Teresa Heinz Kerry is warning that she'll use the vast Heinz ketchup fortune to repel personal attacks by the Bush campaign - insisting for the first time publicly that there are legal ways around the campaign finance laws that could allow her to spend far more than the $2,000 legal limit to get her husband elected.
Asked last week if she had decided to spend "any of your own fortune" on the presidential race, Heinz Kerry initially told National Public Radio's Renee Montagne, "I cannot, by law; $2,000 is it, and I've said that so many times."
But in the next breath the ketchup heiress warned, "Any time the honor of my family or myself is trashed, I will do what any American would try and do, which is to fight to redeem it."
"And there are legal ways of doing that," she insisted.
Heinz Kerry predicted that the Bush campaign would indeed go after her and her family personally, setting off the tripwire that would open up her $700 million pocketbook.
"I'm sure it will get very ugly and personal," she warned. "But I think ... ugliness speaks for itself, and expensive ugliness speaks for itself even more."
Asked if she was expecting "any particular accusations, any particular vulnerabilities on your part?" Heinz Kerry told NPR, "No."
"[There are] no vulnerabilities on my part. My life's an open book. I'm honest, I work hard, I care about people, and I have hopes for the world and for us, and I think we're not being well-served and well-led."
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