The Confession (19 page)

I took a breath and dialed Kari to ask why she had filed suit despite our understanding, and why it included such vitriolic language. She was as upset as I was. She said she wasn't responsible for the timing or content, and I believed her.

Either way, getting those divorce papers precipitated a kind of breakdown, I believe now. For days I lost my appetite and couldn't sleep. Jimmy Kennedy saw how this was destroying me, and he and Kevin McCabe arranged a hasty trip for the three of us to Miami, hoping a little fun would help me forget my troubles. I went along for the ride, but barhopping wasn't going to help me recover.

 

IN NOVEMBER 1996, IN ATLANTIC CITY, I DECLARED MY INTENTION
to run for governor of New Jersey. In an interview at the Associated Press's offices in Trenton, I struck the main notes of the coming campaign. “The sad reality is that for far too many families in the state of New Jersey, both economically and environmentally, as well as in educational opportunity,
families are not as secure as they were four years ago,” I said. In the morning, the news was in all the papers—the games had begun. Unfortunately, a day or two later the paper carried the newest results of Whitman's popularity polls: 61 percent of voters rated her favorably.

A slew of other Democrats dipped their toes in the pool, but the most serious threats came from Rob Andrews, a thirty-nine-year-old four-term congressman from Camden, and W. Michael Murphy, Jr., a forty-eight-year-old former Morris County prosecutor. Former governor Brendan Byrne had the best line of the early days: “This is my favorite kind of primary: an Irishman from North Jersey, an Irishman from Central Jersey, and an Irishman from South Jersey.”

I figured Murphy posed the least challenge to me. He'd served only four years as prosecutor, an unelected post. His biggest claim to party loyalty was the fact that his late stepfather, Richard Hughes, had been a popular governor in the 1960s.

Andrews, on the other hand, was a real political force. Handsome, articulate, and popular, he was strong among women and minorities and experienced in education policy, environmental issues, and even foreign policy, which was important because of New Jersey's close proximity to New York. He was also exceptionally accomplished for being so young—only two days older than I was, and already in Congress.

On policy grounds, Andrews and I shared many moderate Democratic positions. We were pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-death penalty, pro-welfare reform, and pro-gay civil rights. We were also all on record opposing gay marriage. Looking back, I remember feeling
proud
that I could sit in the editorial meetings of newspapers around the state and defend the sanctity of marriage “between a man and a woman” without ringing any bells of suspicion. I never even wrestled with the contradiction.

The closet is a sick, sick place.

With seven months before the primary in June, we drove headlong into the race, bouncing around the state to raise money and hammer away at the issues, especially auto insurance. Dad had a natural base in the American Legion and VFW halls; I'd been going to events with him long before I considered running for governor. I was probably one of the few nonmembers
who attended these functions, but I loved every minute of them: award ceremonies, Pearl Harbor commemorations, Legislator of the Year dinners (several times as honoree). To me, they represent everything that's right about America.

That wasn't all. I went to every Carpenters Union and Operating Engineer Union local; to the electricians and the laborers; to the women's groups, Latino festivals, and almost every African American Church in New Jersey. I went to street fairs and picnics and ethnic festivals and flag raisings. The people there really charged my batteries. No matter what their backgrounds were, they all wanted the same thing. They wanted to believe in their communities. They wanted their streets clean and their children well educated. They wanted people to abide by the law, whether poor white Americans in Vineland, rich African Americans in Montclair, or working-class Latinos in Union City. I loved meeting people from one end of the state to the other, listening to what people wanted and figuring out how to provide it.

In New Jersey, though, the people you need to worry about aren't the voters; they're the twenty-one county chairmen—the bosses, who control the party line. If you don't make it onto the party line, your name is banished to the Siberia of that distant column on the right of the electoral matrix, unaffiliated and isolated. Jim Florio had already come out against the party-line system, which he said “harkens back to the days of backroom deals.” He was right. But as a newcomer and underdog, I was in no position to buck the system—not if I wanted to win, which I did. I deferred to people like Ray Lesniak, who told the
Bergen Record:
“Neighbor speaking to neighbor is a lot better than somebody making decisions based on a thirty-second television ad.”

And so we all went on our boss-hunting expeditions. Andrews, from South Jersey, could expect the southern county bosses to fall behind his campaign. With the backing of Ray Lesniak in Union County and John Lynch in Middlesex, I had the central part of the state locked up. Lesniak and Lynch also held sway in the north, but I knew that was where the battles would be fought.

Winning over a boss involves an old-fashioned courtship. Early on I
landed the backing of Congressman Frank Pallone, from Long Branch, in the Central Jersey county of Monmouth. He gave interviews calling me the most qualified and “the nicest of the three candidates.” Frank and I had been friends; we shared common ground on environmental policy, and he represented a substantial portion of my home county, so his support wasn't unexpected. But I also had John Lynch to thank. He'd promised Pallone to support his reelection bid if Pallone endorsed me aggressively, a quid pro quo. While Monmouth was not a major Democratic political force, having an incumbent congressman on my side so early in the race was a coup.

Murphy did well in the press, claiming the lion's share of newspaper endorsements. But he was doing poorly in the ground game; without one party endorsement to his credit, he made a virtue of necessity and declared himself the “anti-machine candidate.”

Nine southern counties quickly lined up behind Andrews, accounting for about 41 percent of statewide votes. That got me nervous. We'd garnered ten northern counties, for about the same vote ratio, but in doing so we'd spent just about every political chit we had. The biggest thing we had going for us was that Essex County hadn't gone to Andrews yet. Essex encompasses 13 percent of the state's Democratic voters, and as the home of Newark, the state's biggest city, it was a major prize. We needed Essex. So did Andrews. Our campaigns were already doing hand-to-hand combat on the street.

“Hudson and Passaic haven't committed yet, either,” Ray Lesniak told me. “They're waiting to see what Essex does.” And somebody in Essex boss Tommy Giblin's camp was stirring up trouble. “They're peddling this story about you getting arrested in some homosexual thing in a cemetery.”

That cemetery story—it kept popping up. “I told him it was all bullshit,” Ray continued, “but he said, ‘Tell McGreevey to get out of the race.' He wants to back Andrews.”

Ray started formulating a new plan. First he met with Passaic and Hudson party chairmen, asking them to hold off till Essex committed. Passaic acquiesced, but Hudson boss Bob Janiszewski was another story. Over dinner at New York's Windows on the World, he surprised Ray. “I'm with Andrews,” he said. “I'm ready to announce.”

“At least wait until Essex announces,” Ray pleaded, worried that the
dominos might tumble behind Hudson County. Janiszewski wouldn't promise. As if just to needle us, he pushed up his scheduled press conference backing Andrews.

This concerned us. We made panicked calls to Passaic and Essex, begging for a meeting. But it didn't look good. “You're dying,” Ray told me.

Next, he made his play for Essex. In political terms, it was breathtakingly daring.

We needed Tommy Giblin, the Essex County boss, to change his tune on my candidacy—to stop spreading old rumors and join the team. So Ray and Lynch promised Giblin that if I won the primary I'd make him state Democratic Party chair, something the party standard-bearer is empowered to do. Yet Giblin
still
didn't budge. He knew that a pledge like that was only good if I won; if Andrews came out on top, it would mean the end of Giblin's power and the demise of the Essex machine's centrality to state politics.

So Ray changed tactics. If he couldn't win over Giblin directly, he'd enlist the help of two other powerhouses in Essex politics, his close advisors Dick Codey, an influential state senator from Passaic, and Sharpe James, the powerful and colorful mayor of Newark.

Codey was a close colleague of mine from the senate. I'd backed him for senate minority leader in 1993, giving him the last vote he needed. Now I reached out to him personally, and he was immediately forthcoming. He called Giblin to ask him to reconsider endorsing me—and warned that there would be consequences if he refused. Codey even threatened to run his own line on the ballot, refusing to allow his name to appear in the boss-controlled party line column, and he promised to take all the local elected officials with him. Codey was popular enough that he knew he'd win no matter where his name was printed on Election Day. If he and the rest of the local delegation jumped ship, it would spell disaster for Giblin, leaving him to run a doomed line of unknowns.

Still, Giblin didn't buckle. Before long, he started giving quotes to the press favoring Andrews over me.

But it was with Sharpe James that Ray really worked his magic. James didn't want to buck the county machine. But Newark was in a rut, and he knew it. His city was one of the ten poorest urban centers in the nation, despite that New Jersey is one of the wealthiest states. A third of the population
lives below the poverty line, and six out of ten children don't graduate from high school. He couldn't afford to make a mistake.

Meanwhile, I got to my old friend Calvin West, his chief of staff. A politically insightful bon vivant who'd broken barriers years earlier to become the first African American elected to Newark's city council, Calvin was totally committed to my campaign. He agreed to prep Sharpe for our meeting. “You take care of your side of the street,” he said, “and I'll take care of mine.”

We met at Sharpe's office. I made an earnest pitch, knowing I was preaching to the choir. “Andrews has broken with the Democratic Party,” I said. “He was one of four Democrats who voted for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. He voted against school lunches and after-school programs, Sharpe. Don Payne from the Black Caucus has all sorts of concerns about him. Look, you know I'm the best one for the community.”

He may have known it, but he wouldn't budge. When we left there I thought I was doomed.

But Ray had one more trick up his sleeve. Sharpe had told him that he'd be more inclined to defy Giblin if others in the county joined him—particularly Stephen N. Adubato, Sr., an influential member of the Italian community in Newark. Adubato's pet project was the nonprofit North Ward Center for low-income families, which he ran and used as a power base. Ray pulled a few strings and got several local philanthropists to take a tour of Adubato's center. They ultimately wrote checks for over half a million dollars. It was a legitimate donation to a worthy cause—arranged for wholly political purposes. Adubato was impressed, and suddenly he was leaning toward me.

Once Adubato had flipped, Sharpe followed suit. The tide was turning our way.

Giblin was totally surrounded. We knew that other black elected officials would likely follow Sharpe's endorsement, as would other predominantly African American cities; now we could go back to Orange, East Orange, and Irvington with a better chance of getting on the line there. Giblin was at risk of seeming out of step with the black establishment. Better yet, Adubato would pull his strings among the Italians, with a similar ripple effect. I had the Hungarians, the Polish, and labor, and nobody doubted I controlled the Irish Catholics. I literally moved into Cryan's Beef and Ale on
First Street in South Orange, the nexus of Irish life in Essex, camping out there every night on the run up to St. Patrick's Day, buying rounds of Guinness for the guys.

And then I remembered: Joe Cryan, the vice chairman of the state Democratic Party—whose dad owned the Beef and Ale—came from the same part of Ireland as Tommy Giblin. I got Cryan's dad on the phone. “You've got to get me Giblin,” I said.

I stalked Giblin like I was on safari, making sure my name was mentioned everywhere he went—bars, union halls, restaurants, churches, family gatherings.

The following week, Tommy Giblin called me for a meeting at Cryan's.

“We're going with you,” he told me between bites of his sandwich. “It's going to be a tough election. But if you win it, I'd like to be part of any discussion regarding opportunities for the county.”

“Sure, Tommy,” I said. “Just do whatever is appropriate.” I finished my Harp and shepherd's pie and got up to leave. But Giblin wasn't quite finished. His reputation was on the line, and he needed me to know that. If Andrews ended up winning, Giblin would look like a fool for having backed the wrong horse at the last minute.

“You better win this goddamn thing,” he growled.

When I told Ray about the meeting, he let out a holler. “You're back from the dead, Jimmy,” he said. “This thing's in your pocket now.”

George Norcross, the Camden boss who'd gone with Andrews, called too.

“You're the Pete Rose of politics,” he joked. “I don't know how you pulled that one off.”

 

RAY BROUGHT IN HIS OLD FRIEND ORIN KRAMER TO BE OUR CAMPAIGN
finance chairman. An exceptionally bright, cigar-chomping Wall Street hedge fund manager with a staccato patter, Kramer knew where the deep pockets were around the state. He'd helped the Clinton/Gore team raise money in 1992 and 1996, and was a golfing buddy of the president's. I was lucky to have him on board—but as a candidate with almost no name recognition, I still had my fundraising work cut out for me.