Kean on Politics

New Jersey's Political Scion Aims to Make A Name for Himself in Washington

HACKENSACK, N.J. If there were a drinking game whose rules required a swig each time Tom Kean Jr. asserted that his Senate race opponent is "under federal criminal investigation," you would be drooling drunk 10 minutes after meeting the guy.

Kean says "under federal criminal investigation" about once every 28 seconds, uttering the words as if they were tragic and beyond dispute. After a day in Kean's company you are prepared to think terrible things about Robert Menendez, the Democratic incumbent.

So when Kean is asked over a recent lunch if he has unfairly benefited by sharing the name of his father -- the beloved ex-governor of New Jersey and 9/11 commission chairman, Tom Kean Sr. -- it is no surprise that he answers this way:

"Do people want me to change my name?"

Pause.

"My opponents will do anything they can to distract from their own flawed candidate. Bob Menendez is under federal criminal investigation. As far as I know, he is the only candidate for Senate under federal criminal investigation."

In a typical year, the vicious, pile-driving style of New Jersey politics is a dispiriting spectacle for the voters of the state and a kind of Ultimate Fighting amusement for everyone else. But this year is different. This year, the Democratic Party needs six seats to take control of the Senate, and just about any way you run the numbers, the party will fall short if it does not win in New Jersey. Victory here does not assure the Democrats the keys to the upper chamber, but the pros will tell you that without New Jersey, the party doesn't have a real chance.

That fact has handed 38-year-old Thomas H. Kean Jr. -- until now a semi-obscure state assemblyman and the scion of a multi-generational political dynasty -- a breakout role in the midterm drama. Not since 1972 has a GOP candidate won a Senate seat in New Jersey (although the state has put several Republicans in the governor's chair during those years).

But Kean has this race squarely in the "too close to call" category, thanks to name recognition, vigorous campaigning and dogged repetition of that "investigation" mantra. An Oct. 12 poll by Quinnipiac University gave Menendez a slight but statistically almost insignificant edge, 49 percent to Kean's 45 percent.

"He has a really powerful name," Clay Richards, a Quinnipiac pollster, says of Kean. "And whether or not these charges against Menendez are serious, they are hurting him."

The whole investigation matter, which we'll get to, is hardly as cut and dried as Kean indicates. But Kean, who looks like a Mountie and fights like a Crip, isn't selling honesty and integrity so much as a brand name that represents honesty and integrity. It's a pitch with resonance in this state, where politicians routinely scamper offstage chased by ethics charges and mortifying headlines.

Kean's political lineage includes a grandfather who served in Congress for 20 years, as well as a great-grandfather and a great-great-uncle who both served in the Senate. Theodore Roosevelt is a relative, too. And Tom Kean Sr. occupies a hallowed place in the state's history, widely viewed as a man of rectitude who, at least for a few years in the 1980s, restored pride to the state.