Teresa Heinz Kerry

Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Heinz Kerry (born October 5, 1938), is a philanthropist and the wife of U.S. Senator John Kerry.

Politics

Heinz Kerry was a registered Republican for most of her voting career, and her first husband, Senator Heinz, ran as a Republican. However, the Heinzes' Republicanism was not that typically associated with the modern Republican Party. Senator Heinz was well known as a champion of seniors and labor unions who often found himself at odds with big business, despite his family's immense wealth. On the issue of abortion, the Heinzes are both pro-choice. In January of 2003, she changed her registration to the Democratic Party. Heinz Kerry has stated that she switched party affiliations to protest the campaign tactics Republican Saxby Chambliss used against Democrat Max Cleland in the 2002 Georgia senatorial election. Many, including Heinz Kerry, felt that advertisements by the Chambliss campaign questioned (by innuendo) the patriotism of Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran. When interviewed about the registration change, she remarked: "Let me just say having been married to a Republican, wonderful man, who was the old kind of Republican that we used to have once upon a time, the Republicanism of this administration is neither Republican nor conservative. There are good people in both parties. These people are not Republicans."

Related Topics:
Republican - Labor unions - Big business - Abortion - Pro-choice - Democratic Party - Saxby Chambliss - Max Cleland - Georgia

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She is said to have been encouraged to run for her husband's vacant Senate seat after his death. She declined; she also refused to endorse Republican Rick Santorum's bid for the seat, publically denouncing him as the "antithesis" of her late husband.

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Two of her sons are believed to be Democrats. Christopher and André Heinz both spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July of 2004. Christopher is believed to be considering running for the House or the Senate from the state of Pennsylvania. John Heinz IV keeps a lower profile, and his political leanings are unclear.

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Had Senator Kerry been elected President, Heinz Kerry would have been only the second foreign-born First Lady of the United States, after the British-born Louisa Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s.

Related Topics:
First Lady of the United States - Louisa Adams - John Quincy Adams

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