NJ GOP candidate Kean preparing "Swift-Boat" film against Dem Menendez

NYT: Kean Is Preparing a Campaign Film Against Menendez in the Style of a Swift Boat Ad
By JIM DWYER
Published: June 30, 2006

The Republican candidate for the United States Senate in New Jersey, Thomas H. Kean Jr., intends to make a campaign film that accuses his Democratic opponent, Robert Menendez, of "being wrapped up in the rackets for 30 years" despite public records and statements by former federal prosecutors that contradict Mr. Kean's most serious charges.

Mr. Kean's chief campaign consultant, Matt Leonardo, a strategist for Republican candidates, disclosed the plans in an interview and said the film would be "very similar" in purpose to the commercials used to attack the military record of John Kerry during the 2004 presidential race.

Kean campaign officials have sought to erode their opponent's public biography, charging that virtually every moment of Mr. Menendez's career has been mired in graft and bossism. That includes his early days in Union City, where Mr. Menendez has said that he acted to thwart a racketeering scheme involving his own political associates and organized crime figures — a claim that is documented in public records and corroborated by independent authorities.

Nevertheless, the Kean campaign will challenge that biography in "a long-form film," Mr. Leonardo said, just as commercials broadcast in 2004 attacked Mr. Kerry's military record. Those commercials, relying on claims by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, purported to expose Mr. Kerry's military decorations as exaggerated or fraudulent. Although the premise and many elements of the Swift boat advertisements were strongly disputed, as a whole they were seen as successful in hobbling the Kerry campaign....

***

Mr. Kean's charges are not, however, supported by the public record and were repudiated by independent authorities including the four assistant United States attorneys who prosecuted Union City officials of that era for racketeering and corruption. There is no truth, those former officials say, to the Kean campaign's charge that Mr. Menendez made a deal to keep himself out of prison....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/nyregion/30kean.html

and call out the repub candidate (how about a duel?).

Msongs

listen to our song demos!
www.msongs.com/msongsdemos.htm

Kean looked like he might be qualified for dog catcher
with on the job training.

Mendendez is no lightweight.

lie and cheat!!

Why the however in there? Are they saying the charges made against Kerry were in any way at any time supported by public record? This is the kind of reporting that really grips my ass.

and fire.

The thing Kean may have going for him is his father. Tom Kean was seen as a moderate, a sensible Republican. NJ was comfortable with that idea.

Show his kid as a nasty, mud-slinging liar and brat, and any of that wears right off, doesn't it?

Menendez will have to get out in front of this though, I think.