NOT SO FAST, CABANA BOY

Ketchup Money (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker and Steve Chaggaris, June 5, 2003, The CBS News)

It's long been speculated that if push came to shove, Sen. John Kerry could tap his wife's massive fortune to help fund his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But, in fact, under federal campaign finance law, Kerry is barred from accepting more than $2,000 from his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the heiress to her late husband John Heinz' eponymous ketchup fortune that's been estimated to be worth at least $550 million.

The story re-emerged on Wednesday when the AP reported that Kerry's campaign had determined that they could not use "any" of Teresa Heinz Kerry's fortune. The campaign later disputed that story, saying all they were doing was following a law that they'd understood all along.

Federal law forbids Kerry from using any assets that are solely in his wife's name - and that is the lion's share of the couple's money. Kerry himself is worth a measly $700,000 to $2.4 million, according to the
most recent Senate financial disclosure forms. (Kerry also owns a painting worth $250,000 to $500,000 and bank accounts worth between $50,000 and $100,000.)

Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs tells CBS News that the campaign has never planned to tap into the Heinz fortune because of the restrictions. But, Gibbs said, Kerry plans to decide in the fall whether to self-finance using either his own funds or assets that the couple own together. Kerry would be allowed to use 50 percent of the value of any jointly held assets, the Globe reports.

The big question is what assets the Kerrys actually own jointly. The campaign has refused to say what assets the couple owns together, or how much those assets might be worth, the Boston Globe reports. But there are definitely some joint assets out there. The Globe reports that during the 1996 Senate race, Kerry used the joint assets as collateral for last-minute loans to pay for ads.

The AP did some digging and found that of the five houses (read: estates or mansions) where the couple spends time, four are owned solely by Mrs. Heinz Kerry. The one exception is the Louisburg Square manse on Beacon Hill that the couple bought together when they married in 1995. The Boston Globe estimates that the house is worth $7 million. The other four properties - Georgetown, Sun Valley, Nantucket and Pittsburgh - are worth tens of millions of dollars.

Poor Mr. Kerry, all those wasted hours of pumicing the dead skin off her feet ...

Meanwhile, if you're Howard Dean, here's your ad: "If Mrs. Heinz-Kerry doesn't trust him, why should you?" Posted by Orrin Judd at June 5, 2003 2:02 PM