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Daughter-in-law doesn't shirk her links to Turner


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To the side of his buffalo-meat restaurant in downtown Atlanta, Ted Turner stares off toward the CNN Center that once was the heart of his kingdom.

He is captured in oil, overlooking a small lobby. It's an eccentric portrait of an eclectic trail-blazer.

A spread-wing seagull forms Turner's famous Rhett Butler-style moustache. His right eye --- he's in profile --- is an eagle in flight.

The fingers on his right hand are a collection of llamas, wolves and dogs.

His collar is a string of satellite dishes, his shirt a yacht with a blousy sail.

But a painting is not a legacy. Of the many Captain Outrageous is likely to leave, one inhabits the third floor above. She is Angela Della Costanza Turner, his 37-year-old daughter-in-law.

She's caught the political bug. A European strain. She ran for the Italian parliament this spring but lost --- as did her Forza Italia party leader, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Was the Iraq war to blame?

"I think it had a little to do with that," said Angela Turner, an architect by training.

Hers was an impulsive, three-week campaign that took her across North and Central America. She came in third, with nearly 3,400 votes.

"I was expecting 500 to 600 votes," Angela Turner said.

She wants to run again, if Italy keeps its policy of allowing expatriates to be represented.

This conversation --- a debriefing that touched on both politics and family --- was the first step in her comeback.

A publicist was in attendance, a woman normally associated with Republican conservative Herman Cain.

It's hard to say where Angela Turner would fit into the American political landscape.

"It's not like Republican-Democrat. People tend to think in that way, but it's slightly different," she said. "I'm more like center-right, but Italian center-right."

"Environmental capitalist" might be an appropriate pigeonhole for her.

She doesn't like restrictions in the workplace, but wants the next U.S. president --- whether Republican or Democrat --- to sign the Kyoto agreement.

She's already seen "An Inconvenient Truth," the Al Gore movie on global warming --- in Gore's company.

The movie's good, Angela Turner said. But clearly it's a vehicle for a man who hasn't given up his presidential ambitions.

"I'm not making any comment; I'm just reporting," she said.

Angela Turner is bright and articulate, even in English. To say she is attractive is to say that her father-in-law is slightly rich and mildly loquacious.

She is no shrinking violet, this woman.

"I'm very Turner-minded. I have a lot of similarities with my father-in-law.

"It's scary. I think that's why my husband married me," the daughter-in-law said.

The husband is Rhett Turner, one of five of Ted's offspring. The marriage took place seven years ago, and now there's a Rhett Jr. in the picture.

Continued the wife, sounding very Tedlike: "I'm going to do it. I have vision. I'm trying to clean up my life and go after my goal. I'm headed straight to that point.

"I'm very determined. I don't need stuff to make me lose time or energy."

What's it like being a child of CNN in a Fox News sea?

"Sometimes it hurts, sometimes its good. No, that's unfair," she said, interrupting herself.

More often than not, the Turner connection has helped.

Not that life in the Turner clan didn't take some getting used to.

"I'd made it myself, as a woman," she said. "Then my identity completely disappeared. It took me a while to find my path again. It can be difficult, because you're not Angela Della Costanza. You're Angela Turner, Ted Turner's daughter-in-law.

"It's a good thing to be a Turner. [But] sometimes, if you don't have a strong personality, you can get lost," said the former Angela Della Costanza. Who is not lost.

She's wary of getting involved in U.S. politics. She's not a citizen, though she's eligible.

For now, her eye remains on power in Rome. tbaxter@ajc.com, jgalloway@ajc.com

Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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