But Enough About My Husband . . .
LAST, JONATHAN V.
But Enough About My Husband . . . Teresa Heinz Kerry, the morning after. BY JONATHAN V. LAST Boston WITH THE EXCEPTION of Jimmy Carter, Teresa Heinz Kerry probably got the worst reviews of any...
...She asked if there were any Brazilians in the audience...
...One woman stood up and cheered...
...Yet for some reason, she said, "recently, a columnist chided me that i wasn't really an immigrant...
...She stopped in the middle of her remarks and winked to the crowd, "I have to give him a kiss...
...Not only did she use prepared remarks—she actually spent part of her speech talking about John Kerry...
...She spent the first half of her remarks "on topic," talking about gay rights...
...The audience responded with an enthusiastic and husky "Yeah...
...If he were attractive, a bit dotty, and filthy rich...
...Teresa is intelligent and charming, to be sure...
...But she's also both honest and candid—a little like John McCain...
...After 11 minutes, she wrapped up, having made not a single reference to John Kerry...
...After closing her remarks, she was done campaigning for the day...
...Still, anyone who's covered Teresa knows that her convention performance was savvy and disciplined, by her standards...
...You can call me Mama T any time.'" It was an odd moment, the elegant, Swiss-educated heiress not looking much like a "Mama T." But it was neither as odd—nor as revealing—as when she told the group, "If I have one quality that I can brag about, because it's just who I am, it's that I like to nurture people, I like to enable...
...Not understanding what she meant, the audience laughed again, and started clapping...
...Twenty-four hours later, both Elizabeth and John Edwards seemed to be sucking up to the boss's wife, ostentatiously inserting testimonials to Teresa into their own convention speeches...
...Teresa paused for just a moment...
...I tried, but I didn't...
...It's her first mention of Kerry since the night before...
...Not wanting to dwell on the Democratic presidential candidate, Teresa moved on, until Max Cleland entered the room and was wheeled onstage...
...Her next stop was at the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender Caucus, where the woman introducing her asked the assemblage, "Did she not look really hot last night...
...The African Americans and veterans get the "growing up African" story, but sure enough, less than a minute into it, Teresa veered to a more interesting topic: medieval Portuguese poetry...
...Unlike most political speakers, Teresa Heinz Kerry rarely repeats herself...
...She then went on to explain how she was recently thinking about Cuban Americans and why they tend to vote Republican...
...She doesn't have a stump speech—or, for that matter, any set speeches...
...Teresa was then whisked across the hallway to a ballroom to address a combined audience of the African-American and Veterans Caucuses...
...They were still cheering when Teresa got up to the microphone...
...A man in the audience "put his hands up," Teresa remembered, "and he said, 'I'd like you to be my mother.'" The GLBT crowd laughed, but Teresa wasn't telling the story as a goof: "It was a sad statement," she said, because it told her that he hadn't been able to make peace with his mother...
...After quoting a passage from The Lusiads, Teresa told the crowd how she marched against apartheid as a young girl, but never told her mother about it...
...Then, she segued into the importance of early-childhood intervention to keep kids in school...
...She then recounted a story from a campaign fundraiser in Sonoma...
...The idea that someone can't appreciate the immigrant experience just because they happen to be a billionaire, she said, is "tommyrot...
...In the 15 th century, when the Portuguese were making stops in Africa on the way to India," she cooed, the African people gave inspiration to "the most famous epic poet Luis de Camoes, who wrote The Lusiads...
...So I got up to six," she said gently...
...i am honored to stand with her," Elizabeth Edwards said at the top of her remarks...
...When I was 5 years old, or 6, I had just had a little baby sister, so I was really enchanted," she told the GLBT caucus during one of her digressions...
...Caught a little off her guard, she looked down and giggled...
...And she did...
...I lost three, okay...
...And who can blame reporters for mocking a speech that featured lines like this: "With John Kerry as president, global climate change and other threats to the health of our planet will begin to be reversed...
...But she's never stuck there for long...
...i still feel that way about my country," she said...
...The only subject she's guilty of recycling is the story of her childhood in Africa...
...It's easy to see why Teresa Heinz Kerry bothers some people: She's part Arianna Huffington, part Zsa Zsa Gabor, and part Ginger from Gilligan's Island...
...It turns out that she identifies with them, and understands what they must feel, since it hurt her deeply when Mozambique fell to the Marxists...
...Her voice had real pain, and pride...
...Off-the-record comments were even more devastating...
...Even as a lass, she knew that the fight against apartheid was important, and she promised, "In John, and John Edwards, and Elizabeth, and in me, you will have strong, soft, persuasive stands, with you all the way...
...She had mentioned her husband once all morning...
...Andrew Sullivan called her speech "condescending, unnecessary, and pointless...
...She and Teresa shared a few words in portuguese...
...No other woman running for first lady could get away with being as impossibly sweet and flirtatious as Teresa Heinz Kerry is...
...She's always telling audiences about how she was born and raised in Africa, and how her father, who was a doctor, used to take her out into the bush on weekends...
...Will Saletan of Slate criticized her for talking about her late husband John Heinz, the Republican senator from pennsylvania...
...But I have three wonderful children, and a grandchild...
...With her soft voice and Audrey Hepburn-like caressing of her words, she began by noting that she's "about seven-eighths Latin...
...By the way, how great was Teresa Heinz Kerry last night...
...It's always a little disappointing when she tells her "growing up African" story—it's the only time a Teresa speech feels like a performance and not simply the broadcasting of her interior monologue...
...BY JONATHAN V. LAST Boston WITH THE EXCEPTION of Jimmy Carter, Teresa Heinz Kerry probably got the worst reviews of any prime-time speaker at the Democratic convention...
...But by the following morning, she was back to normal...
...Not wanting to leave either group out, she started off by talking about equal pay for women...
...I didn't," Teresa continued...
...John Edwards asked, apropos of nothing...
...Her first stop was the Hispanic Caucus, at the downJonathan V. Last is online editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Then Teresa mentioned her late husband and their three children and one grandchild, and talked about how important family is to her...
...But in many ways, she's a ray of sunshine in a tough and unpleasant campaign...
...So I told him, 'At least, if nothing else, you'll have a mom in the White House who loves you...
...Teresa takes some offense at this notion, and talked about how difficult her life was when she came to America, leaving behind her beloved Mozambique...
...And people would say, 'Well, what are you going to be when you are big?' And I always said, 'I'm going to have 12 children.'" Here the audience broke out in laughter, but it was not a joke...
...She said that if her son came home to tell her he was gay, had met a wonderful man, and wanted to get married, she would hope that she could share her joy with all of her friends and family, no matter what their cultural or religious differences...
...She arrived to an enthusiastic ovation and spoke, as she almost always does, quite extemporaneously...
...town Sheraton...
...Her candor can be incredibly touching...
...Journalists weren't the only ones who noticed...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 45
