Hank Kalet

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

You know things are not going so well for you if you are a conservative president when one of the nation’s most reliably conservative columnists questions your grasp on reality. My only question for George Will is, George Bush had a reputation as a realist? In what world?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Add this Times editorial to my post yesterday on the recent spate of school shootings.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I don’t have much to say about the sex scandal bogging down the national GOP, but Steve Hart at The Opinion Mill does and he hits it on the head.

The way I see it, this is very much a Republican scandal. It is a natural byproduct of their swaggering abuse of power, their insistence on secrecy and control, and their cultlike emphasis on party loyalty above all things. When presented with evidence of the Florida congressman’s predatory nature, Hastert’s first instinct was to cover it up; when confronted with knowledge of his own malfeasance, Hastert’s first instinct was to lie and raise a dust cloud of political spin. Both are hallmarks of the breed of Republicans spawned by the Gingrich revolution of the 1990s. Oh boy, is this ever a Republican scandal, and it threatens to cost the party its support with those “values voters” it relies on to keep the keys of power within its grasp.

I don’t have much to add to this.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Baseball coverage has become a rather trendy and silly enterprise. Forget the standard, over-the-top writing (see today’s column by Mike Lupica) — that’s not the problem. What drives me crazy these days is the instant annointment of the next big thing.

Consider the way we turn mediocre hitters into superstars based on a half season of production

ESPN offers its predictions for the playoffs. Of the 17 “experts,” eight have the Mets going to the World Series — a rather small number considering that the Mets won 10 games more than any other National League ball club. The reason — which I can only assume based on some of the yammering ex-ballplayers on Baseball Tonight — is that they had a bad September or that they have become succeptible to left-handed pitching or that they can be handled if you pitch them inside or …. Suddenly, because of a hot September, two incredibly flawed ball clubs — the Dodgers and Padres — are seen as hot picks by some. Now, I’m no expert and I am the first to admit that the Mets are flawed (they do have trouble with lefties and their starting pitching is thin), but they won 97 games and have the best lineup of the teams still playing in the National League.

For me, the entire National League playoffs depend on three things: 1. How Jose Reyes plays; 2. How the Mets relief corps performs; and 3. Whether the Mets’ starters can consistently give the team six innings. If Reyes is on base, the rest of the league will have fits, and the rest of the Mets’ lineup will follow suit, making for a potent offense. If the starters can go six and the relievers do the job they’ve been doing (no one in the NL has as deep a bullpen), then the Mets will be fine.

And make no mistake, the World Series will be won by an American League team if the Mets cannot get there. The Mets were the only team to hold its own against the AL this season (if you ignore the debacle against Boston).

Anyway, my rant here is not so much about my feeling that the Mets are suddenly underapprecited — the playoffs have become a crap shoot in many ways, as the regular success of the wild card teams attests — as it is the blathering by baseball writers that elevates players and managers to superstud status before their time.

Ryan Howard had the NL’s best season and probably does deserve the MVP. But only based on his season-long totals. When his name first came up, it was at the expense of Albert Pujols, who carried his badly bruised and busted team into the playoffs — a place the Phillies failed to reach.

And then there is the weird saga of Joe Girardi, manager of the Florida Marlins. The Marlins were a nice story this year, far better than they were expected to be, but Girardi has been the consensus manager of the year since shortly after the all-star break. Three things to consider, however: The Dodgers and Mets were a combined 28 games better than last year, the Marlins were under .500 and had a worse record than last year and, perhaps most importantly, Girardi was fired today.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick