Andre Heinz, the thirty-four-year-old step-son of John Kerry came to
town on Wednesday night, August 25, at 7:00 p.m., and addressed a crowd
of about 100 citizens gathered in the upstairs meeting room of the
Bettendorf Public Library. His opening remarks were that his mother
always felt “grounded” when she returned to Iowa, and that there was a
rainbow outside that matched the building’s color scheme: observant
statements, but not particularly political statements. The rainbow was
caused by the all-day off-and-on rain the area experienced on this
overcast August day.



Andre’s
31-year-old brother, Chris, was not present, and the oldest Heinz son,
John IV, has steadfastly refused to have anything to do with the Kerry
campaign. He lives a quiet life with his wife and daughter in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, working as a blacksmith and iron worker artisan
(he trained, for a while, at Colonial Williamsburg) and as the founder
of the private Buddhist Tinicum Art and Science School, in Ottsville,
Pennsylvania, which has, among its student enrollment, some troubled
youths. John IV is the father of Teresa Kerry’s only grandchild, but
Mrs. Kerry has been quoted as saying that it was soon after her
grand-daughter’s birth in 1996 that her eldest son “began to hate me.”
There is little information available beyond that, and John IV isn’t
giving interviews.



Andre
Heinz graduated from Georgetown with a degree in English and then
studied at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Science.
Therefore, many of his remarks concerned the environment. He works as
an environmental consultant in Stockholm for NaturalStep. It had been
announced that, upon arrival, Andre, would first tour the assembled
crowd, meeting and greeting, but that turned out to be wrong, as he
took the podium (after a brief introduction) and, with a combination of
insouciance and savoir faire said that his speech would be addressing
three basic topics:



1) The Kerry/Edwards plan for jobs for the middle class.


2) The Kerry/Edwards plan for sensible, affordable health care.


3) How our country can better invest in science and technology.



It was
probably just as well that young Andre meandered off-topic with
humorous asides, as, while certainly important topics, the three
outlined above – which he intermittently addressed – can certainly be
yawners when voters meet late on a week-night after a long day on the
job.



After
announcing this three-pronged speech plan, however, he wandered a bit
(by his own admission) and became bogged-down in the details of the
Kerry/Edwards Health Care plan. (This sort of thing usually does not
play well to assembled masses; it reminded me a bit of the O.J. trial,
that smothered its audience with facts to the point that they could not
absorb any more DNA evidence and acquitted a man the nation still
thinks is guilty.)



Having
noted that 120,000 jobs disappeared in his hometown of Pittsburgh in
the eighties, when the steel industry collapsed, Heinz seemed to be
attempting to establish some “been there/done that” comraderie with
those in the audience who spoke of the jobs disappearing in our Quad
Cities and Midwestern area.  Maytag in Galesburg and Case I.H.
were specifically mentioned, as well as smaller firms which were
suppliers for larger firms and have gone belly-up.  It was obvious
that young Andre did not possess much in-depth knowledge of our area
(he admitted to only three visits to Iowa, one of which was to Dubuque
on August 3rd) when he referred to “Rock City” (rather than Rock
Island, Illinois), but the audience was forgiving.



In his
favor, he demonstrated a self-deprecating sense of humor, as when he
pronounced, in response to a question from an AFSCME-shirt-wearing
bearded audience member that his comments were, “Frightening, but an
opportunity, nonetheless.” At one point, when the black plastic light
on his lectern flew off and hit the floor, he mentioned that perhaps
one campaign issue could be, “Better podium lamps!” The attempt at
humor brought a chuckle from this listener, anyway.



Questions
from the audience were solicited. A woman present with her husband and
two small children asked if he had read Robert Kennedy, Jr.’ s book. He
acknowledged that, although he had just heard the son of RFK speak, he
had not yet read his book, and the questioner proceeded to fill us in
on the fact that it outlined the many crimes against the environment
committed by the current Bush administration.



The best
quotes to come out of the meeting, which was very low-key, were these,
from Andre Heinz, in my judgment (in no particular order):



1) “I can’t see what on Earth these tax rebates have to do with keeping jobs in America.”



2) “The decision to go to war was an affront to the democratic process.”



3) (On Kerry’s aims) “He is trying to build this country through public policy, not invective.”



The two
best moments, (in terms of audience contributions), came when a man
asked, in heavily-accented English, that Andre Heinz take the message
back to his step-father that he (Kerry) needed to take the Bush
Administration to task for getting us in to this war. “This war is
ruining this country,” he said, with emotion.



The
questioner may have momentarily forgotten that Kerry’s vote to
authorize war can be used against him if he now protests. Only Howard
Dean, of the major candidates, steadfastly decried and opposed the war.
Therefore, if Kerry now “takes Bush to task” for getting us in to this
war, as the questioner (a native of Chile) wished that he would do,
Kerry would open himself up to more charges that he “flip-flops” on
important issues.



The
questioner added, in heavily-accented English, “To me, John Kerry is a
genuine American hero.”  This drew applause from the crowd, which
obviously agreed.



Another
speaker who stressed that we, as a nation, must work to get our troops
home ASAP was John Rowland of the Mt. Joy Reserve Unit (Detachment 1, F
Company, 106 Aviation) who noted that he has only been back from Iraq
for 37 days and that “the medical care I have received from the V.A.
Hospital is about the worst I have ever had, and I have to pay $50
every time I go.” This led to further discussion by Andre Heinz of the
cuts in veteran benefits that the Bush administration is proposing.



Near the
end of the two-hour meeting, Andre Heinz thanked those present, who, he
said, “were all donors” for their contributions, noting that, without
the $220 million raised, the Kerry/Edwards campaign would have had no
chance whatsoever in the face of the nearly-unbeatable Bush war chest.



Refreshments
were served and some free buttons were available (Catholics for Kerry,
for one), as well as some for which a $1 donation was asked. Tee shirts
were available for a $20 “donation,” but only in Extra Large and Extra
Extra Large sizes, thereby quashing sales to many present.



The
contrast between the young, attractive, blue-jeans-clad Andre Heinz’s
speech and the previous night’s stuffy gathering with Dick and Lynne
Cheney couldn’t have been more pronounced, with the Vice President
sweating bullets onstage and looking pompous in his YELLOW tie. (We
learned from our local newspaper that those seated near the stage had
been told to remove their ties in order to look more “casual.”)



 This crowd didn’t need to LOOK “casual”; they WERE “casual,”….but very concerned and committed…citizens.