This is a great news day in Pennsylvania for Obama. Teresa Heinz Kerry, best known (in addition to being married to John Kerry) for running the Heinz Family Philanthropies in Pittsburgh, PA, has come out in her own right to support Barack Obama. Teresa has been fairly quiet about the 2008 presidential primaries, so it is actually a big deal that she decided to pen an endorsement in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I think this is a signficant endorsement for the Pittsburgh area and the Pennsylvania primary, especially when you see what she said!
Before I get into the particulars of this stunning opinion piece, I want to say a few words about Teresa as it relates to her hometown of Pittsburgh. It is true that she was incessantly attacked by the Right Wing in 2004 to drive up her negatives nationally; however, the impression of her by the people who know her best is completely different. I'll let Howard Fineman, a Pittsburgh native himself, do the rest of the talking:
Well, I'm a Teresa Heinz Kerry fan, if for no other reason than she explained that we're both from Pittsburgh. And the thing is, after she married John Kerry, and after the focus of their lives became Washington, D.C., Teresa, who had been married to the leading figure in the Heinz family, could have picked up and left Pittsburgh, both literally and in terms of her charitable work. One of the great things about her, and one of the reasons people back in my hometown like her so much is that she stayed committed to the city. She's the most important philanthropist in the city, and has been for a number of years, supporting the hospital system, medical care, and so forth. She's a stand-up gal. She really is. You know, people like her back in Pittsburgh, and she's very real.
With that said, let's get to her endorsement of Barack Obama:
Sunday Forum: It's Pennsylvania's turn - vote for Obama
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Post-Gazette
Election days are always special to me. I grew up in a land where there were no election days.
The Mozambique of my childhood was governed by a right-wing dictatorship in far-away Portugal. My father, a wise and good man, was 71 years old when he voted for the first time. I never cast a ballot until I became a citizen of the United States. But when I did, it was for a young man who spent years teaching me about the needs of Pennsylvania's working families and the good our government can do for them -- my late husband, Sen. John Heinz. He helped me learn how precious a right suffrage is -- as a weapon against tyranny; as an instrument of hope, progress and change.
That is why, this year, I will cast my vote in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
With 2004 becoming more and more distant, some of you may have forgotten about the extraordinary life Teresa has lived, and that she grew up in Africa. Her unique experience makes her an astute observer in pointing out how big a deal a President Obama will be for the world, including Africa. As you can see from the second paragraph, Teresa uses the op-ed to compare Barack with her late husband, Republican Senator John Heinz. From all the things I have read about John, he would have loved Barack and his calls for us to come together. John Heinz was part of a Republican tradition that seems to no longer exist: a liberal Republican who cared about the environment and the lives of working people. He was also very, very popular in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania needs a president like Barack Obama, someone who understands the tough times Pennsylvanians are facing. Raised with much love but in challenging circumstances by a single mom and grandparents, he knows firsthand the stress and financial pressures families face. When he beat the odds and put himself through college, he could have made good money with a big-name law firm anywhere in the country, but he chose the gritty streets of Chicago's South Side where, as a community organizer, he worked helping families like his build better lives.
...
Mr. Obama's health-care plan will cover every child in America, and help families afford the same kind of insurance he and I both have, by giving them access to the same plan that covers Congress. ... As I saw in Sen. Heinz, and as I see in my husband, Sen. John Kerry, a personal connection to working families drives Mr. Obama in his passion to get working Americans and seniors access to affordable insurance.
Pretty stunning, eh? Barack Obama gets comparisons to both Teresa's late husband and her husband now, one a Republican, the other a Democrat! I don't think you can get a better compliment from THK, can you?
Throughout this op-ed she sticks to real issues that Pennsylvanians face, and what she sees as Obama's pragmatic approach to solving those problems. And, finally, I think the way she ends it shows that she is telling Pennsylvanians: you took a chance on my first husband, and look how pleased you were with him. It's time to do that again.
In the bicentennial year of 1976, Pennsylvania took a chance on a smart, hard-working and optimistic young congressman named John Heinz and made him their senator. They made a wise choice. He worked across the aisle to tackle the tough problems of the 1970s and 1980s -- saving Social Security, reforming nursing home care, demanding fair trade, offering new solutions to environmental problems. He proved that, when you love people and put their interest ahead of politics you can make a real difference.
That is the spirit I see in Barack Obama and why I look forward to voting to make him our 44th president.
Nice, "bicentennial 1976" touch, Teresa. That made me think of Barack Obama and the Founding Fathers in one thought, too. Wonderful op-ed. May it move some votes in the great city of Pittsburgh!