, you're not sexy; if you're not twenty-four, you're not attractive. It's so limiting and uninteresting." Heinz Kerry often mentions her age, sixty-five, five years older than her husband. When a reporter asked how many sixty-five year olds call themselves sexy, her response was a smile and a sly quip: "How many of that age have you asked?" Given that forty seems to be the arbitrary cut-off for female sexiness in this culture, a woman wearing her maturity as a badge of pride is also hot. Subversively hot.
Make no mistake, Teresa Heinz Kerry isn't the only foxy wife on the campaign trail — there's heat from the opposition. First Lady Laura Bush has her own spousal mojo. But with her moony gazes, matte lips and careful quotes, Laura is "Focus on the Family" hot. Arm-candy hot. "Honey, you bring home the bacon and I'll fry it up in a pan" hot. In other words, old-school First Lady hot.
But competition among women is never limited to bedroom appeal. There's always a tussle in the kitchen, too. No modern presidential race is complete without the wives going oven mitt-to-oven mitt in a cookie bake-off. But THK managed to tweak this farcical domestic battle in singular fashion. Family Circle magazine published Laura Bush's entry (chocolate chunk) and one for Teresa Heinz Kerry (pumpkin spice). The pumpkin spice entry was deemed pretty unpalatable, and in an interview on National Public Radio, Heinz Kerry 'fessed up: "Somebody at my office gave that recipe out. In fact, I think somebody really made it on purpose to give a nasty recipe. I never made pumpkin cookies; I don't like pumpkin spice cookies." It's unclear whether the cookie-clash task was passed off to an assistant because
Witch. Bitch. Siren. Mom. Teresa is a different breed of Everywoman.
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THK lacked the time or the interest (or both), but the fact that she hardly sweated it shows some chutzpah. Even though she has stated in a New York Times article that she was a stay-at-home mom and did all the cooking for her sons when they were growing up, she hasn't beaten her domestic skill into a political sword. She also doesn't try to soften her image when it comes to describing her firm approach to home and family. When appearing on the Dr. Phil show to discuss child-rearing, she used the "w" word — not once, but twice — to describe her strict parenting style. "I was a witch with my children, truly, about television," she said. "I used to say, 'You can watch half an hour of television a day.'" It would have been easy for her to phrase that in a less irreverent way, but it seems beneath her to do so. Pimping her traditional side to get the Betty Crocker vote? Teresa don't play that.
Witch. Bitch. Siren. Mom. Teresa Heinz Kerry is an altogether different breed of Everywoman, one that feels more authentic and au courant than the old Stepfordian model. Does her difference stem from her European background, or is it something of her own creation? Probably a bit of both. Yet for all her nouveau-power-chick appeal, she can still give an observer pause. Her fast-and-loose verbal style can be wince-worthy to even the most diehard booster of female firebrands. (See last July's "shove it" encounter with that journalist.) First ladies are diplomats by default. If a perceived slight sets her off, can we trust this woman to be graceful when there's real pressure? Yeah, it's kind of fun to watch a privileged lady go off on someone. But one can admire the vitriol while questioning its appropriateness. (On that note, it seemed of dubious judgment for her to diss Laura Bush in USA Today by saying, "I don't know that she's ever had a real job.") If Teresa becomes first lady, will she continue to call it as she sees it, for good or ill, or will she go down the Hillary path and tone it down for fear of further rebuke?
Whether Teresa Heinz Kerry will make it to the White House remains to be seen, but the political voyeurs among us will be watching. Feisty but no feminazi, she's worldly, profane, generous and bracing in her lack of inhibition. She's neither a long-suffering fashion plate nor muzzled domestic sycophant. A woman like that commands our attention, piques our curiosity and challenges our sensibilities. As a tasty deviation from the staid norm of political wifery, she's hard to ignore. And if you don't like her, I suppose you could follow her cheeky prompt and shove it. n°
©2004 Lily Burana & hooksexup.com
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Commentarium (16 Comments)
Nice story about a Woman who if anything knows how to marry well.
What has she done for you. Another Limo Liberal stepping their constituents.
God bless America.
I tell you what she has done. She was here in Pittsburgh after the floods from Ivan writing and handing out PERSONAL checks to people who had lost their homes and all hope. No press, no publicity. Just one caring person with the resources to help, helping others. And as far as the "shove it" remark went, that was to a reporter from the Tribune review, a paper that is notoriously right wing and owned my Richard Mellon Scaife. As she stated when she went back and asked what paper he was from "It figures." I personally cheered when she told hom to shove it and so did most of the women I know. Limo Liberal. That's a good one. So I guess if you have money, there's no possible way that you could actually care about other people? Go shove your head back up Dick Cheney's ass and stay there.
Does THK really have to shave every day? Ugh.
Is she the one who really running for President?
Another political story from another writer who has all the facts at their disposal. Hmm amazing!
Applaud her for her "I-am-woman, hear-me-roar" persona all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is that the dominant majority of americans -- the DOMINANT majority -- do not like her.
We can all speculate as to why. It seems she doesn't always think things through before opening her mouth. That's fine while standing around a cocktail party half lit yapping at your friends, but it doesn't work well out on the stump. You can call it refreshing, but her gaffes are sometimes head turners. How many working moms did she piss off claiming Laura Bush never worked?
As to her "shove it" comment? Living in Massachusetts, the irony of that stemmed from the fact she had just left the Pennsylvania delegation to the democratic convention where her remarks had essentially been a lecture on the need to restore civility in our political discourse. And, there she was, not five minutes later, engaging in the kind of conduct from which she was admonishing others to refrain.
If that is not a classic example of an elitist double standard than just what is? It's not that she said shove it. It's that it is from that old "Do as I say, not as I do" school of political elitism.
Piss and moan about middle class stiffs who stretch to buy a two year-old SUV while having multiple homes, a private jet, and numerous SUVs of your own. Tell other people to engage in civil political discourse and tell someone minutes later to shove it.
That kind of stuff does not add up to the average american in the fly over states. It might play in Hollywood with Mr. and Mrs. Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin, but it is not going to garner many votes in middle america.
I'm sure she'd be fun to shoot the shit with over a couple of beers, but she's not necessarily ready for political prime time.
I really like Lily Burana's writing.
Teresa Heinz Kerry is sexy.
But I do think the person who said the majority of Americans don't like her is correct.
I have to disagree. Mrs. Kerry was smart when it came to whom she married. One repubilcan and one democrat. Both rich. She talks before she thinks. She should have remembered Laura Bush was a teacher and was the mother of twins. Mrs. Kerry called people with different opinions, "scumb bags" and "idiots". I wouldn't agree with Mrs. Bush describing democrats this way and believe potential first ladies must elevate the political discourse, not bring it down.
A Hooksexup Reader for George W. Bush
P.S. Just below this text box hooksexup.com states..."Blatant expressions of bigotry, sexism or hatred may be constitutionally protected on the street corner, but they're not cool here." I have only heard Mrs. Kerry use school yard language to describe fellow Americans. We need respect on both sides.
From the NY Post... https://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/30460.htm
"Teresa Heinz Kerry reported a total income of $5,072,533, including nearly $2.8 million that escaped all federal taxes because it was on interest-free investments from state, city and other public bonds.
She paid $628,401 in federal taxes, or a rate of 12.47 percent. The average middle-class family pays more than 20 percent.
Mrs. Kerry's rate is barely above the lowest rate of 10 percent for the lowest-income Americans subject to taxes."
President Bush and wife Laura reported paying $227,490 in federal taxes on income of $822,126 or a 27.7 percent rate
nice writting.
let's hope she'll make it to the lincoln boudoir
and offer to the american people some separation bt church and gov't!
james
In Theresa Hines-Kerry, it appears we have a powerful and comfortable woman in her own right, with her own money, and without the need of sharing her husband's Presidential penis in order to have and use the power of that position, a very unusual and perhaps a first time in America. What will be interesting, if her husband wins, is how she chooses to use his position but not his power to help forward her own agenda, assuming she has devised one yet. The idea is intriguing that a wealthy, self commanding woman might occupy the White House, even as wife of a President, to reflect upon how that position, as wife, increases or diminishes the power of women, in general, as apart from the distinction of First Lady. Comparing Eleanor, Hillary, and Theresa and their approach to power would be an interesting analysis.
Last time that I checked, the definition of "Lady" is a woman who is polite, refined, etc. This title is bestowed upon wives of the voter's choice, whether they (the "First Lady") deserve it or not. Thank you, America, for sparing myself the frustration of trying to explain to my 11 year old daughter why everybody is calling Teresa Heinz-Kerry a "Lady".
She inherited money, which is different from actually earning it. Whereas Laura Bush was a school teacher (yes, a real job). Yet, who insulted whom?
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Whay are you don't write about something really interesting? Let's try! :)
It's really provoking point of view.