Free Republic

In New Jersey's senatorial campaign, Republican candidate Tom Kean Jr.'s aides are charging that opponents "already have resorted to Election Day dirty tricks." Last night, vandals chained shut the Kean campaign's headquarters in Mountainside, N.J., and broke keys off in the door locks to prevent entry, according to aides. "It's Jersey ... this is not surprising," Kean spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told us. "It's the Menendez campaign, or their supporters," she added, but without offering evidence. "It's just a lot of noise," was the response from campaign aides for Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez. They say they have "thousands" of lawyers at...

IF YOU SUPPORT PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, stay home on Election Day, or vote for a third-party candidate. This will help Bob Menendez get elected to the United States Senate, where he states he will block any judges who do not commit to abortion on demand. Indeed, his winning will result in viable, healthy babies continuing to be killed in the womb. IF YOU OPPOSE PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, vote for Tom Kean on Election Day. He has said that he will support President Bush's judicial appointments as long as they commit not to legislate from the bench. This will result in...

Control of the Senate could turn on one of the bluest states—and one of the nastiest races—in the country. And Jon Corzine is sweating it. By John Heilemann Illustration by Darrow   T he yarmulkes are out in force in Sopranos country. At Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, New Jersey, a crowd of several hundred (chosen) people have gathered for what’s been billed as a “Senatorial Candidates Forum.” Not that the candidates—Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Tom Kean Jr.—share even a fleeting moment together on the synagogal stage. In two recent debates, Menendez and Kean have flayed each other loudly, witlessly,...

In the thick of a hotly contested U.S. Senate race, Republican Tom Kean Jr. has decided to make a sharp break from George W. Bush, saying the president has made "horrendous mistakes" in Iraq, is "dead wrong" on the environment and also wrong to limit stem cell research. Kean issued a scathing critique of his party's standard-bearer during an hourlong interview with The Star-Ledger. Kean labeled the federal response to Hurricane Katrina a failure and rebuked Bush for allowing federal spending to balloon without issuing a single veto. Such criticisms might be standard fare for a Democrat but are as...

New Jersey Republican Tom Kean Jr. called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday, days after a new poll showed the Iraq war was hampering his U.S. Senate bid. Kean joins a growing chorus of federal lawmakers, mostly Democrats, in calling for a change in leadership at the Pentagon. Senate Democrats could force a no-confidence vote on Rumsfeld this week. "Donald Rumsfeld has to go," Kean said Sunday, between campaign stops at the Jersey Shore. "This is something I've been thinking about for months." Kean said he has become increasingly frustrated over the Bush administration's handling...

Michael Tanner is director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute and editor of Social Security and Its Discontents (2005). At a press conference with fellow Democrats at the Statehouse on Monday night, Senator Robert Menendez attacked his Republican opponent, Thomas Kean, Jr., for secretly supporting President Bush's proposal for "privatizing" Social Security. Kean denied the charge and responded with a few of his own, but in swapping barbs, neither candidate gave us the slightest clue what they would do to solve the program's looming problems. The facts are simple: Social Security will begin running a deficit in...

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...

Tom Kean Jr. doesn't think President Bush is telling the truth about amnesty for illegal immigrants. Kean didn't say that about Bush yesterday. He said it about U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez. But it applies to Bush as well. Both Republican Bush and Democrat Me nendez support a bill now before the Senate that would let about 10 million illegal immigrants stay in the United States. Bush says that's not an amnesty. Yes it is, said Kean yesterday at a press conference in Jersey City with the Statue of Liberty in the background. "Rewarding those who have broken our laws with...