Blunt and Influential, Kerry's Wife Is an X Factor

[ringmastery]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/politics/campaign/22HEIN.html?ei=5065&en=4817b7dbe4433c21&ex=1078030800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position=

ATLANTA, Feb. 21 — In December 2002, when Teresa Heinz Kerry's husband, Senator John Kerry, came home from his physical boasting about his low cholesterol, she stared at his screening results for prostate cancer and saw trouble where he had not.

"He didn't know anything," she recalled. "He knew zero, zilch."

But Ms. Heinz Kerry, a physician's daughter who peruses medical journals and toxicology articles and is intrigued by alternative medicine and Eastern philosophy, knew enough to have her husband's blood retested for C-reactive protein, a little-known indicator of potentially cancerous inflammation. Two days before Christmas, his doctor told Mr. Kerry that his wife's fears were well placed; he was in the very early stages of prostate cancer.

Ms. Heinz Kerry may well have saved her husband's life. Yet the episode underscores how, politically, she may be both an asset and a liability for the senator. While she is known as a highly intelligent and devoted spouse who looks after her husband, Ms. Heinz Kerry has a reputation as being offbeat if not a little odd, and even some Democratic strategists say that could complicate the Kerry campaign's efforts to make the Kerrys appealing to voters.

On the campaign trail, she speaks in jarringly frank terms about dealing with grief and loss; she talks openly about distinctly un-Western modes of healing, which can leave her audiences as mystified as they are impressed.

[acmavm]

1. Phooey, the woman is great. She'll be an asset to his campaign, and

she would be a wonderful First Lady. We NEED someone who is a little "offbeat" in the way they think, we NEED someone is is blunt and honest in what they say. She is very, very smart, strong, honest, and attractive. Now how in the hell can anyone think that this woman could or would be anything but an asset to her husband's campaign.

[maxanne]

3. you haven't met her

have you?

[adadem]

4. I have,

Had the opportunity to speak with her for about 5 minutes at a small gathering after she gave her speech. She's incredible. Articulate, smart, very well-informed especially on health care. My husband is a MD and spoke with her at length about health care issues. She knows her stuff.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. I hope in the 21st century

America can finally handle a woman with ideas and opinions of her own.

[thebigthink]

5. So what's "on-beat?"...

...Laura Bush?

If those are the two choices, this one's a no-brainer.