The Dan Quayle Moment of Tom Kean, Jr.
In the words of Warner Wolf, let’s go to the video tape, folks!
Remember the 1988 Vice Presidential Debate between Republican Dan Quayle and Democrat Lloyd Bentsen? Here is the magic Dan Quayle moment, where after Quayle claimed equivalent experience with JFK, Bentsen scored a knockout blow, with the following words:
Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.
Disclaimer: I actually like Dan Quayle. He earned an honored place in American history by his persuasion of Mike Pence not to intervene on behalf of Donald Trump to steal the presidential race.
But this debate moment finished Dan Quayle forever as a presidential candidate. It became known in political lore as the Dan Quayle moment.
Now here is the backdrop to yesterday’s Tom Kean, Jr. version of the Dan Quayle moment.
Kean, Jr. is a decent person and has a good basic knowledge of policy, although not close to that of Malinowski. But he is sorely lacking in gravitas, and his abject cravenness and his overwhelming desire to placate Donald Trump and the MAGA thugs of New Jersey have resulted in his campaign presentations being without credibility.
By contrast, the courage and gravitas of Malinowski have made him a vastly superior political performer to Kean, Jr. If the Republican candidate’s name was Tom Cain, Jr. rather than Tom Kean, Jr., he never would be a New Jersey GOP statewide candidate.
The handlers of Tom Kean, Jr. have managed him the way the late Cus D’Amato used to shield glass jaw former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson from competitive fights. They limited Junior Kean’s two debates to digital events, not available to broadcast television. Still, they hoped for a breakout moment.
So here is the scene: The New Jersey 7th Congressional District Debate yesterday at the Gateway Regional Chamber of Congress, between incumbent Democrat Tom Malinowski and Republican challenger Tom Kean, Jr. And here is the attempted breakout moment, which the Kean management set up for Junior Kean:
Kean, Jr: “You’ve been in Washington D.C. for 30 years, and in the entire time you’ve been in D.C. you moved down and you never left.”
Now this was a pathetic, ludicrous, sophistic effort by Kean, Jr. to portray Malinowski as a Washington insider, responsible for all our national ills, solely by virtue of Malinowski’s residing in the District of Columbia. It enabled Malinowski, however, to launch a most effective devastating one-two counter-punch: the first punch succeeding in establishing Kean as being grossly deceptive on the Malinowski record:
“I have been in Congress four years, not 30 years,” Malinowski said.
The next Malinowski Lloyd Bentsen-style counterpunch was the knockout blow, reminiscent of the Rocky Marciano counterpunch that knocked out Jersey Joe Walcott and won the heavyweight title for him on September 23, 1952:
Malinowski: “You’ve been in Trenton for 20 years,” he said, referring to Kean’s career as a state senator, the last 14 as the Republican Senate leader. “What the hell have you done? Property taxes have gone up and up.”
This was the ultimate Dan Quayle moment for Tom Kean, Junior. He entered the debate ring seeking a breakthrough moment. He left the ring a knockout victim, permanently branded by Malinowski as a prime cause of hated New Jersey property tax hikes.
Three weeks to go. I’m not ready to make a prediction yet. The political performance ineptitude of Kean, Junior, the strategic incompetence of his campaign staff, plus the worsening political and legal status of Donald Trump, the running mate Kean, Jr. has so loyally defended have made this race more winnable than ever for the vastly more politically and policy talented Tom Malinowski.
Alan J. Steinberg served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
How do you reach the conclusion that Kean Jr has a good basic grasp of policy? The only thing I heard him say in the debate that was not a vague jumble of cliches was his explanation of the origin of America’s farm subsidy program. He didn’t Bother mention how important it is to sustain the program that now feeds so many families. It will be a very very sad day if Jr replaces the effective and brilliant Other Tom.
Let’s pray that the people who are most talented are elected to Congress because these times demand the best and brightest hearts and minds for the myriad obstacles we face as a nation. We don’t need political hacks and we don’t need people who are trying to defend the most destructive force in American political history.
What did Mr. Malinowski do before running for congress 4 years ago? In 1988 he worked on Sen Pat Moynihan’s staff (D-NY) in Washington, from 94-98 he worked in the State Department (in Washington) writing speeches for Secretary Warren Christopher and Madeline Albright. From 2001-13 he was Washington Director of Human Rights Watch (in Washington) and then back to the State Department (in Washington) until 2017….that is only 29 years except of course for those last 4 years in Congress. What did Tom Kean Jr. do about property taxes in Trenton? If he supported Chris Christie’s property tax caps (from his first term) then I would say he supported an agenda that did more than anyone has done since his father was governor
My connection to NJ is that I attended and graduated from Rutgers College/Rutgers University in 1982 with a degree in Political Science.
Tom Kean Jr. hails from a dynastic family. It stretches into NY with Hamilton Fish: NY Governor, US Senator and US Sec’y of State. He’s also related through his grandmother to Peter Stuyvesant the Dutch Colonial Governor of (now) NY.
In NJ it includes William Livingston was a delegate to the Continental Congress and 1st Governor of NJ. I would guess that the former Livingston College/Rutgers U. was named after him.
He’s related to Keans, Winthrops and Dudleys who have been US Senators, the 1st Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony another Gov. of Mass. Bay Colony and signed Harvard College’s charter.
There are even more dynastic connections to the larger “Kean” family including Miles Standish, John Alden and Roger Sherman.
You can’t get much closer to the Mayflower and an American Statesman than those 3.
I mention this because Kean Jr. has shown himself to be a weak candidate. He was appointed to the NJ Assembly and the NJ Senate filling out vacated seats. That means he has always run as an incumbent, when he’s successful. The times he challenged an incumbent, he lost.
Kean Jr., a highly educated man, appeared to be a somewhat moderate Republican, pre-Trump. He’s now embraced the crazy. He would be someone, whom if elected, would likely destroy the very democracy that his family has served for hundreds of years.
How can one throw away 4 Centuries of dedicated service to the United States of America and its Democracy? For a cult of personality president who lies, cheats and steals? And Kean Jr. knows all about Trump, he grew up in NJ while Trump “built his empire”.
Rep. Malinowski, on the other hand, was born in Poland in a communist state and appreciates democracy.
That alone should inform you who to vote for.