Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, has been of the most independent and outspoken wives of a political candidate in history.
Since last March, when the political election season began, she has been traveling and campaigning for her husband. However, she has not exactly been campaigning with her husband.
When campaigning, she does not wear campaign buttons and has forgotten to introduce herself as the presidential candidate’s wife on occasion. On a recent tour of Latino businesses in Manchester, N.H., a French-African owner of a barbershop traded stories with Kerry about growing up in South Africa. He said Kerry had not even mentioned her husband was running for president.
She has been so outspoken at times that her behavior has caused John Kerry’s aides to panic. When asked if he still had nightmares about his combat in Vietnam, Kerry said he had not. But Teresa had a differing opinion and mimicked him having a flashback, screaming, “Down, down, down!”
She also was reported as interrupting Sen. Kerry, fidgeting while he made speeches and often failing to gaze at him adoringly in the generic manner that campaign trail wives have adopted in the past.
She also once told a reporter to “shove it” immediately after giving a speech calling for a more civil tone in politics.
Despite the controversy surrounding some of her off-the-cuff remarks, she should be applauded for making them and taking more of a self-reliant approach to presidential campaigning than potential first ladies have in the past. Although telling a group of George W. Bush supporters that another four years of Bush would be “another four years of hell” is a blunt opinion, her unabashedly independent style is a desirable trait that all wives on the campaign trail should display.
Unlike the normal archetype of political wives, Heinz Kerry runs her own show in support of her husband. In that sense, she is unlike Laura Bush, who knows her place is at her husband’s side, or Hillary Clinton, who had her own agenda to advance. She is especially different from Judith Steinberg, the wife of Howard Dean, who avoided the limelight altogether.
She does however share a commonality with Barbara Bush. Bush had a tendency to get ahold of people who had publicly criticized her and tell them she was offended by their comments. Heinz Kerry’s upfront and confrontational approach mirrors Barbara Bush’s, and it is an excellent way to step out of the shadow of a presidential candidate.
Because of her background and her actions thus far in the campaign, she could be the most influential first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt.
