Genovese campaign says Craig donations to Kean "tainted"

State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., today said he would not return $10,000 he received from the political action committee of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, while his District 21 opponent said he should have already given back the money.

"The money that I raised, I expended over the course of the campaign," the Republican said of his failed 2004 bid against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

Unable this week to withdraw his plea of guilty to a disorderly conduct charge following his June 11 arrest in an airport men’s room sex sting, Craig remains in office as a U.S. Senator despite his initial announcement that he would resign.

Former Long Hill Township Mayor Gina Genovese, a Democrat challenging Kean, said, "The office of Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman confirmed that the $2,500 they received from Senator Craig’s Alliance for the West was donated to charity on August 30. Tom Kean Jr.’s website states that ‘The time has come for real ethics reforms, not half-measures that further fuel the public's ever-growing cynicism.’ But the reality is that Kean Jr.’s Senate campaign has been funded by donations from the political action committees of Halliburton and a senator who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in an airport men’s room."

A long shot candidate in a Republican district, Genovese received a boost today from Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean.

"I guess their intention is to keep Kean from using this campaign season to expend money in other districts, and to prevent him as much as possible getting his name out there in a positive context with a message of ‘I told you so,’" Prof. David Rebovich, managing director of the Rider Institute of New Jersey Politics, said of the Democrats.