Kerry's Wife Has History of Outspokenness

ByABC News
July 26, 2004, 1:36 PM

B O S T O N, July 27, 2004 -- The campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has long been challenged by the outspokenness of his wife, billionaire philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry.

In the last few days alone, she has told a reporter from a conservative newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to "shove it," and taken a thinly veiled shot at President Bush's reading habits despite attempts by her husband's campaign to assume a more positive, less Bush-bashing tone for swing voters tuning in to the campaign for the first time this week.

Her unscripted and off-the-cuff remarks have raised eyebrows along the campaign tale, but it doesn't seem to bother her.

"You know I have been campaigning nine days a week almost since September and I haven't offended anybody. I have campaigned unscripted from the heart, from the gut. And I will say again that is someone really treads unjustly on something I consider very important my honor and what I say with meaning, I defend myself," she told ABC News' Peter Jennings.

Heinz Kerry's "shove it" comment, while it drew some public support, was rough language for a would-be first lady. But Heinz Kerry defended her anger at the reporter. "When someone tries to trap you, and to put words that you have not said, which indicate not very nice meanings, you have a right to defend yourself. And I did and I think you would too," she told Jennings.

Long History of Combative Comments

Heinz Kerry's predilection for speaking her mind, regardless of the consequences, has apparently been long held. In a 1976 newspaper interview, Heinz Kerry then the wife of Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., who died in a 1991 plane crash had some rather unkind comments about Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Democratic Party, and the women's movement all three of which have been key to her current husband's success.