Thomas Kean

The last time a Kean won a statewide election on the first try? Never. Thomas Kean, the father of '06 U.S. Senate candidate Tom Kean, Jr., lost the 1977 GOP gubernatorial primary before winning election in 1981. Hamilton Kean, great-grandfather of Kean Jr., lost a 1924 Republican primary for U.S. Senate (to incumbent Walter Edge) and then won a U.S. Senate seat in 1928. Hamilton Kean's brother, John Kean, was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Governor in 1892 and then won a U.S. Senate seat in 1899. Kean Jr.'s grandfather, Robert Kean, lost the 1958 U.S. Senate race to Democrat Harrison Williams and did not seek public office again.

This is supposed to be an Election Day blog, but I figured I should get a head start. There'll be plenty to write about tomorrow, but today is really the last chance to see the candidates on the stump. And it occurred to me late this afternoon that for one of these guys, this is probably it.

I think everyone knows the story about Doug Forrester: If he loses tomorrow, he'll have run and lost two statewide campaigns and burned a $50 million hole in his pocket. It's safe to say the GOP will look to someone else to lead the next statewide ticket.

Jon Corzine is a trickier question. Everyone's knee jerk reaction is that he'd just get up off the mat and run for a second U.S. Senate term next year if he comes up short tomorrow. That's an understandable sentiment, but I think people make that assumption because they're just used to viewing Corzine as the 800-pound gorilla in state politics. But think about it -- won't Corzine look a lot less intimidating if he blows this? If he can't beat Doug Forrester in 2005, why would he be a lock to knock off Tom Kean in 2006? And why would he want to spend another $30 million (give or take) trying? He's already told us he doesn't really want the job anymore.

So I say whoever gets the short end of the stick tomorrow has run his last political campaign. Ever. With that in mind, I decided to get one last look at each man in action.

I started with Forrester, whose green campaign bus pulled into the parking lot of the Nottingham Firehouse in Hamilton Township (Mercer County) at about 8:30 tonight. (This is the first firehouse I can remember with its own auditorium.) Forrester disembarked accompanied by his wife Andrea and daughter Brianna, and offered an upbeat assessment of the race to a few TV reporters. About a hundred yards away a small group of Corzine supporters taunted him, though they were tough to hear.

The candidate's handlers brought him to a set of double-doors that opened up into the auditorium. A few of them offered hopeful tidbits of info to the reporters in tow. For example, it was pointed out that the day before the 1981 election, Tom Kean trailed Jim Florio by the same margin Forrester now trails Corzine. I'm not sure if this is true (I have no reason to doubt it) and I'm also not sure if the examples are analogous. But when you're the Forrester campaign and you've yet to lead in a single poll, this is the stuff that keeps you going.

Anyway, there's no point in mentioning the specifics of Forrester's speech. It's basically the same one he's been giving all year. And I know I've knocked him for his performance in debates (particularly Saturday's) but he's quite good in a setting like tonight's, where he has a microphone and the crowd's complete attention. Unfortunately, no one besides hardcore GOP partisans has seen this Forrester.

I was looking for signs in Forrester's body language that he knows the end is near, but I didn't see any. And the crowd -- at least 250 people, and a lot of them, surprisingly, were under 30 -- also seemed enthused. I don't think you can draw much from this, though, other than that Forrester either believes he has a real shot tomorrow or he's doing a damn good job of kidding himself. And if he is kidding himself, well, that's what you have to do. How do you think Freddy Ferrer made it through October?

I left the firehouse thinking I may have just seen the last campaign speech Doug Forrester will ever give. It was hardly Churchillian, but if it was his last hurrah, he went out fighting. That probably sounded like a cliche.

On the way to my car I talked to a veteran reporter, someone who's covered a number of gubernatorial races. I asked him how much he thought Corzine would win by tomorrow, and he guessed around three points. This surprised me, because, to be honest, I'm expecting a pretty comfortable Corzine win.

"You don't think Forrester's got a shot, do you?" I asked.

"I think it's going to be close," he said. "If the cities go to sleep on Corzine, I could see him losing."

Which is an interesting comment, because, as you may recall, I set out to see both candidates tonight. But when I got to the Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, the traditional last campaign stop for Democratic candidates, the place was a ghost town. Turns out, the event was canceled at the last minute. Corzine was running late and had to do an interview with Lynn Doyle on Cn-8. Think the folks who waited for him at Shiloh will go the extra mile for Corzine tomorrow?

The story of Senator Frank Lautenberg leaving his wallet in a New York City taxicab -- an honest cabbie returned it -- has prompted increased speculation within political circles about the 81-year-old Senator's residency. Lautenberg's legal residence is in Cliffside Park, but many Democratic insiders say it is common knowledge that when the New Jersey Senator isn't in Washington, is real residence is at the Park Avenue apartment of his wife, Bonnie Englebardt, whom he married in 2001. Lautenberg lost his wallet traveling between his gym in Manhattan and dinner at a Big Apple restaurant -- one pol wondered how many New Jersey residents who work in Washington cross the Hudson River just to use a gym. This probably isn't a problem for Lautenberg, given the precedence of other New Jersey officials who live in New York: the residency of New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz became an issue in 1986 when Governor Thomas Kean reappointed him. Wilentz lived in Manhattan, explaining that his wife's illness required her to reside near her doctors.

Edward Edwardswas a product of Jersey City Mayor Frank Haugue's Hudson County political machine. He served two years as a State Senator before winning election as the Governor of New Jersey in 1919. It was in that primary that Hague emerged as a dominant player in statewide politics: aided by a huge plurality in Hudson County, Edwards won the Democratic primary by a 54%-46% margin over former State Senator Edward Nugent, the Essex County Democratic Chairman. The big issue that year was Prohibition, and Edwards (the anti-prohibition, "wet" candidate) won a narrow 52%-48% victory over a wealthy Trenton businessman, Newton Bugbee.In the 1920 presidential election, Warren Harding carried New Jersey in a landslide and helped Republicans sweep elections for the State Assembly. The GOP won 58 of the 60 Assembly seats.

In those days, New Jersey Governors could serve only one three-year term; the state Constitution had term limits that prohibited any Governor from seeking re-election. So Edwards decided to run for the U.S. Senate against an incumbent, Republican Senator Joseph Frelinghuysen.

Frelinghuysen, a Somerset County Republican and a cousin of future Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, had spent six years as a State Senator (and one as Senate President) and several years as President of the State Board of Education and as President of the State Board of Agriculture when he unseated freshman Democratic Senator James Martine by a 56%-39% margin in 1916. In the 1916 election, Wilson was re-elected to the Presidency, but lost his home state to Republican Charles Evans Hughes.

The 1922 campaign became a sort of referendum on the national Republican agenda. It was the mid-term election for the scandal-plagued Harding. Frelinghuysen supported Prohibition, Blue Laws, restrictions on immigration, and mandatory English lessons for foreign born citizens. Edwards campaigned on the slogan "Wine, Women and Song," supporting the repeal of the 18th amendment, the legalization of beer and wine, and a cultural liberalism that appealed to the state's ethnic voters.

Edwards beat Frelinghuysen, 55%-44%, and the Democrats picked up five seats in New Jersey's 12-member House delegation. His 11-point margin of victory helped Hague's gubernatorial candidate, Judge George Silzer (a former Middlesex County Democratic Chairman who had lost the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1910 to Woodrow Wilson), win by a narrow margin.

Five Republicans lined sough the GOP nomination to take on Edwards in 1928: former Senator Frelinghuysen, seeking a political comeback after six years in the insurance business; Republican National Committeeman Hamilton Fish Kean, a banker and the brother of former U.S. Senator John Kean (as well as the grandfather of future Governor Thomas Kean) who had unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Walter Edge in the 1924 U.S. Senate primary; former Governor Edward Stokes, a South Jerseyan who had served as Governor from 1905 to 1908; former two-term Congressman Edward Gray, a former Secretary to Governor Stokes who had finished third in the 1924 primary behind Edge and Kean; and Republican State Committee Vice Chairwoman Lillian Ford Feickert, the former President of the New Jersey Suffrage Association and the first woman to seek a major party nomination for U.S. Senate.

The primary was especially bitter. Stokes, seeking a political comeback after losing two races for the U.S. Senate and one for Governor, charged that Kean and Frelinghuysen were using their personal wealth to buy a U.S. Senate seat. He opposed the direct election of U.S. Senators, claiming that only the very wealthy could afford to mount expensive statewide campaigns.

The primary results were close: Kean was the winner with 34% of the vote, followed by Stokes (29%) and Frelinghuysen (28%). Feickert and Gray each received 5%. The turnout in the 1928 primary was 497,580 -- 58% more than the 215,242 votes cast in the 2002 Republican U.S. Senate primary.

In the general election, Prohibition was again a key issue, and Edwards told voters he was "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean." But in early October, Kean took an unlikely position, saying he too was "wet." While Kean lost the support of the Anti-Saloon League, but was able to take Prohibition off the table in the Senate race.

New Jersey followed the national political tide, with Republican Herbert Hoover carrying New Jersey by 309,000 votes over Democrat Alfred E. Smith. Kean defeated Edwards by over 233,000 votes, 58%-42%.

Edwards fell upon hard times after leaving the Senate in 1929. He went bankrupt following the state market crash, broke his political ties with Hague (who refused to support him for Governor in 1931), and was charged with fraud and corruption. In January, 1931, Edwards committed suicide.

Kean also became a one-term Senator. The new Democratic President, Franklin Roosevelt, was popular in New Jersey, and Kean had opposed the early part of the New Deal in the U.S. Senate. His opponent was the popular incumbent Governor, A. Harry Moore, a close ally of Hague. Moore defeated Kean by 231,000 votes, 58%-41%.

KEAN: MUCH MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE TO FIX SCC
Inspector Generals Reforms Being Implemented by Al Koeppe Are a Good Start

Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., (R-21), issued the following statement regarding the hearings held by the Joint Committee on the Public Schools on the fiscal mismanagement in the Schools Construction Corporation (SCC).

A new Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll shows State Senator Tom Kean, Jr. leading two Democratic Congressman in a hypothetical head-to-head contest for the United States Senate. Kean leads Rob Andrews by eight points, 44%-36%, and Bob Menendez by nine points, 43%-34%. Against popular Acting Governor Richard Codey, Kean trails by four pecentage points, 45%-41%. While Kean's strong showing is likely a residual benefit of his father's name ID (Tom Kean, Sr. was Governor from 1982 to 1990, and won re-election with 70% of the vote, carring 560 of the state's 563 municipalities), there has not been a poll showing a Republican leading in a New Jersey U.S. Senate race a year before the election since Clifford Case in 1971.

The WSJ/Zogby poll has Jon Corzine ahead of Doug Forrester, 48%-39%.

KEAN: ALLOW STATE EMPLOYEES TO DONATE SICK & VACATION TIME TO GUARD FAMILIES
Senator Thomas Kean has written a letter to Rolando Torres Jr., Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Personnel, asking him to expand the state employees leave donation program to help military families. The current program allows state employees to donate a percentage of their unused sick or vacation time to other state employees suffering from a catastrophic health condition or to care for a family member who suffers from such a condition.