Jan. 17 - Some day, when a woman is elected President, we’ll have to figure
out what to call her husband. First Gentleman doesn’t quite seem right. Then
again, First Lady no longer does either. It’s an old-fashioned title for what’s
increasingly an awkward role: unelected, largely symbolic yet freighted with
significant cultural expectations.
This year, among the Democrats vying for president, there are wives in the
traditional mould of political spouse, such as Jane Gephardt. There is also
Dr. Judith Steinberg, the wife of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who has
so studiously avoided the campaign trail that most Americans have never seen
her. And then there is Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is married to Massachusetts
Sen. John Kerry.
Heinz Kerry’s debut in the national political press was a rocky one. Reporters
on the campaign trail are still talking about The Washington Post profile of
the Kerrys last June in which she challenged her husband in front of a
reporter and talked freely of “the love of her life”—her late husband, John
Heinz. He was the moderate Republican senator from Pennsylvania, to whom she
was married more than two decades. Heinz was killed in a 1991 plane crash.
Teresa Heinz met Kerry at a United Nations conference on the environment in
1992. They were married three years later.
Other stories have chronicled Heinz Kerry’s exotic beauty (she was born in
Mozambique to a Portuguese doctor), her occasionally earthy language, her
significant fortune (after her first husband’s death she inherited some $500
million and took over as head of the family’s $1.2 billion philanthropies) and
her habit for saying aloud what she’s actually thinking.
NEWSWEEK caught up with Heinz Kerry last week on a swing through several small
Iowa towns, where she was campaigning for her husband. She sat down with Mark
Miller to discuss her husband, her image and what she has learned on the
campaign trail.
Newsweek: What has surprised you most since you got on the campaign trail?
TERESA HEINZ KERRY: The Iowa process has been a big surprise. I knew there
were caucuses and that you had to work hard for your votes. But I didn’t
realize the depth of interest that people who caucus really have. They are
people who like to figure out how you think and they can tell if someone is
fishing or running away. In that sense it is a very uplifting process and I
wasn’t expecting that. So it has energized me a lot.
How often have you been able to see your husband since the campaign began in
earnest last fall?
Not much. I’ve been campaigning on my own, hard, for two or three months. I
might arrive at the same place where he is at 11 p.m. but everyone’s crashing.
And then the next morning one goes one way, one goes the other way.
You have three grown sons, one of whom, Christopher, is campaigning for the
Senator. Do you think one day Christopher may run for office as well?
He might. I think of my three sons he probably would be the one.
As a Democrat or a Republican, like his father, the late Sen. John Heinz?
He would run as a Democrat. He’s sorry, like I am, to see that our party right
now is not being run by the kind of Republicans who were like my husband.
Sometimes I think that if he had lived—and it’s obviously almost an arrogant
thing to say—that the party wouldn’t have moved so far to the right. Because
he was optimistic and a problem solver, I think he could have brought out the
best principles in people rather than playing to their worst fears, which is
certainly what we see in some people today.
Have you been surprised by some of what’s been written about you?
I have always had good press, until more recently, when I remarried and I
guess people thought I was fair game. That was the word used.
Why?
Because I married another politician. As a widow, I was untouchable. As the
wife of John Heinz, my press was good. But now I don’t pay much attention to
it anymore. I don’t take it seriously, you know? I just don’t.
What’s your view of the proper role of the political spouse?
To keep the candidate honest, and by that I mean be who they are, remember
their roots, remember their beliefs, not get inflated egos. And to boost them
when they need it, keep things in perspective, make sure they are strong and
happy. And then do what it is you do well. Laura Bush loves books, loves
reading and promoting literacy and she seems like a very happy person doing
that. Hillary Clinton liked policy, to actually write stuff as a lawyer. Fine.
People say, ‘who are you going to be like?’ And I say I’m going to be me. I
will continue to do my work and be respectful certainly of the position in the
sense that what you say and what you do has more of an impact than if you were
a private citizen—of course I understand that—but just because a woman is a
spouse she shouldn’t be expected to look one way or act one way. It’s
certainly not a modern thing to do. I’m surprised sometimes that in America, a
liberated country, we expect the wife of a president of the United States to
be, in essence, modern chattel. It’s not right.
There’s been a lot of discussion about whether you help or hurt your husband’s
campaign because you have opinions that you aren’t afraid to voice.
Men with opinions are well informed and smart. But women with opinions are
opinionated. If I didn’t have opinions, A) I couldn’t have gotten done what I
have and
I would be a silly fool. I refuse to be categorized.
As someone who was born outside the United States but has been intimately
acquainted with its political process, what’s your view of the role of First
Lady and what people expect?
If you put 100 people from different parts of the country in a room and ask
them what they expect you would get different kinds of answers. ‘I want
somebody who is dignified.’ ‘I want somebody who will support the man and be
there for him.’ ‘I want somebody who will say what she wants to do and do it.’
I think it’s a difficult job and probably in some respects a lonely situation.
I would think that the most important thing people would want is that the
person there is healthy, curious, sensitive and can keep them proud of being
Americans and try, as much as possible, to inspire the best in us.
In recent weeks, your husband has seen a significant rise in some state polls
and seems to be hitting his stride as a campaigner. But he went through some
turmoil early on, firing some of his staff and generally reorganizing his
campaign. Is that why he is now doing better?
He always does well when he is coming from behind. Secondly, and I have no
proof, but I think his body is getting over a [February] operation [to treat
prostrate cancer]. I have two friends who had it done in October and November
and who rested for six weeks and are just getting their legs and they wonder
how John went back 10 days later. But I do notice his energy is generally
better and his face looks better. I think the campaign is being well run. And
I think that always makes you feel a little less anxious. You can do what you
have to do.
How distressed were you about the way the campaign was being run before the
changes were made?
I have never sat in a strategy meeting so I don’t know what was going on. I
have my opinions but….I was concerned about him and not seeing some of the
stuff that I saw before [that made him a good presidential candidate]. But I
didn’t know what it was, whether it was his energy and I was afraid about the
operation.
You are a good friend of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Have you
talked with him since the controversial book about him has come out?
No. But I would like to talk him and say, ‘Did you really mean all the things
you said in the book? Of course you did. So what are you going to do about it?’
Paul is a very honest man, and a brilliant man. He is, in the best sense of
the word, a CEO: totally practical and non-ideological. He has done amazing
things for Alcoa. He is a person of amazing integrity.
Everything that he is is the result of determination, honesty, principle. I am
sorry he took the job that he took because I didn’t think that was the kind of
work [that he would be best at]. If he had been secretary of Commerce that
would have been more up his alley. And I would rather have seen him be a
governor. He would have been a great governor, because he really believes in
an early childhood and a great education. He really believes in efficiencies.
He knows we have a global climate change problem. He would be dogged about
finding ways to resolve it. No BS. As an executive he’s brilliant.
Politics is an often-brutal process. If your husband is the Democratic nominee,
are you concerned about how ugly the general campaign might be?
I believe that if people are honest and thoughtful, that eventually that
stands out. You may go through hard times, and I don’t think any amount of
money can protect you. They can shake you up but if you stay whole, let them
say what they want and let the results go where they will. In Portuguese there’s
a very good saying. The literal translation is ‘God writes straight through
torturous lines.’ But the meaning is that God’s message has a purpose even
though it is torturous, that the happenings around us are bigger than we know
and what you do with your life and who you become is part of living that life.
A few years ago I nearly died in a plane crash. Well, the plane didn’t crash
but it almost did. It was about seven years ago and I was taking off from
Idaho in a Gulfstream. We took off and we were pretty high and two geese came
through one of the engines and killed it right away. We were over the trees by
then and I felt I could almost touch them. I looked out and I thought okay,
and I just said what one says in trouble, ‘into thy hands oh lord, here I go.’
I was able to call one child and I said, ‘look this is what’s happening, we
haven’t gone down yet but I just wanted to tell you I love you all and I will
call you when I’m down.’ Then the pilots explained what had happened. We had
to fly very low all the way along the mountains to Boise. Just the week before
a good friend was going to Brussels and they were in a Lear jet. Pffft!
Flying in small planes is unavoidable in a campaign. Given what happened to
your first husband and what almost happened to you, aren’t you afraid of what
might happen again?
You have to check out the pilots very well, check out the outfit, the
maintenance. It was pilot error that killed [Heinz]. As much as is humanly
possible, we do what we can do to check these people out or to check certain
airports out. But you know what? You can only do what you can do.
