Kerry won't use wife's fortune to run for President

Honor among the Democrats

If he means this, I will have a new found respect for the man. I still won't vote for him, but at least I would have further hope that the Dems have found some moral backbone in their midst. Kerry's wife inherited millions from her late husband, a Republican congressman.

Sen. Kerry Not Banking on His Wife's Fortune (washingtonpost.com) Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has effectively ruled out using any significant part of a family fortune estimated at $550 million in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The senator's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, inherited the fortune from her first husband, Sen. H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.), after he died in a plane crash in 1991. Kerry and Heinz were married four years later, and her money has given Kerry -- at least on paper -- a potentially huge advantage in financing his campaigns.

"It would be a contradiction," Kerry said in an interview. "I said to people long ago and I held to this during my Senate campaign, I came to politics based on my own initiative and my own effort to raise money and that's the way I want to finish my life in politics. Teresa's money is Teresa's money and I've declaratively stated that."

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