I’m thinking that, once the New Jersey senate race comes to its painful conclusion, someone might want to turn it into a television reality show. Or maybe a sitcom.
Think abou tit, the race has been full of all the fun stuff that makes for successful television:
Drama — This thing is going down to the wire, with the stakes growing daily as the national GOP finds ways to take seats that were safely Republican and turn them into question marks. That means that the seat that Bob Menendez currently holds (once considered safely Democratic) might be needed by the Republicans to hold their majority.
Intrigue — Menendez apparently is the target of a federal probe into whether he used his position in the House of Representatives to ultimately benefit himself financially, while Tom Kean Jr. has been consorting with some pretty nasty pols in an effort to sully the sitting senator’s not-so-sweet reputation.
Comedy — Tom Kean has skipped out (on more than one occassion) on fundraisers featuring his party’s heavy hitters (i.e., the vice president). And the latest, reported by the Associated Press, has the Kean camp advertising a “Democrats for Kean “rally without telling the Democrats what the rally was about.
The two Democrats who appeared with Kean thought the event was a chance to publicize their own beef over local corrup tion. Kean, however, staged the event to advance his own campaign.
The pair later told reporters that they did, in fact, support the Republican, but only after Kean spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker talked to reporters and only after initial stories to the contrary were published.
Then there is the debate over the debate, with Kean refusing to debate Menendez at a League of Women Voters event and Menendez refusing to appear on Channel 4 with Kean.
All of this would be funny if it didn’t have such impoortant consequences attached.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 