Heinz Kerry Puts Parties Aside at Fundraising Luncheon

That traffic jam on Sunset Boulevard in Holmby Hills the other day wasn’t due to a presidential motorcade. It was a due to a prospective-first-lady luncheon. About 175 women responded to an invitation for lunch Wednesday with Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry.

“People were lining up down Sunset to turn onto my street, and I forgot to tell the neighbors,” said hostess Cynthia Yorkin, wife of producer Bud Yorkin. She and a few other well-connected women, including Paramount studio chief Sherry Lansing and one-time “Saturday Night Live” photographer Edie Baskin, threw together the $1,000-per-head bash.

“It was perfect because there were women from all walks of life, from Rita Hanks to Kathleen Brown,” said Yorkin.

There was also a smattering of Republicans in the room, said Yorkin, including producer Lili Zanuck. And there were two Democrats who are married to well-known California Republicans: Nancy Daly Riordan and California’s first lady, Maria Shriver.

“Maria has a longtime friendship with Teresa and John Kerry, both independently and as a couple,” said Terri Carbaugh, Shriver’s spokeswoman. She said Shriver also plans to attend a dinner for Kerry in March.

Shriver’s uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, has campaigned around the country for Kerry, his fellow Massachusetts senator. And Heinz Kerry’s adult sons, Chris and Andre Heinz, have performed skillful satiric impersonations of Schwarzenegger at Kerry campaign rallies.

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Fashion Faux Pas?

Hipster clothing retailer Urban Outfitters has come under fire from some political advocacy groups for selling a T-shirt that reads “Voting is for old people.”

Groups like Punkvoter and Rock the Vote have criticized the Philadelphia-based national chain for carrying the long-sleeved, red, white and blue $28 T-shirt.

The shirt is “a disgusting effort to reap profit from cynicism while suppressing civic involvement, and encouraging apathy, not to mention referring to our senior citizens as ‘old people’,” wrote Al Jourgensen, guitarist for the industrial metal band Ministry and part of Punkvoter, in a letter to Urban Outfitters chairman and president Richard Hayne.

The T-shirt, designed by a San Diego vintage-style clothing vendor, was “meant to be a joke,” said co-designer John Keddie, owner of VintageVantage.com, which sold the shirt to Urban Outfitters. “It was meant to be funny. I think people are taking it much too seriously, kind of reading all these subliminal intentions into it.”

The design was “never meant to be misconstrued as an anti-voting T-shirt,” according to an Urban Outfitters’ statement.

Urban Outfitters has previously stoked controversy by selling another T-shirt that read “Everybody Loves a Jewish Girl” surrounded by dollar signs and a Monopoly-style board game called “Ghettopoly.” The shirt was modified and remarketed sans dollar signs after complaints from groups such as the Anti-Defamation League. The game was pulled from store shelves.

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Ghost of Sharpton

Before Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry met with steel workers at AK-ISG Steel Co. in Cleveland Wednesday morning, a mysterious voice boomed out over the plant floor: “Al Sharpton Rocks!” Minutes later, there it came again: “Where are all the black people at?”

Panicked plant officials scurried to find the mystery perpetrator, to no avail. As Kerry prepared to meet with workers and time ran out, they stuffed white paper towels into a public announcement system speaker, hoping to muffle any more sounds. Good thing there weren’t any.

There also weren’t very many “black people” -- two in an audience of about 30.

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Who’s Counting?

1st: Sen. John F. Kerry’s ranking in the National Journal’s 2004 list of the most liberal senators, with a 96.5% net rate of voting left.

4th: North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ ranking on the same list, with a 94.5% liberal voting rate.

87%: Kerry’s liberal voting rate in 2002.

63%: Edwards’ liberal voting rate in 2002.

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Duly Quoted

“I’ll wash your car every week til it’s paid off and Armor All the tires ... in a toga.” -- George Clooney’s fundraising letter on behalf of his father, Nick, who is running for congress in Kentucky’s 4th District.

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Compiled from staff, Web and wire reports by Times staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt.