Menendez - NY Times - Opens campaign for U.S. Senate seat

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Published in the New York Times, Friday, June 2m, 2006

June 2, 2006

Menendez Opens Campaign for Election to U.S. Senate

By RICHARD G. JONES

UNION CITY, N.J., June 1 — Setting the stage for what is expected to be one of the nation's most expensive and closely watched races this year, Senator Robert Menendez opened his campaign on Thursday for a full term in the United States Senate.

Although Mr. Menendez faces a challenger, James D. Kelly Jr., in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, his announcement all but set the field in a long-anticipated race against his likely November opponent, Thomas H. Kean Jr., a state senator.

With polls divided over which man would win a hypothetical race, the contest is shaping up as one of the most competitive of 33 United States Senate seats up for grabs this year.

Although the Bush administration's poor approval ratings have damaged the prospects of Republican candidates elsewhere in the country, the effects have been less severe for Mr. Kean because of the popularity in New Jersey of his father, who served as governor from 1981 to 1989 and was chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Nevertheless, as Mr. Menendez opened his campaign in the gymnasium of his former high school here, he referred to President Bush no fewer than seven times before about 500 students.

The announcement came just a day after the two candidates agreed to hold several debates, including one that will be conducted on the Internet by the nonpartisan Hall Institute of Public Policy in Trenton. Beginning next month and continuing every two weeks until the November election, the candidates are expected to post their responses to questions submitted to a Web site.

Calling himself an "agent of change," Mr. Menendez — considered the most powerful Democrat in Hudson County — suggested that his opposition to the war in Iraq while in Congress and his recent campaign to stop the sale of domestic port operations to Dubai were signs that he has the will to oppose the president.

"New Jersey cannot afford to send to Washington a senator who will blindly follow the president as he marches our country further and further down the road to dangerous insolvency at home and reckless entanglements abroad," Mr. Menendez said.

The senator also alluded to other contentious issues, including soaring gasoline prices, tax breaks for the wealthy, cuts in aid to higher education and the slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Menendez, 52, who served in the House for 14 years before being appointed to the Senate in December by Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who had held the seat, received his most sustained applause when he said that he believed the military should have focused on finding Osama bin Laden rather than invading Iraq.

"Today, over 2,400 lives of Americans later, $300 billion and $6 billion a month more with no strategy for success, I know standing up to George Bush on Iraq was the right decision," he said, shortly after suggesting that Mr. Kean "longs to be part of the status quo."

While Mr. Menendez tried to make the campaign about Mr. Bush, Mr. Kean on Thursday portrayed Mr. Menendez as a product of northern New Jersey's political machine. At a campaign event in Jersey City, Mr. Kean, who is being challenged in the primary by John Ginty, also questioned $200,000 worth of contracts that a former staff aide to Mr. Menendez received from Menendez supporters.

"The people of New Jersey can no longer afford party bosses who put politics first and people second," Mr. Kean said. "We need to elect a United States senator who will bring a true moral compass to office."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/nyregion/02menendez.html?pagewanted=print

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