The battle with Bob Menendez may have ended in a loss for District 21 State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., but, "I never left the ring," he says as he faces the immediate challenge of Gina Genovese, a former Long Hill Township mayor.
Insiders in both parties say they anticipate Kean winning comfortably in this Republican district. The strategy for Democrats is to keep him occupied here on his home turf, tied up and busy for the next month – and maybe leave him bruised and with sore hands as he heads back to Trenton.
That’s Genovese’s job.
A small business owner and former pro tennis player with a world ranking of 150 in 1981, the 48-year old Democratic challenger says she’s better prepared to represent the district than Kean, son of former Gov. Tom Kean, who can talk about affordability as the top issue out there, but who doesn’t feel it like the average voter, in her view.
"He’s never done anything," she says of Kean. "He was appointed to the Assembly and he was appointed to the Senate. I’ve worked six days a week for 25 years. I grew up in the 21st district. I’ve been drawn to politics."
Kean, 39, who in 2003 won the Senate seat to which he was originally appointed, argues he has been a driver behind ethics reform in Trenton. He says he pressured Democrats to do something about pay-to-play at a time when the issue was hardly on the radar. His lament now is that the opposition party hasn’t enacted real reforms to break up the aggregates of power created by multiple-office holders.
"The dual office ban that was signed grandfathers dual office holders into perpetuity," says the senator. "The governor did not perform a service by signing the bill. He has the Constitutional authority. He should have vetoed that bill."
While his government ethics crusade has played well in his home district, statewide last year Kean found himself in a quixotic flounder, trying as a Republican to connect voters to ethics issues as the Iraq War loomed over everything. Running his U.S. Senate race on a platform of anti-corruption, he called in Sen. John McCain to lend his voice to an ad on his behalf. "I’m telling you right now," McCain said, "we are in a period of corruption."
Meanwhile, polls showed the American public resisting the Bush administration’s wartime policy – which Kean and McCain backed – and Kean got caught in the Bush blender.
For her part, Genovese entered politics in Long Hill at the same time a certain president was turning sour in New Jersey.
"George Bush is the reason I’m in politics," Genovese says. "Iraq was the issue that called me to action."
A self-described fiscal conservative and moderate to liberal on social issues, she joined Howard Dean’s ’04 presidential campaign because the former Vermont governor was the only credible candidate against the war, in her view. She ran for Township Committee and won, and later served as mayor for a year. Before she stepped down in June to focus on her Senate campaign, Genovese handled three municipal budgets and two failed school budgets that went to the Township Committee.
In the wake of his ’06 loss to Menendez, which Kean’s supporters say was more a function of Bush’s intrusion than anything, the senator has run from the foot-soldier tag that last year dogged every GOP senate candidate.
While the Sierra Club has long supported him, Kean wants there to be no doubt that he breaks with Bush on environmental issues, as he sponsored the Global Warming Response Act, which Gov. Corzine signed into law.
"It sets emissions reductions targets for 2020 and 2050 that will be continually monitored by the legislature and the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection)," says Kean, who was very happy with the bill despite criticisms from within his own party, notably from Assemblyman Michael Doherty and Assemblyman – and potential U.S. Senate candidate, Joseph Pennacchio.
Kean and Genovese part company significantly on asset monetization. Kean is outright opposed to the leasing or selling of the Garden State Parkway and/or the New Jersey Turnpike, for a lump sum of money. But Genovese says she wouldn’t dismiss the governor’s monetization plan.
"There’s a huge debt load looming," she says. "You have to punch the numbers. I’m a business owner. If I start talking like that, I need to stop."
If Genovese beats Kean it will be an enormous upset. Bush may have sunk one of his campaigns. It’s doubtful he’ll get deep-sixed again – not in a race for the State Legislature. "I’ve worked hard, brought the issue of ethics to the fore, and will continue to do so," says Kean, very possibly in the role of Senate Minority leader, according to insiders, where he could bulk for a few years and prepare for a future statewide contest.
Not if Genovese can help it.
As she did last week with a challenge to Kean to give $10,000 back to fallen U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (Kean refused),she means to keep him engaged. "I’ve energized a lot of people, a lot of kids," she says. "Life is about being in the game. There’s no losing here. The worst case scenario is I have 50-100 kids who are excited about politics."
In any case, she doesn’t intend to see her district remain red without a fight, and Kean doesn’t intend to go anywhere but back into the fray.
