Kean meets his voters — and shuts down | Moran

Jack Curtis, a retired school principal from Mendham and a registered Republican for most of his life, was at the local King’s Food Market on Saturday when he saw Rep. Tom Kean Jr. shaking hands in the parking lot.

Curtis, now 78, jumped on the rare chance to speak with the secretive Congressman, who has held no public town halls and runs from the press if he sees them coming. Curtis follows the news, so he had seen the viral video of Kean trapped in an elevator at the Capitol, refusing to respond to a reporter’s questions, even on what he had for lunch.

Now, in the parking lot, with no cameras in sight, Curtis thought Kean might answer some questions from a constituent. Instead, he got that same blank stare. Curtis asked questions for seven or eight minutes, he says, and through it all, Kean held that robotic expression we all saw in the elevator video.

“He just stood there,” Curtis says. “I said, ‘Aren’t you going to answer my questions? And he just stood there. He never said a word to me other than thanks for stopping. And then he turned away.”

I share this story for two reasons. One is that Curtis is one of those rare treasures that a democracy depends on, a well-informed citizen who is not afraid to bang his head against walls that need banging. I got to know him during his campaign to stop the farmland assessment scam, which allows his rich neighbors to claim giant breaks on their property taxes by pretending to be farmers by selling a few jars of home-brewed honey. He’s a happy warrior, he did amazing homework on the scam, and I have a soft spot for that.

But the weightier reason is what it reveals about Kean. It’s bad enough to run from the press, and worse to hold no open town halls. But it’s downright pathetic to refuse to speak to a constituent in the parking lot. What is Kean so afraid of? Wouldn’t he be happier in a different line of work?

His Democratic opponent, Sue Altman, has a theory about Kean’s paralysis. She says that he is trapped between the MAGA folks he depends on for money and more moderate voters in the 7th District. If he speaks, he’d have to bridge that impossible divide.

“He could have been a leader among the Republican Party against these worst instincts, most extreme instincts of the Republican Party, but he’s not been able to do that,” Altman said during their only debate. “It’s a complete lost opportunity.”

Kean has endorsed Trump, and invited Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to the district to help raise money. Elon Musk, the world’s most obnoxious know-it-all, is spending money on behalf of Kean now, too.

That’s where Curtis was headed with Kean. He wanted to know why Kean endorsed Trump, and why he never denounces the lies coming from the MAGA extremists, like the story about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pet dogs and cats.

“His dad spoke up against Trump,” Curtis says, referring to the former governor. “Even Chris Christie spoke up. But he won’t say a word, and I find that disheartening.”

“So, I said, ‘Speak up and say what you should be saying about those representatives who are behaving like nitwits,’” Curtis recalled. “He wasn’t expecting that in Mendham. He was taken aback. He really was.”

I asked Kean’s campaign about all this, and got no answer, of course.

The 7th District is purple, not red, so Kean may pay a price for his embrace of MAGA. He won the district in 2022 by a whisker after it was reshaped to give him an advantage. But Altman is bringing the juice in this campaign, holding one packed town hall after another, knocking on doors, talking to anyone with a question. A Monmouth University poll released last week found that she is within two points. If the national Democrats wake up and send some money for this final stretch, she could win.

Especially if Kean is afraid to answer questions from a voter in the parking lot.

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Tom Moran may be reached at [email protected] or (973) 986-6951. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

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