Kerry, Heinz Kerry, and the media’s early interest in candidates’ personal lives

The Washington Post seems irritated that Sen. John Kerry’s wife, who has gone by Teresa Heinz for years, is now going by Teresa Heinz Kerry. In an editorial today, the paper calls the change an “election conversion.”

The editorial follows up on the Boston Globe’s disproportionate coverage a month ago when the senator’s wife made the initial announcement about her name.

The Kerry campaign has said the change was due in large part to make things less confusing. As the candidate recently said, many would be calling her “Mrs. Kerry” through the course of the campaign anyway.

Carpetbagger finds it hard to believe that national political reporters and the editorial board of one of the world’s most important newspapers cares about this issue. If this is a sign of how the campaign is going to be covered, we’re in for a long 20 months.

Just as troubling, I’m noticing an annoying double standard applied to different candidates. When Kerry’s wife, for example, decides to add her husband’s name to her own, it’s apparently considered a newsworthy event. Yet, when Howard Dean’s wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg, gave her first-ever media interview to an AP political reporter in February, she said her name is “Judy Dean.” She did so, despite the fact that she’s never gone by anything but Judy Steinberg. Even the Dean campaign’s website lists her name as Judith Steinberg.

Why is it that Kerry’s wife gets media scorn for changing her name and Dean’s wife does the same thing and no one notices? It probably has something to do with the fact that the media perceives Kerry as a top-tier candidate (and the likely nominee) while reporters see Dean as a quirky governor from a small state on a quixotic quest.