Tormented by Camera-Wielding Kean-Payrollee, Gordon Files Harassment Report with State Police
Having weathered aggressive cameras in a fateful 2006 U.S. Senate campaign, Senate Minority Tom Kean (R-21) resurrected himself this season as a flintier version, still elegant and austere – but accompanied by what Democrats see as his own camera-toting toady, whose presence on the trail finally infuriated a senate colleague to the point of him placing a call to the state police. Republicans say Democrats are just being sensitive again, and reveal a certain bubble-like sense of entitlement in overreacting to hard-nosed Jersey politics in, of all places, hard-nosed Bergen County.
Buffeted by camera-wielding reporters over a decade ago in the middle of the Iraq War, leader Kean is now engaged in the typically battleground district of LD38 this season, where state Senator Bob Gordon (D-38) wants to fend off challenger Kelly Langschultz, a soccer mom trying to kick the Democrat out of office.
Kevin Tober, director of research at the Senate Republican Majority Office, has on several occasions tracked Gordon as part of an effort to bait the veteran Fair Lawn senator into saying something stupid, and routinely trying Gordon’s patience. Republicans high-five Tober as a sharp-elbowed GOP foot-soldier. “Shout out to Kevin Tober for getting in the face and irritating the hell out of Senator Bob Gordon at the LD38 debate last night,” a Facebook post by a Tober ally read earlier this week. The same post boasted a willingness to pay for Tober’s bail. But Gordon and his allies see him as more obnoxious stalker than heads-up tracker, and feel Kean’s sanctioning of the parking lot prowling Tober shows a lack of class, and finally the cherry on top of Kean’s terrible rite of passage from Dartmouth-educated public service patrician, to camera-fileted statewide candidate, to suffering-creature of the Christie insult era, to acquiescent adolescent politics enabler.
A video of Tober pursuing Gordon and attempting to engage him can be viewed by clicking the link immediately accessible below:
When Gordon finished his debate with Langschultz last week and prepared to exit the area, where Kean sat in the audience, Tober moved in on the Democrat like a harbor shark with his camera, peppering him with questions and seriously irritating the Bergenite.
They had had their run-ins before, but this one did it to Gordon, who felt menaced, and subsequently called the New Jersey State Police and filled out a harassment report.
“Normally public forums don’t involve harassment,” Gordon told InsiderNJ. “Maybe there are new standards. Since when have debates become gladiatorial combat? I would add that my opponent wasn’t an innocent party here, because she’s providing the scheduling information to Kean.”
Republicans scorned Gordon for complaining.
“If Bob Gordon as an elected official takes such tremendous offense at a public forum that he feels he needs to involve the prosecutor, that’s a missue of public funds,” said Harrison Neely, a spokesman for the Senate Republican Office. “There is no reason to feel harassed when he was being held accountable for his policy positions.”
Republicans this season have targeted more than just Gordon with the camera treatment, catching LD11 senate candidate Vin Gopal and Senator Linda Greenstein (D-14) on other occasions and annoying both of them. The man behind the lens in those cases too was Tober, as Kean plays in battleground districts with what he hopes ends on Nov. 7th in a pick up in LD14 and a defense of Senator Jen Beck (R-11) against Gopal. Tailed by “Trust Fund Baby” signs on the trail and infamously assailed by county government lawnmowers when he ran against U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) statewide, Kean now has Tober in tow, and has shocked his former tormentors by doing what they didn’t believe he was capable of: kicking low.
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SNOWFLAKE AND HYPOCRISY ALERT – The Democrats like to dish the same out, but they lose their marbles when it’s done to them.