Tom "Goatee" Kean

It’s not even a slow news week, and there is a fair amount of buzz among political insiders concerning the new beard and moustache of Senate Minority Leader-designate Thomas Kean, Jr. The Inside Edge doesn’t have an updated photo of Kean, but we can put this into some historical context. (Update: New Kean goatee photo included.)

Thomas Kean, Sr., who served as Assembly Speaker and Governor, was the only scion of the Kean political dynasty to not have facial hair. The former Governor’s father, Robert Kean, a Congressman from 1939 to 1959, had a moustache. So did Robert Kean’s father, Hamilton Fish Kean, who was New Jersey’s United States Senator from 1929 to 1935, and his uncle, John Kean, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1899 to 1911.

Vilified by the local press, which in New York includes television, Governor Eliot Spitzer has a 48%-37% job approval rating, according to a poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University.  These are Spitzer's worst numbers since taking office eleven months ago, but they are still slightly better than his neighbor, Governor Jon Corzine.  A Quinnipiac poll this week had Corzine's approvals at 44%-43%.

As a point of comparison, Corzine’s Quinnipiac numbers after his first eleven months in office (December 2006) was 49%-32% -- just a little better than Spitzer.

There is a tiny bit irony here: legislation to eliminate the death penalty received 21 votes, the minimum need for passage in the New Jersey Senate. So the deciding votes were effectively cast by Wayne Bryant and Joseph Coniglio, both lame duck legislators with severe legal problems. Bryant has been indicted on federal corruption charges, and Coniglio is the target of a federal grand jury criminal probe.

The State Assembly has scheduled a vote Thursday on legislation – pushed by Democrats -- that would require New Jersey's electoral votes to be cast for the candidate who wins the national popular vote, not necessarily the statewide count in New Jersey. The bill seeks to include New Jersey in an “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote,” which would be effective only if enacted by enough states to "collectively possess the majority of the electoral votes required to decide a presidential win – currently 270 of the 538 electoral votes. So far, only Maryland has passed similar legislation.

States are permitted to decide the rules concerning the election of their own Electoral College members. But what if New Jersey alone had this law in the 2004 General Election?

Still hoping for former Vice President Al Gore to enter the 2008 presidential race, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora filed an “Uncommitted” slate of delegates to run in the February 5 Democratic primary.  Joining Gusciora are Princeton Councilwoman Wendy Benchley, Princeton Democratic Organization President Jenny Crumiller, and former Princeton Mayor Jim Floyd.

James Harkness, a former Chief Counsel to Governor Donald DiFrancesco, has emerged as a serious candidate for Executive Director of the Senate Republican Office.  The incoming Minority Leader, Thomas Kean, Jr., has decided to replace John Samerjan, and is now looking at Harkness and John Kingston, the Assembly Republican Research Director, as the most likely replacements. 

Most national political observers view U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg as a good bet for re-election when he seeks a fifth term next year, but the 83-year-old Senator’s 42%-33% approval ratings in a Quinnipiac University poll released today shows him to be less popular than several Republican Senators viewed as especially vulnerable in the 2008 election.

Minnesota’s Norm Coleman is at 53%-40%, Oregon’s Gordon Smith at 52%-38%, New Hampshire’s John Sununu at 48%-29%, and Maine’s Susan Collins is at 48%-25%, according to recent independent polls taken in those states judging voters favorable/unfavorable ratings.

Four presidential candidates did not file for the February 5 New Jersey presidential primary: Democrats Christopher Dodd and Mike Gravel, and Republicans Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter.  Dodd is a five-term U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and Hunter, a San Diego Republican who once chaired the House Armed Services Committee, has the support of retiring GOP Congressman Jim Saxton.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Adler, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the third district, today asked state Attorney General Anne Milgram to “initiate a thorough criminal review” of Governor Jon Corzine’s $15,000 gift to Rocco Riccio, the brother-in-law of his ex-girlfriend and the President of the state’s largest public employees union.  Adler wants to know if any laws were broken.

Adler’s call comes fourteen months after Corzine told a Gannett New Jersey editorial board that he would not pick Adler as his Attorney General: “John Adler will not be my attorney general. We will pick the very best individual, with the skills to make sure we carry out an executive order to clean up politics in this state." – Jon Corzine, speaking at a Gannett New Jersey debate (Tamari, Asbury Park Press, 10/12/05)

Republicans have held Jim Saxton’s House seat continuously since 1884, when George Hires, a GOP State Senator from Salem County, ousted one-term Democratic Congressman Thomas Ferrell by 1,742 votes.  Now, after four weeks of considerable drama and many surprises, the GOP candidate to hold this open seat against Democrat John Adler, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, may be decided in a June Republican primary between Medford Deputy Mayor Christopher Myers, a Lockheed-Martin executive, and Ocean County Freeholder John Kelly.