With California’s Democratic primary now six days away, the Los Angeles Times’ Robin Abcarian today contributes her two cents to the manufactured media debate, Teresa Heinz Kerry: Help or Hindrance? Abcarian tells us that Heinz Kerry, unlike her husband (“Vietnam veteran,” “has gravitas”) or John Edwards and his wife (he: “son-of-a-mill worker” who “offers hope to the working class;” she: “former lawyer” and “harried mom and self-deprecating helpmate”) is “not as easy to pigeonhole.”
That doesn’t stop Abcarian from giving it a shot. Like those before her (as Campaign Desk has noted), Abcarian mentions the usual physical and biographical details: the scarves, the Botox — “She looked at least 10 years younger than her age (she has admitted to Botox but not to plastic surgery) and wore minimal makeup” — the “whispery — some might say sexy — ” and “soft accented voice,” the inherited fortune, the childhood in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique.
Abcarian also offers readers this little insight (admission?): “For journalists anyway, Heinz is a refreshing departure from the reined-in candidate’s wife. Last week, Laura Bush told the Associated Press, ‘I’m actually very disciplined. I don’t really have to watch everything I say because I’m pretty well-behaved.’ Deliciously, Heinz refuses to stay above the fray.”
Some of the tastier morsels of late, to Abcarian’s tongue: Heinz Kerry saying Walmart “destroy[s] communities” and calling Drudge “a smudge.”
So there’s the pigeonhole: Heinz Kerry gives political reporters, their palates numbed by weeks of digesting the same stump speeches and rote answers from prefabricated candidates, something juicy to chew on.
–Liz Cox Barrett
