Leave it to Tom Moran of the Star-Ledger to put Tom Kean Jr.’s ugly little senate campaign under the microscope he says he is placing Bob Menendez under. Moran says that Kean has resorted to the smear tactics because he is out of step with most New Jerseyans on the issues (Iraq, Social Security, the Bush budget). Kean, Moran writes “knows he can’t win this race on the issues. So he’s hired a team of consultants and turned his campaign into a snarling machine that would make Karl Rove proud.”
Moran is pretty clear about the way Kean has comported himself during the campaign — climbing into bed with a host of unsavory characters in the hopes that they can help him chip away at Menendez.
For the moment, the attacks seem to be working, keeping the race close — Kean even leads in several polls.
But as he tosses mud he dirties himself. The son of the state’s most popular former governor, Kean Jr. has generally enjoyed a solid reputation. Politicians from both parties have said he is genial and is someone with whom it is easy to work. And before he ran, there had been murmerings that the state senator lacked the fire or the ruthlessness that would be necessary to do battle with someone like Menendez in a statewide race.
Is Menendez corrupt? This is New Jersey and you can lose a lot of money betting on the integrity of any politician. And sometimes, Menendez does act like a Hudson County pol, as when he rented his home to a nonprofit group that relies on federal funds.
But Kean hasn’t come close to backing up his charges against Menendez. And by basing his campaign on cheap shots, he’s raising more doubts about his own integrity than he is about his opponent’s.
My colleagues at The Princeton Packet put it this way:
If nothing else, the campaign being waged by the two major-party candidates for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey has now all but guaranteed that whoever triumphs will be a disrespected, ineffective and generally unpopular officeholder.
Because the only thing either of the candidates — Republican Thomas Kean Jr. and Democrat Robert Menendez — seems to care about is destroying the credibility and reputation of his opponent. This means the one who emerges bloody but victorious in next month’s election will enter the Senate with virtually no credibility and a badly tarnished reputation.
And that is not particularly good news for New Jersey, is it?
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 