Voting record belies Kean's 'independent' claim
2006-10-02
Source: North Jersey Media Group
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rss feedRepublican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr. says bipartisan cooperation is the key to solving problems in Washington.
Ask about the deficit, Social Security and many other issues and Kean's answer usually hits on the same two themes: New Jersey needs an "independent fighter" who is more committed to finding solutions than scoring political points, and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez is too partisan to be effective.
But Kean's record as a legislator shows he may not be the independent fighter he says he is. Not only does he serve in the Republican leadership in Trenton, a database analysis by The Record found that Kean voted the same way most of his GOP colleagues did at least 93 percent of the time.
Kean says numbers and titles don't tell the whole story, however. As evidence of his independence, he points to his push to end business as usual in both Republican and Democratic strongholds. Kean has also bucked his party to support tougher gun control and environmental laws, and his support for abortion rights was criticized in the Republican primary.
Like his father, the former governor, the 38-year-old Kean has an easygoing personality that Democrats say makes him easier to work with than some of the Republican Party's more partisan types. But Democrats also say they've seen little evidence of Kean reaching across the aisle to solve state problems the way he says he would in Washington, even when both parties controlled the same number of seats in the state Senate in 2003.
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