BY MICHAEL REDMOND, Lifestyle Editor, Princeton Packet, 06/23/2006
(Photo by Mark Czajkowski)
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The ins and outs of New Jersey politics are surely an acquired taste for most residents of the state, but for those among us who relish the subject, Alvin S. Felzenberg of Princeton has written a "must" read.
"Governor Tom Kean: His Journey from the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9-11 Commission" (Rivergate Books, Rutgers University) is a riveting account of the life and times of New Jersey's most popular and respected political figure, written by a biographer who is up front about his admiration for his subject.
Mr. Felzenberg — a historian with a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University — has been a close observer of the former governor since the beginning of Mr. Kean's political career, nearly 40 years ago. He frankly describes Mr. Kean as a mentor and a friend.
Early on, Mr. Felzenberg worked as a volunteer in Mr. Kean's campaigns for the New Jersey Assembly, and he served as New Jersey's assistant secretary of state once Mr. Kean became governor. His most recent association with the former governor was the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the 9-11 Commission), which Mr. Kean chaired. Mr. Felzenberg served as the commission's chief spokesman.
Some partisans may snipe that clearly Mr. Felzenberg is way too close to his subject to offer anything resembling an objective view, but they would be failing to take this author's measure. Yes, he is a Republican writing about a Republican, and one bears this in mind — but he is also faithful reporter when it comes to the former governor's critics. They have their say. Read the book.
Mr. Felzenberg is likewise frank about his subject's fumbles, mistakes and missed opportunities — although these don't add up to much when one views Mr. Kean's career as a whole, he argues. And most New Jerseyans would agree with him. It's one of those strange facts of political life that the man who won the governorship by the narrowest margin in electoral history (1,787 votes) went on to win his second term by a seismic landslide — 68 percent of the vote, all 21 counties — and still ranks No. 1 in statewide beauty contests (recognition/approval polls).
Mr. Felzenberg has just returned from a fellowship with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he led a study group on "Bi-Partisan Cooperation in an Era of Deep Partisan Divisions."
A case in point is the 9-11 Commission itself, where Mr. Kean chose to share an unusual amount of power and authority with the commission's vice chair, Lee H. Hamilton, the Democratic former congressman from Indiana.
During a June 15 appearance with Mr. Felzenberg at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, the former governor explained that he had identified two dangers that he feared could "kill" the commission's investigation — "leaks," which would have provided the White House with a plausible rationale for refusing to turn over documents, and "partisan wrangling," which would have undercut the credibility of the commission's conclusions and recommendations.
There were no leaks. There was no wrangling. And to this day you can't see daylight between Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton when the commission is at issue — that's how close their partnership remains.
Mr. Felzenberg makes the case that Mr. Kean honed his consensus-building skills through the rough and tumble of his New Jersey political career.
"Twenty-five years before Bill Clinton proclaimed himself a 'new Democrat,' Tony Blair talked of a 'third way,' or George W. Bush coined the phrase 'compassionate conservatism,' Kean was practicing the kind of government all three came to espouse. It entailed holding the majority of one's own party together, while embracing the rhetoric and sometimes the substance advanced by the other party, in order to forge a centrist majority ... From his earliest days in the legislature, Kean would cast himself as a problem solver rather than as an ideologue. This image would serve him well," Mr. Felzenberg writes.
And, in another place: "There would be other times in Kean's career when he would clothe liberal objectives in conservative garb and vice versa, giving something to both sides, as he worked to achieve a consensus."
It's a measure of how deeply the well of politics has been poisoned in this country that some people view this kind of thing as evidencing lack of principle. Politics is the art of the possible, Bismarck is said to have said. In a democracy, without consensus, very little gets done. Hello?
Six years in the making, "Governor Tom Kean" paints a vivid picture of New Jersey coming to grips with many of the key issues of our time, then and now — civil rights, the urban dilemma, corruption and reform, the education crisis, the environmental imperative, welfare reform, economic development, the strengths and the limits of federalism. Unique, perhaps, to New Jersey was a problem that Mr. Kean took on head first — the state's dismal image. One still hears New Jersey jokes, of course, but they sound rather tired these days.
Mr. Felzenberg was asked the big question: Why did Mr. Kean choose to become president of Drew University rather than run for the Senate, a job most political prognosticators believe he could have had for the asking? Why didn't he run for higher office?
"A hundred people have asked me that question, everywhere I go," replied Mr. Felzenberg, during an interview at Mediterra on Palmer Square.
"The bottom line I came out with is that it's the timing. It's not his family, I can tell you that. Tom started out in politics very young, and for most of his life he never stopped running. I think that if an opening were there and he were appointed, that's one scenario — but another campaign, the intensity of that, the fundraising? And campaigns have gotten a lot nastier. My guess is that he just doesn't want to run.
"Also, I wonder if he would have been happy in the Senate," Mr. Felzenberg said. "It's difficult to get things done there — you're one out of a hundred. He could have served as a bridge between Gingrich and Clinton on welfare reform, between George W. Bush and the Democrats on national security — he has always found and defined the center. But I think that service in the Senate would have pre-empted his service on the 9-11 Commission, where he was able accomplish something that few senators ever have the chance to do."
As well as he knows Mr. Kean, Mr. Felzenberg encountered some surprises.
"I was aware of some but didn't realize their depth. As governors go, New Jersey hasn't had a lot of great orators, but Kean fared better than most. Many people have described him as an inspiring speaker. To think that as a youngster he was a stutterer, that he had a serious problem with that — I found that very surprising."
The book discloses Mr. Kean's debt to William Gaccon, a Briton who taught Latin at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., the boys' boarding school Thomas H. Kean entered at age 11. The teacher took a lonely and insecure youngster under his wing and exerted a major influence on his personal development, including the overcoming of the stutter.
In the process, Mr. Kean picked up "Gaccon's British intonations and those of the surrounding New Englanders," writes Mr. Felzenberg, who was also surprised, he said, to discover that "a national reformer in education was a bit of a mediocre student — with the exception of history."
Also surprising to Mr. Felzenberg was the "tremendous impact" Mr. Kean had on several presidents, from Gerald R. Ford to Bill Clinton.
"Four or five presidents have commented about how much they trusted him," said Mr. Felzenberg, who described Mr. Kean's relationship with Mr. Clinton, which began when they were both governors, as especially cordial.
"Within the National Governors Association, Kean and Clinton were the yin-yang centrists. 'You work with Moynihan, I'll work with Reagan' was the kind of relationship they had when they shared an issue," Mr. Felzenberg said.
Speaking of Reagan:
"Tom jokes that because New Jersey has only one major airport, anywhere you take the president involves a long drive. Reagan would just sit there and talk policy with Tom the entire time. He enjoyed doing that. Reagan had been a governor, and he wanted to find out what the country's governors were experimenting with, and what the federal roadblocks were. The Reagan library is full of his handwritten notes for letters to Tom."
A resident of Washington, D.C., Mr. Felzenberg first came to Princeton in 1973 to pursue his doctorate. He bought a house here, which he still owns, and considers Princeton his home town, even though he has been away since 1990.
"I consider myself a part of the Princeton community — I read the papers, I have lots of friends here. I've seen so many wonderful things happen here — a great library, a tremendous Y, lots of open space despite all the growth. This is the place I come back to. But there's one issue I expect that Princeton will never get around —Route 1 traffic."
Alvin S. Felzenberg will speak on "Governor Tom Kean: His Journey from the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9-11 Commission" and do a book-signing on Thursday, July 6, at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble in MarketFair, West Windsor. Admission is free.
©PACKETONLINE 2006
