Polite society anticipates Teresa’s pizazz

Federally funded Botox clinics. Diamond pickle pins. Fish stew for state dinners, followed by green tea and Portuguese pound cake. Pre-nups and private Gulfstream jets. Hermes bags, aromatherapy, homeopathic remedies and $4,000 Chanel suits. No more twin sets. No more twins. Blowsy hair, brassy mouth and bossy boots.

Is mainstream America ready for Teresa Heinz Kerry, a woman who radio host Don Imus wonders might be “too crazy to be first lady”?

“Well, they better be,” said Betty Ford’s former press secretary Sheila Weidenfeld. “I think she’s going to be controversial, which is good. That’s because she’ll speak up.”

“The French will love her,” deadpanned Sheila Tate, Nancy Reagan’s former press secretary.

“Put it this way,” said author and Forbes FYI editor Christopher Buckley, “I think Teresa Heinz would be by far the only thing to enjoy during what I suspect will be four dreary years of the human tree.”

For that reason, social Washington is salivating at the idea of a revitalized White House, with a multilingual, art-collecting, wine-drinking, garden-loving billionairess who calls herself “cheeky” and “sexy” running the salon.

Criticized as “bonkers” by her opponents, the unconventional Mrs. Kerry — who describes her detractors as “scumbags” — would be the first foreign-born first lady since John Quincy Adams’ wife, Louisa, a native of London. And at the age of 66, she would be the oldest incoming first lady.

She would also be the wealthiest, having inherited an estate reportedly worth $500 million in 1991 (“my pile,” as she jokes) after her first husband, ketchup heir and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. John H. Heinz III, was killed in an airplane crash.

She owns five luxury homes and a private plane, The Flying Squirrel. Mrs. Kerry’s fortune — now estimated at $1.2 billion — has been her passport to a world of privilege and power far beyond that of the average political wife.

“She knows people in all walks of life,” said Time magazine photographer Diana Walker, one of Mrs. Kerry’s closest friends. “She knows where the brains are.”

“What we’re hungry for,” said former Clinton administration official Ann Pincus, “is someone who’s engaged.”

The Bushes have been virtually incognito for the last four years. Harpers Bazaar recently referred to the first lady’s style as “Marian the Librarian.”

“Nobody’s been to The White House,” added Mrs. Pincus. “You don’t know about them. There’s no buzz.” The president is a teetotaler and Laura Bush “doesn’t even do lunches. It’s like, ‘Hello, is this 1958?’”

“Laura is a gracious person, but she’s been relegated to being a pretty picture,” noted publishing heiress Marie Ridder. “Whereas John Kerry does listen to Teresa, who has a powerful voice.”

Her off-the-cuff remarks — including saying she only tacked on her husband’s name for political reasons — differ radically from Mrs. Bush’s quiet deference. But the real difference, observers say, is their personas.

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