On August 4, while MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews echoed radio host Rush Limbaugh's Addams Family “Lurch” moniker for Senator John Kerry, Limbaugh recycled FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace's recent comparison of Teresa Heinz Kerry to Eva Duarte de Perón, wife of former Argentinean dictator Juan Perón.

In response to a remark by Republican media strategist Kim Alfano on Hardball that Kerry's skinny body frame “is going to make him look frail compared to George Bush,” Matthews replied, “Too much like Lurch. Are you suggesting a Lurch problem here?” Matthews's remark, which referred to a character from the TV show The Addams Family, echoed one of Limbaugh's favorite terms for Kerry -- which Limbaugh happened to repeat that same day while describing an Associated Press photo of Kerry waving to crowds from his campaign bus in Iowa with corn stalks in each hand:

LIMBAUGH: Well, try to figure, just imagine Lurch from The Addams Family hanging out a bus window underneath his face is “JohnKerry.com.” He's got this sort of weird looking grin on his face with Evita hanging over his left shoulder, and he's waving two of the lamest, limpest cornstalks I've ever seen, one in each hand.

Limbaugh's comment “Evita hanging over his [Kerry's] left shoulder” was an apparent reference to Teresa Heinz Kerry, echoing Wallace's description of her. On July 27, Wallace ridiculed Heinz Kerry's speech at the Democratic National Convention: "[B]y the end, I half expected her to break out into 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina.'" The song Wallace mentioned is the theme from Evita, a musical about Eva Duarte de Perón.