Teresa Heinz Drops ‘Kerry’

Teresa Heinz drops ‘Kerry’ (PittsburghLIVE.com)

A campaign convenience is no more. According to The Washington Times, Teresa Heinz, the erstwhile Teresa Heinz Kerry, has stopped using the last name of her husband, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, last year’s Democrat presidential nominee.

Preceding its Women Who Make a Difference Awards dinner next month, the National Council for Research on Women is featuring “a conversation with Teresa Heinz,” according to a release from the organization. The council failed to mention the final half of the Fox Chapel ketchup heiress’ formerly elongated last name in several other references.

“I just checked and she no longer uses her (entire) last name; only during the (presidential) campaign did she use Kerry,” campaign spokeswoman Tamara Rodriguez Reichberg said.

Amazing. Granted, she was married to John Heinz a long time, raised children with him, and would presumably still be with him were he still alive. Still, using one’s former husband’s name instead of one’s current husband’s is odd at least and insulting at worst.

FILED UNDER: 2004 Election, Gender Issues, US Politics, , ,
James Joyner
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Comments

  1. Tom Royce says:

    Heinz payed better than Kerry…

  2. Mark says:

    I think “Teresa Heinz” sounds better than “Teresa Kerry.” That said, it is odd. Maybe she is doing it because most of her children?

  3. Brian says:

    Why doesn’t she go back to using her real name Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira?? I guess that doesn’t sound as good as Heinz or Kerry.

  4. bryan says:

    What will happen in ’08 when Kerry runs again? Will she pick up the Kerry name?

  5. McGehee says:

    By then she’ll be married to Kucinich.

  6. Bachbone says:

    When Sen. Heinz was living, his wife was kept as far away from the media as possible, because she was a loose cannon. She now is a rich loose cannon, and can be where, what and whom she wants to be.

  7. Punisher says:

    She’ll probably go lesbo, and hook up with Hillary, then she can be Teresa Heinz-Rodham-Clinton.

  8. UMonkey says:

    Not to be contradictory or anything, but it’s just a NAME. Pretty small potatoes, really, compared to everything else going on in the world today. And for what it’s worth, if Mrs. Bush were to revert to using her maiden name, I wouldn’t think twice about that either.

  9. Yeah, but she is married to John Kerry. She isn’t using her maiden name, she is using the name of her dead husband, and not her current “live” husband.