Posted on 06/23/2006 2:13:30 PM PDT by Coleus
When Sen. Robert Menendez ran for the Union City Commission in 1986, his slate of five candidates won the backing of a prominent Republican politician of the era: Gov. Tom Kean. The endorsement was newsworthy at the time because a sitting governor injected himself into a municipal election. It's notable now because Kean's son, state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., has sought to make Menendez's early political career as a Hudson County politician an issue in the U.S. Senate campaign.
Kean has charged that Menendez was closely allied with the corrupt administration of former Union City Mayor William Musto, and that Menendez testified 24 years ago against Musto in a federal trial mainly to save himself and advance his political career. But four years after the trial, Kean's father publicly backed the Alliance Civic Association in the nonpartisan election of the city commission. Menendez was president of the Alliance at the time.
Over lunch at the Latin America Cafeteria on Bergenline Avenue, the governor wore the slate's "Column D" sticker on his lapel and offered his support for "Ron Dario and his group," according to an April 30, 1986, account published in the now-defunct Hudson Dispatch newspaper.
Dario was a Republican assemblyman at the time, and had joined forces with Menendez, a Democrat, to oust the incumbent commission, populated with Musto loyalists. Asked about his endorsement of the Alliance when three of the five candidates were registered Democrats, Kean noted that he had endorsed Democrats before, specifically in his hometown in Essex County, according to the newspaper account.
A photo of Kean, flanked by Dario and Menendez, accompanied the news story. The Alliance slate went on to win the election two weeks later and chose Menendez as mayor.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Of course he's not for Democrats when they're running against his own son.
Don't worry.. put a real Republican on the ticket, and Kean will support the Democrat every time.
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