Town of Braintree

Ted Kennedy's Arab American wife

Talk about pulling out the big guns. This week Senator Ted Kennedy's Arab American wife materialized, supporting her and her husband's friend John Kerry for President. Ted Kennedy has an Arab American wife? Who knew?Not the three dozen or so Arab American women who met with Vicki Kennedy on short notice in Scott Hall at Wayne State University this week. Senator Kennedy and U.S. Reps. John Dingell and John Conyers were holding a forum on health care in another room.It was a pleasant surprise to meet the petite,energetic, genuine woman whose grandparents on both sides of her family immigrated from Lebanon. Introduced by the equally dynamic wife of Rep. Dingell, Debbie Dingell - a political force in her own right - Kennedy chatted with the women for 45 minutes, then was whisked off to do a television interview with TV Orient and a print interview with The Arab American News.Kennedy said she has not been particularly active with the Arab American community. ''It's just who I am,'' she said. ''It's the food I cook, it's the culture I come from, it's my life.'' Although not well known in the general Arab American community, she says ''anyone who knows me knows I am of Lebanese heritage and knows my family.''Kennedy said her father's family came from Zghorta, in northern Lebanon, and her mother's family from Deir al Khanar in the south . The name ''Reggie'' was an involuntary Americanization of the original Arabic surname of her father's parents. She said her parents, who were born in the States, have a place in Massachusetts they named Eddine, after the vacation spot in the mountains of Lebanon. They live and she was raised in Louisiana, but in the summer they go to Eddine to be cool. She hasn't had the opportunity to go to Lebanon, which she deeply regrets.Kennedy's father was a judge and an important political figure in Louisiana politics. He was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame earlier this year. He was friends with the Kennedy family and other powerful Democrats.
Kennedy said she is deeply committed to getting John Kerry elected, that it is the most important thing in all of our lives and in the future of the country. To that end, she may be meeting with other groups of Arab Americans over the next week and a half.
Active as the founder of Common Sense About Kids and Guns, an educational group whose mission is to protect children from the careless management of guns and ammunition by those who choose to own them, Kennedy believes Arab American women - and women in general - have something very special to offer in the reshaping of America. ''They are strong, strong women,'' she said. ''We know what it is to be the peacemakers in the family, we understand what it is to solve problems.'' She said women do not believe violence and adversity are the steps that we take to solve these problems, that we have to have conversation.
''And we have to be open,'' she added. ''We have to have a free and open dialogue on issues, even if we think it's not what's going to be popular.'' She feels very hopeful on what looks like an emerging open debate on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ''I think it's incredibly important that a solution is found in our lifetime,'' she said. ''But we must learn the right way to talk about it, and we must all respect each other's views.''
She said she knows deep in her heart what kind of man John Kerry is. ''I would call him pro-peace, not pro-Israel,'' she insisted.
''Everything about John Kerry is about bringing people together,'' she said. ''It's not my way or the highway....I think you can be an honest broker (in the search for peace) by finding common ground among groups of people on both sides.'' I think you can be a friend to one side - hopefully to both sides - and still be an honest broker.''


By Another Reason Jews For Bush

John Kerry finally winning?

Second Best

John Kerry finally winning? His campaign, which only a week ago was defensive about the candidate's standing in the polls, is now more confidently asserting that he's pulled ahead. Before Friday, the Kerry campaign hadn't been willing to make that claim. Typically, the Bush campaign would argue that the president was leading in the race, and the Kerry campaign would respond by saying, no, it's a tie. But in a Friday afternoon conference call, Kerry's people finally started pointing to the scoreboard.

Here are the numbers outlined by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg on the latest Democracy Corps p.oll The numbers are consistent with the latest polls from news organizations, most of which are in keeping with what the Kerry people have been saying all along, that the race is a toss-up. In Greenberg's poll, the horse race is a statistical tie, with Kerry at 49 and Bush at 47. The president's approval rating is 48 percent, ''which is just at the edge of electability,'' Greenberg noted.

So why the confidence? Greenberg cited two internal numbers from the part of the poll that focused on ''persuadable'' voters. That group includes undecided voters, Bush and Kerry supporters who say their minds remain open, and a third group, Bush voters who say they want the country to go in a significantly different direction. The first number Greenberg cited was this: Fifty-seven percent of the persuadable voters in the Democracy Corps poll said they want to know how a candidate will ''make the economy and health care better for people,'' while only 32 percent want to know ''how you'll make us safe.'' The other number Greenberg highlighted: Given a choice between ''I'm comfortable with changing to a new person if he has the right priorities'' and ''Bush has made us safer and I'm reluctant to change,'' 54 percent of persuadable voters said they were comfortable with changing, and 45 percent said they were reluctant. The responses to those two questions, Greenberg said, show that Kerry has ''an audience'' ready to listen to his message. He just has to ''seal the deal.''


By Democracy Corps poll.

Real Clear Politics Poll

Poll Date Bush/
Cheney Kerry/
Edwards Nader/
Camejo Spread
RCP Average 10/17 - 10/23 48.8% 45.8% 1.5% Bush +3.0
Zogby (1207 LV) 10/21 - 10/23 48% 46% 1% Bush +2
TIPP (792 LV) 10/20 - 10/23 49% 43% 2% Bush +6
Newsweek (880 LV) 10/21 - 10/22 48% 46% 1% Bush +2
ABC/Wash Post (1248 LV)* 10/20 - 10/22 50% 46% 1% Bush +4
Time (803 LV) 10/19 - 10/21 51% 46% 2% Bush +5
AP-Ipsos (976 LV) 10/18 - 10/20 46% 49% 2% Kerry +3
Marist (772 LV w/leaners) 10/17 - 10/19 49% 48% 1% Bush +1
FOX News (1000 LV) 10/17 - 10/18 49% 42% 2% Bush +7


By Read Em and Weap

Teresa Heinz Kerry is behaving.


In the spirit of the Kerry campaign official who declared Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter ''fair game,'' let us now turn to the question of whether John Kerry's wife is fit to be First Lady.
The issue is ''fair game'' because of how Teresa Heinz Kerry is behaving. Already wildly unpopular - her approval rating is an anemic 30% - she did the political equivalent of mooning her neighbors last week by insulting First Lady Laura Bush. Said Heinz Kerry in an interview: ''I don't know that she's ever had a real job - I mean, since she's been grown up.''

The incident, including a quick apology for forgetting Bush was a teacher, librarian and full-time mother, was a one-day wonder because Laura Bush brushed it off. But it was not an isolated event. It fit a pattern Heinz Kerry established with a series of breezy putdowns and oddball rants.

There was the blast at the ''scumbags'' who criticize her, the claim that ''only an idiot'' wouldn't like her husband's health care plan and her goofy suggestion that Caribbean hurricane victims ''go naked for awhile'' until food was delivered.

My favorite came on her recent visit to Nevada to discuss health care. The 40-minute speech, per her usual rambling, it's-all-about-me style, included her remedy for arthritis: ''You get some gin and get some white raisins - and only white raisins - and soak them in the gin for two weeks. Then eat nine of the raisins a day.''

Got it - not eight raisins, not 10 raisins, nine.

She's a fan of Botox, Armani and Chanel, calls herself ''cheeky'' and ''sexy,'' but Kerry aides have heart palpitations every time she opens her mouth. Even some New York backers are concerned.

''We could have a bona fide head case as First Lady,'' said a supporter.

''She's weird,'' says another. ''She looks like she's on Prozac or something.''

Radio man Don Imus, as usual, said what others can't: A Kerry supporter, Imus wondered whether Teresa is ''too crazy to be First Lady.''

I've been wondering myself. After watching her on several occasions and after following her antics on the trail, I've concluded she's not crazy.

She's a rich, spoiled brat.

And because she's so rich - a billionaire, with five houses, a private jet and income of perhaps $50 million a year - she is used to being feared by the help and flattered by supplicants who hope she'll sprinkle a few pennies their way. The recipient of such bowing and scraping naturally begins to feel wise, even superior.

Arrogance is thus born.

Arrogance is what former Texas Gov. Ann Richards spotted in a privileged George H.W. Bush. The former President, Richards said, woke up on third base and thought he'd hit a triple.

But Heinz Kerry's arrogance is different. Worldly and intelligent, she exhibits a presumptiveness that recalls 19th century robber barons who believed their wealth proved they were divinely blessed, and that the poor, too, got what they deserved.

Speeches she's given, including at the party's Boston convention, were mostly about her, as if her life is inspiring. She has a habit of lecturing, skips from topic to topic and tends to speak quietly, so you'll just have to listen harder.

Not to worry - there's not much to hear. Her story, stripped of hyperbole, comes to this: she was the child of privilege, and now she is the adult of privilege. Her doctor father was rich and so was her first, late husband. All her money is inherited.

After her marriage in 1966 to John Heinz, heir to the ketchup fortune, she quit her job as a translator and settled into the pampered world of the super-rich.

So she hasn't had a real job for 40 years.

Oh, yes, she does give away Heinz money. She calls herself a philanthropist.

Not exactly a job ordinary Americans can relate to. Or a First Lady.



By John Kerry's wifefit to be First