Stop the hysteria! Boycotting Heinz will not do anything to harm Kerry and Teresa.
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the manner of anonymous message boards, the discussion flails along with bad typists spewing insults back and forth, and desperately trying to get something going with the fact that Kerry -- suddenly looking like a winning candidate -- happens to be married to Teresa Heinz Kerry.
In the real world, the first lady contender has little financial connection anymore to Pittsburgh's H.J. Heinz. She was married for 25 years to a member of the founding family, Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz, until his death in a plane crash in 1991.
She chairs the Heinz Endowments, which still own stock but not enough to meet the 5 percent ownership threshold that requires notifying the Securities and Exchange Commission.
There's been no Heinz family member involved in the management of the business since the late 1980s, said company spokesman Jack Kennedy. And the family drastically reduced its holdings in 1995 in a secondary stock offering.
"There's no real relationship," said Kennedy, beyond those at the company being respectful, of course, of anyone related to the founder, Henry John Heinz, who came from Sharpsburg.
Bloggers and message board participants might be interested to learn that while the Federal Election Commission's Web site listed a $2,000 contribution on Dec. 31, 2003, by Teresa Heinz Kerry to the "John Kerry For President Inc." cause, it also lists a $5,000 contribution on June 3, 2003, to "Bush-Cheney '04 Inc." by the H.J. Heinz Co. Political Action Committee.
The Heinz company gave money to Bush and Cheney! Why boycott that?
SD