  NY Daily News Michele Ingrassia July 18, 2004 Men may have women outnumbered in the corridors of power, but on this year's campaign trail, it's the women who are out in force. Sure, they're surrogate voices for the Big Boys, but if you don't think Americans will be looking at the way they dress and wear their hair, at whether they lose 15 pounds on the South Beach Diet or gain 10 eating too many campaign-plane fries — pass the W Ketchup; no, make it Heinz — you miss the point.
Politics has become Hollywood; it's all about image. Laura Bush: You can hear the, "Oh, George" in her voice every time she speaks. But unlike the early days, when it seemed that her chief role was to tame the cowboy in W., the former librarian has grown into a powerhouse talker and fund-raiser on her own.
And thanks to a personal trainer (check the waist-nipping jackets) and friendships with designers like Oscar de la Renta (no more purple plaid suits), the 57-year-old First Lady also looks younger and buffer than she did four years ago. Lynne Cheney: She's probably the most enigmatic woman in D.C.: A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a one-time panelist on "Crossfire" who may be even more staunchly conservative than her husband — the vice president. But Cheney, 63, also has two daughters, one of whom is lesbian and the author of "Sisters," a 1981 novel with lesbian themes that she battled, successfully, to keep from being reissued this year. Want consistency? Check out the helmet hair, the stern suits and the flag pins, which haven't changed in decades. Elizabeth Edwards: She's smart, savvy and a native of Florida. And though she's a lawyer in her own right, the 55-year-old traded in her suits to have two late-in-life children — Emma Claire, now 6, and Jack, 4 — after the Edwards' first son, Wade, died in a 1996 car accident.
Her strength, though, seems to lie in her sense of humor — her ability to laugh off the he's-prettier-than-you comparisons to her husband and to wave away the brownies that aren't on her South Beach diet.
Teresa Kerry: With her strange accent (she was born in Mozambique and speaks five languages), her quirky sense of humor and her I-have-more-billions-than-you-ever-will confidence, Heinz Kerry exists in a rarified world all her own. But so far, the 65-year-old heiress and mother of three sons (and two stepdaughters) seems to be connecting, thanks to a willingness to discuss anything from Botox to cheating spouses (she favors the first, not the second). Her biggest challenge: to make herself less Chanel, more Kmart. 
