The Heart of Politics.......this article about Teresa just tickles me

[Dover]

It really gives a feel for Teresa/John's relationship...hehehe


The Heart of Politics
One Woman, Two Senators and Presidential Ambitions: The Washington Tale of John Kerry and Teresa Heinz

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 2, 2002; Page F01

Teresa Heinz is getting up a full head of rage while her husband, Sen. John Kerry, fidgets.

They are in the living room of their Georgetown home, where Heinz has lived ever since her late first husband, John Heinz, came to Washington in 1971 as a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. In the front entrance, the first things a visitor sees are two framed photos of Teresa Heinz cuddled with tall, smiling men with big heads of brown hair: In one is John Kerry, in the other John Heinz.

She still calls John Heinz "my husband" and doesn't always correct herself -- "my late husband" -- even when Kerry is around. She still wears the blue sapphire engagement ring that Heinz gave her.

But John Heinz's enduring presence in Teresa's life is best revealed when someone slights his memory. Which, at least indirectly, is why she and Kerry are now in mid-bicker.

"That guy does not deserve diplomacy," says Heinz. She is referring to Sen. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who offended her in 1994 during his campaign for John Heinz's old Senate seat. She won't elaborate on what Santorum said to earn her enmity, only that she won't speak to him again.

"He's changed," Kerry mumbles, trying to keep this from becoming an on-the-record spectacle. The Massachusetts Democrat tries to add that he gets along with his colleague, but Heinz interrupts. "Sweetie, I know," Kerry says, talking over her, "I'm just saying . . ."

He exhales a long, loud sigh.....cont'd




http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39691-2002May31?language=printer

[Doug Decker]

1. A good read...

I cried a little at the part about the movie.

[Dover]

5. I think this may be one of the most honest, intimate and humanizing

pieces I've ever read about candidate's personal life.

[Cha]

2. Thanks Dover..this made me tear up for obvious

reasons.

And this is interesting..

"The Kerry-Heinz marriage has invited crude assumptions from the outset. The most cynical is that he needs the fortune she inherited from John Heinz to be president. To that, Kerry says he won't spend any Heinz money on a campaign -- and Heinz says she won't make it available -- unless, in her words, an opponent engages in "character assassination" against her or Kerry. As an example, Kerry says that if he is attacked in the way that McCain was attacked by George W. Bush before the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000, he would not hesitate to tap "other resources."

[Dover]

3. I thought this was an interesting insight into Teresa and John's bond

...They have a relationship that makes me like and respect John more," says one former Kerry aide who has been with the couple on several occasions. With Heinz, Kerry chose a woman who challenges him, who nurtures his less developed sides. "She's warm, a little soulful and pretty high-maintenance," the aide says. "And you don't have to be around Teresa much to know that she defines a lot of who she is by what she's lost."

I think that is also true for Kerry, though perhaps he is much less conscious of it.

Kerry has come to look to Heinz for what one friend calls the "emotional catharsis" for Vietnam. She provides a place to soften the memories that had calcified beneath his public skin. A few weeks ago, Kerry asked Heinz to come with him to see the Vietnam War film "We Were Soldiers." She said no at first, but agreed to go after he said it would mean a lot to him.

They went to a theater on Boston's Tremont Street early on a Sunday evening. Heinz cried as she hadn't in a long time, especially during the scenes where children and wives learned that their fathers and husbands had died. She sobbed loud and hard, while Kerry sat upright next to her, crying quietly.

[Cha]

4. Very much so. And I enjoyed reading it even more

because I felt like I was reading something very intimate and revealing about our future leaders. And I liked what I saw.

Two people thrown into impossible situations and handling it slowly but surely. Teresa will make a stunning First Lady. Someone with her own mind..what a concept after four years of the pickles.

[Placebo]

6. It is great to see that they are REAL people...

who have a REAL relationship that isn't all photo-ops and stepford wives.

one of the greatest things i heard teresa say once was ther she and john have a 'mature' marriage, which is right on.

man oh man do i love that women, i fell in love with her the first time i saw her during the primaries! and when she opened her mouth, it only sweetened the deal...john kerry ain't bad either :)

[Dover]

7. Takes a secure man to love a strong woman......

Here are a couple of other endearing remarks by Teresa from the article:

Charming, driven and impatient, John Heinz had a knack for applying the pointed questioning style that he honed in Senate hearing rooms to his home life. He would grill his wife about the food she was cooking, his three boys about school, Social Security, whatever came up at the dinner table. Teresa would jump in. "I would say, 'Jack, this is your family. We're just stupid. We're just normal. We don't know.' "

And just after Heinz's accidental death:

She was zooming through her life in a manic fog. A year later, when the logistics thinned, the magnitude of her loss came pouring in. Heinz was fighting with her boys, particularly the youngest, Christopher. He was the closest of the three to his father. "If you wish that I was dead instead of your father, that's quite normal and don't feel guilty about it," Teresa Heinz recalled saying to him. "But just don't make me pay the price for it." (Christopher Heinz, now 29, declined to comment.)

[Placebo]

8. Absolutely Amazing...

"The bright face of John Heinz smiled down onto a cozy gathering of his family and friends. He filled a big video screen at the Heinz Awards at the Folger Theatre, the signature event of the Heinz family foundation's year.

Teresa Heinz, who spends hours each year on the ceremony's smallest details, presents the five $250,000 awards and is the night's featured speaker. She gulps water and tries not to cry. She speaks in a small, mumbly voice. In a 2 1/2-hour ceremony, there is no mention of Kerry, who is sitting slightly hunched in the second row, separate from the rest of the family. He says he always enjoys the evening. "It doesn't threaten me," he says later. "I'm lucky enough to be alive and able to enjoy it."

When Teresa Heinz is asked if such an elaborate tribute to her first husband might be difficult for the second, she shrugs, as if the question has never crossed her mind. "No, he's a tall guy, he's gotten enough attention," she says of Kerry. "Just when you love one child, you love your next child. You might have a predilection for one because you get along better, but you'd give your life for any of them."

Wow. The last line...I love this woman.

[Placebo]

9. bump...

i just think this is a great article people MUST read if they haven't already :)