Reply #20: Tom Kean Jr. : "advocates adults and children have orgasms as a means..." [View All]

[wiley]

As I have stated several times, Jersey will not elect Tom Kean Jr.

Senator Menendez has a great record, and lots of support. Do people not get the point here? The Republicans can spend millions on ads in Jersey saying whatever they want. If what they say are pathetic lies, people laugh or just ignore it. They'll vote for Menendez.

Although this post is highly chopped up, I left in a riotous response by the chief attack dog for the Republican Party. Also,the bit about Kean's guy creating the "advocates adults and children have orgasms as a means to reaching inner peace" is just too disgusting to ignore at this time. This guy likes to lurk around Republicans who truly believe they can get elected on their looks alone (that's what their families tell them at least) and come up with really sordid sexual crap. It's all so Republican.

http://tinyurl.com/epcft
"A Behind-the-Scenes Player Draws Notice in New Jersey
By LAURA MANSNERUS and MIKE McINTIRE
Published: October 5, 2006

Chris Lyon is a freelancer in political campaigns, a man so far behind the scenes, a former colleague says, that he often mails in his work and tells his client, “I sent you a gift.” He is sought-after, reviled and, according to foes and allies alike, good at what he does. Mr. Lyon’s craft, called opposition research, has become a major element in political campaigns, feeding information to operatives and journalists alike. But while its practitioners usually lie low, Mr. Lyon is a rare example of a researcher who has become part of the story, the target of angry barbs from Democrats who assert that he has relied on smears and distortions.

Indeed, Mr. Lyon’s most recent “gift” — to Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in New Jersey — has become an issue in the increasingly sharp-edged contest between Mr. Kean and United States Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat.
In his work for a consultant to the Kean campaign, Mr. Lyon enlisted a former Hudson County executive, now serving time in a federal prison for accepting a bribe, to lead him to some of Mr. Menendez’s political enemies. One of them produced a tape-recorded conversation in which a close ally of Mr. Menendez is heard urging a contractor to hire someone as a favor to Mr. Menendez.

“Op research is certainly legit,” said Matthew Miller, Mr. Menendez’s spokesman. “What’s not legit is the kind of smear-peddling they depend on. It’s hypocritical at best to claim you’re a reformer while taking your cues from a jailed felon who accepted thousands of dollars in bribes.” Democrats say that the Kean campaign, in using Mr. Lyon’s work, have engaged in the very sort of bare-knuckled, machine-style politics that it has accused Mr. Menendez of practicing, indeed thriving on. The Menendez campaign acknowledges having its own opposition researcher. “Sure, of course we do,” Mr. Miller said. “But our op researcher has not been thrown out of previous states for breaking the law,” he added, referring to an incident in New Hampshire six years ago.

Work that Mr. Lyon did there, including producing anonymous mailings that said the opposing candidate’s wife belonged to a cult that “advocates adults and children have orgasms as a means to reaching inner peace” — led to a cease-and-desist order from the state’s attorney general for failing to report his campaign activities.

Kean aides emphasize that Mr. Lyon does not work directly for the campaign. “I think the selective outrage here is a little laughable,” said Jill Hazelbaker, a Kean spokeswoman, who added that Mr. Menendez’s former law partner, who was at his side when he was sworn in as a senator, had been convicted of dealing cocaine.

Mr. Lyon’s role in the Kean campaign has become public in part because he has been the source of controversy before. He worked for Bret D. Schundler’s unsuccessful campaign for New Jersey governor in 2001, but left shortly after his work in New Hampshire, and the penalty that followed, became publicly known. He returned to New Jersey politics when he was retained by Mr. Kean’s consultant, Matt Leonardo.

Mr. Lyon also resurfaced in New Jersey this spring, asking people familiar with Hudson County politics — including a reporter for The New York Times — about Mr. Menendez’s possible involvement in a graft case there 25 years ago. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Menendez had no criminal role in that case. At the time, Mr. Leonardo said the campaign would produce a film, which has not yet appeared, “very similar” in purpose to the Swift Boat commercials used to successfully attack John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.