The Confession (20 page)

He and Steve DeMicco set a difficult schedule for me. Every morning
for four hours I sat in our campaign offices in Woodbridge, working the phones. I pitched myself to ordinary people and corporate executives, people in high-end condos and the projects. I went across the state county by county: three days dialing Camden, four days calling Monmouth, Ocean, or Atlantic. I loved talking to so many different people, hearing their ideas about government and their hopes for a secure future. I especially loved talking to the retirees, and felt a tremendous kinship with older people in my state, in part because of what I'd learned over the years about nursing home billing policies.

I soon saw that organized labor was my most reliable funding base. The unions pulled out the stops on my behalf: President John Sweeney of the old AFL-CIO; Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union; Gerry McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Morty Bahr of the Communications Workers of America; Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters; Doug McCarron of the Carpenters; Terry O'Sullivan of the Laborers; Frank Hanley of the Operating Engineers, to which so many of my relatives belonged; and the other building trades.

I also found middle ground with Jews, liberals, and trial lawyers: the traditional party mainstays were backing my plans for the state over what Andrews was proposing. We adopted a new campaign slogan, “Real Democrat, Real Solutions,” telegraphing the difference between me and the other Democrats, who favored conciliation to the point of capitulation. I was the progressive candidate of principle, and we wanted everyone to know it.

That said, even in January 1997 we still were losing the funding race hands down. I'd been begging for handouts since November, but by the end of February we had only $300,000 in the bank. Andrews had $400,000 after a few short weeks. Whitman was leaving us both in the dust. I remember pulling off the biggest fundraising dinner of my career, for a record-breaking $17,000 net. We all went to bed that night giddy. In the morning, the papers had front-page pictures of Whitman at her own record-breaking event, where she banked $1.2 million. As if to rub it in, she kept flying to other states to raise money for the New Jersey Republican Committee, nabbing $200,000 in Florida and $100,000 in Michigan.

My fortunes changed in small stages. A couple of big fundraisers in late
February netted enough to make me eligible for matching funds, the first candidate to qualify. Now my war chest had topped $1 million, quite an accomplishment for an unknown. I remembered the advice Doug Schoen gave: “The only way you're going to make it is by working hard.” That's how we did it, by working harder than anybody.

 

LATER, WE GOT A REAL WINDFALL FROM THE CHECKBOOK OF CHARLIE
Kushner, a terrific fellow and one of the state's wealthiest developers. I'd first met Charlie at one of my campaign stops. His empire, Kushner Companies, owned or managed $3 billion worth of real estate in the tri-state area, including the prized Puck Building in Manhattan. An orthodox Jew, he was also an important philanthropist, especially generous with Israeli concerns. He knew about my efforts on Holocaust education, he told me; my latest bill was working through the senate on its way to Whitman's desk. Both his parents, he said, had survived the camps.

The day after we met, Charlie and I had a great meeting. I told him how important it was that New Jersey start improving educational quality in order to fill jobs in business and the service industry, and I described my ambitious plans for turning the state's schools into postmillennial high-tech facilities, with computerized libraries and high-speed Internet in every classroom. Education was very important to Charlie, it turned out. His philanthropic contributions to schools rank among the highest in the world. He was a major benefactor to Harvard and two schools in Livingston, New Jersey: the Rea Kushner Yeshiva High School and the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, named for his father. He also served on the boards of the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women, in New York, and Touro College of New York, a four-year institution established to teach Jewish heritage. About Touro especially he spoke eloquently and with great passion.

His faith, so different from my own, was a source of strength and balance for him. He prayed every day using the Orthodox practice called “davening,” in which he bowed ritualistically while reciting Jewish liturgical text. He observed the Sabbath strictly from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown,
traveling only by foot and avoiding the phone unless an emergency demanded it. Following these rules helped remind Charlie of God's prominence, just as taking Holy Communion every week helped me remain Christ-centered. This was a great discovery for me.

We hit it off wonderfully; by the time I left his office I had contributions of $8,200 from him and his family, and promises for much more. Charlie had nothing to gain by backing my underdog campaign, and plenty to lose; I'll always be grateful that he took a chance on our team. As he told me more than once, “I'm doing this because I believe in the importance of the commonweal.”

By the end of the year, Kushner, along with his company and various relatives, had backed me with $554,000, far more than any other contributor. In other circumstances, I might have had misgivings about taking that much money from one source, but Charlie never gave me cause for concern. He never tried to sway my thinking in any way, though he had hundreds of permits—maybe thousands—before the state of New Jersey. Any rational developer would have stayed out of an underdog's campaign. But his belief in me was sincere and heartfelt, sparked by my interest in Holocaust education. He backed me in memory of his parents' suffering. There was no other reason.

In this belief, I had the support of my campaign treasurer, Bob Long, whose job it was to conduct the “smell test” on all our donations. If his vetting ever revealed any reason to believe a donation had improper strings attached, or came from an unsavory source, he would simply send it back. Bob had a very good nose for this kind of work. He was commencing his studies for the Methodist ministry, a fact that gave me great spiritual comfort.

 

AS WE HEADED INTO THE JUNE PRIMARY, I WAS STRUGGLING TO
keep up a punishing campaign schedule while still serving Woodbridge as mayor. On my dizzying predawn passes through town I still took notes on conditions that needed addressing, from shaggy lawns to unswept streets, calling in the offending addresses to the phone machines of my still-sleeping town hall staff. That anything got done in town in these months was a
testament to my friend and secretary, Cathy McLaughlin, an accomplished civil servant and Republican County Committee member who'd jumped the aisle to join our team because she believed in the changes we were bringing to town. She maintained exacting standards at home while the rest of us were running all over the state, and she kept Woodbridge improving every day.

I had no idea what our real chances were in the primary. Doug Schoen, the pollster, wouldn't stick his neck out. “I can't say you'll win,” he said, “but it'll be close.” With Essex and Passaic in my camp, I had twelve of the twenty-one county lines, compared with nine for Andrews. If everyone voted party line, I'd get 60 percent of the vote, but it was still too close to call. We went into the last weeks scheming for ways to break out.

Looking around a map of the state, my eye settled again on Hudson County, where party boss Bob Janiszewski had never given in. It still didn't make sense to me. Hudson's population is concentrated in Jersey City, my family's old stronghold. I still had relatives on the police force, and my family had friends in almost every Catholic parish there. Hoboken, the little factory city that gave us Frank Sinatra, was also in Hudson. Surely I'd get more traction there with my message than Andrews would. So in the final days of the campaign we went racing all over the north in our Buick, returning to Kearny, Union City, Weehawken, Secaucus, Jersey City, and Hoboken time and again. The only way to win, I figured, would be to poach those votes.

Andrews seemed to be attempting the same thing in Essex and Bergen, where he campaigned hard despite losing the line. To my disappointment, the
Bergen Record
endorsed him over me. So I fought back, responding to his incursions sortie by sortie. I've never needed much sleep, but in that last week I felt invincible. At 1:30 in the morning on June 2, the day before the primary, we pulled into the parking lot of the Arena Diner in Hackensack. I jumped out of the car and moved from table to table, asking people for their votes. “The
Bergen Record
may think Congressman Andrews is best for Hackensack,” I joked to them, “but do you see him here at the Arena Diner?” At one point I remember looking out the window; Kevin Noland, my driver, was asleep in the van.

We set up our election-day operation in a suite at the Sheraton in
Woodbridge to wait for results. I had prepared both a concession speech and a victory speech. The ballroom downstairs was filled with campaign staff and volunteers—people of all colors, ages, educational backgrounds, and social classes, a true cross-section of America.

One of the first people to arrive was a woman I'd met in a Newark housing project. Her name was Valerie Hines, but she told me I could call her “Peachy.” I was thrilled to see her, and to read what she told the
Bergen Record
the next day. “I met him personally. I feel close to him—we really talked,” she said. “I'm so scared because I want him to win so bad. I thought it was going to be over by now.”

So did I.

As the night progressed, we were in a statistical dead heat, with Andrews slightly ahead. At 10:15, he had 39 percent of the vote; I had 36 percent. It seemed like I didn't have a prayer. Then, suddenly, my numbers surged. At 10:45 I took the lead and never relinquished it. I won by 39 percent to 37 percent for Andrews; Murphy's final tally was 21 percent.

What caused that last-minute surge? The good people of Hudson County, it turned out. Despite Bob Janiszewski's support for Andrews, those northern voters defied the machine and cast their votes for the hometown boy, carrying me over the top by just seven thousand votes.

Andrews began his concession speech down in Cherry Hill at about midnight. Back in Woodbridge, I waited for word that he'd finished before greeting my own staff and volunteers. But for some reason Andrews talked and talked, and by 1:00
AM
I decided I couldn't keep the crowds waiting any longer. My address was short and sweet.

With victory, of course, came the consequence I'd never expected: I would actually have to take on Christine Todd Whitman in November. I took a deep breath and said a prayer.

When I finally got home that night, I called Kari, whose voice was the only one I really wanted to hear. “I'm so happy for you,” she said. “This is what you wanted. You deserve it.”

I hung up, proud but lonely.

SO FAR IN THE CAMPAIGN, I'D KEPT MY SEPARATION FROM BECOMING
public knowledge. Even though marriages fail all the time, I had a morbid fear that Kari's departure would somehow increase speculation about my sexuality. Nobody on my staff ever said a thing about her whereabouts. My parents asked every once in a while, knowing she was hardly ever home, but I couldn't even admit my failure to them. “She's gone up to Canada for so-and-so's birthday,” I'd say, and drop the subject.

I knew it looked odd that my wife wasn't by my side for my primary victory speech. In her place stood Kathy Ellis, my press handler. The official biography on my Web site made no mention of the troubles. If anyone should ask, I told my spokesman Richard McGrath to say that we were separated. So far nobody had. But I knew I couldn't keep up the appearance of marriage while being unable to produce a wife.

It's easy to say, in retrospect, that this was my opportunity to come out of the closet—or at least to end my public charade. For a brief moment, I did wonder what my life might be like if I gave it all up. During one of my visits to Vancouver I spent some time exploring the gay section of town, watching with envy as male couples walked the street holding hands. One afternoon, for the first time in my life, I slipped into a gay bar there. While there, I was overcome with tremendous fear and anxiety; it reminded me of how I'd felt at those sophomore-year parties in Carteret. I didn't even last long enough to order a drink.

I clung to the closet doorjamb. Having lived inside those confines for so long, I didn't believe I could survive any other way. Life on the outside
was frightening, so much so that I wasn't even able to recognize my options. Besides, I told myself, I had just become the Democratic Party's choice to take on a sitting governor. No openly gay person had ever done that. I had an obligation to my own lie.

With my marriage behind me, I returned to womanizing. My staffers and I made covert trips to go-go clubs in places where we hoped I wouldn't be recognized, though being recognized was part of my purpose. Gay rumors were still ricocheting around the state, but my staff had heard from Whitman's people that the governor personally ruled out capitalizing on them in any way, for which I was relieved. In truth, spending an hour with my staffers in one of these regular-guys places wasn't just a pose for me, it was a tonic—it did a world of good after a long day on the campaign trail.

But these weren't always discreet nights out; sometimes we even got a couple local mayors to come along, hitting the Mar-Cet Café in Paterson or the Bowling Alley Bar in Carteret. For years we used to joke about who had the dollar bills. Inevitably, news of our excursions found its way back to the office, unnerving staffers like Doug Heyl, a former Clinton/Gore southern field director we'd brought in to manage the campaign. Doug never confronted me directly, but Gary Taffet told me he laid down the law. “Y'all clean up your mess,” he said. We didn't change our ways, but from that point on we tried to keep Doug in the dark.

Some of my political friends apparently suspected that my increased visibility would put a pinch in my style. One of them, David D'Amiano, a smalltime party fundraiser I knew from Carteret, even set me up on dates with some young women he knew. I'd grown increasingly lonely since my separation; I craved companionship and contact, and sometimes I even took these women to bed. But now, for the first time in my life, I found myself unable to perform with women. I wasn't surprised. Sex with women had never come naturally to me. Sheer willpower used to get me through, but now it failed me. I felt sure this spelled the end of my dual existence. If I couldn't convince a woman I was straight, how could I expect the larger world to believe me?

 

SOME TIME INTO THE CAMPAIGN, I MET DINA MATOS. IT WAS AT A
gathering of an absurdist political group called the Royal Association of
New Jersey—their members actually favor restoring the monarchy to power in Portugal. I thought they were joking until I got to the meeting at Seabra's Armory, a Perth Amboy catering hall overlooking the harbor. A mustachioed man calling himself the Duke of Braganza was walking from table to table with one of those joke “snake” cans that exploded with half a dozen cloth-covered springs when opened. I thought he was doing an imitation of Cantinflas. But this was the man they wanted back on the throne.

The one bright spot in the room was Dina, an uncommonly beautiful thirty-one-year-old blonde in a red double-breasted suit. I introduced myself as soon as I got the chance. We talked about the village in Portugal where she was born, and the large Portuguese community in Elizabeth where she grew up. She asked about my plans for education and taxes, my feelings about sprawl and protecting the environment; it turned out she was an appointed member of the Elizabeth zoning board. Given the company she was keeping, I was happily surprised at how attuned she was to the political riptides of state politics. We had a lot of common interests, and talking to her was fun.

When the event was over I walked her out to her car. She didn't mind when I took her hand. We leaned against the car, and I kissed her. I'm still not sure what made me do it. Loneliness, I suppose. Maybe she just seemed like the perfect politician's wife; it might have been that self-serving. Or it could have been the glass of Portuguese wine I drank. Whatever it was, she kissed back.

 

THE NEWSPAPERS WERE STARTING TO CALL ME “ROBO-CANDIDATE,”
in part for my nonstop campaign schedule but also because I could come off as a little mechanical, at least in the early days. Sometimes I was so nervous about getting my point across that I would read directly from policy papers, even in sit-down interviews with reporters. Then again, other reporters called me Forrest Gump; I liked to pretend it was because I bore a passing resemblance to Tom Hanks, but really I think it was because I seemed to stumble into good fortune as often as Forrest did. I loved how the
New York Times
saw me: “While many political experts in the state have suggested that Mr. McGreevey lacks the necessary polish to run a
successful statewide campaign, in recent weeks he has shown that what he may lack in political refinement he is likely to make up in tenacity and charm.”

Still, I was getting better at the game. I remember the first time I felt like a preacher during one of those rallies, at a gathering of supporters at a public high school in Woodbridge. “The car insurance crisis in New Jersey is not an accident waiting to happen—it is a chain collision stretching from the Parkway to the Turnpike, from Route 17 to the Black Horse Pike,” I called out, to booming applause. “This is not a new problem. But it is a problem made worse by three and one half years of allowing the insurance industry to get away with outrageous profiteering!” The applause worked on me like jet fuel on a bonfire. To excite a crowd with something so pure as ideas gave me a tremendous feeling of purpose. I had a sense that New Jerseyans needed hope, and I was trying to help them find it, in whatever small way I could.

Even after my strongest rallies, though, I had a hard time believing I could come close to Whitman in the general election. Her approval numbers remained high; one mid-summer poll showed that 53 percent of the electorate was behind her. But she did have some weaknesses. More than half the voters disapproved of how she handled taxes, and most believed she failed to grasp the problem with auto insurance.

Meanwhile, Doug Schoen's polls showed that an awful lot of people in the state still didn't even know who I was. In July, 70 percent of voters said they didn't know enough about me to form an opinion one way or the other. But my message was finding its mark. That same month a third of voters said that auto insurance was their number one concern, and soon Whitman's approval ratings fell to their lowest since her second month in office. In late July, three-quarters of those polled said they disapproved of how she handled auto insurance; another 63 percent didn't like the way she handled taxes.

Our strategy was working. In August, Whitman conceded publicly that the race was “competitive.” At a news conference, one reporter mentioned that I was trailing by seven points even though voters still had no idea who I was. Whitman got in a good line: “When the public gets to know him, that
will be different.” But McGrath, my spokesman, didn't miss a beat. “The bad news for Christie Whitman is, the people
do
know her, and they are giving her failing grades.”

I missed Kari terribly in these busy days, but being all alone during the campaign freed me to work around the clock, allowing me to feed my addiction—to the crowds, to the power, to the business of campaigning. I loved the early morning strategy meetings over coffee and donuts at the office, and the late-night dashes for pizza. And I really loved spending time with the staff. We'd attracted an amazing group of idealistic young kids, some right out of school and working on their first campaigns. Their energy was infectious. I was a hard worker, but they outpaced me every day.

Among my favorites were two young Irish guys, both named Kevin. My driver, Kevin Noland, was in charge of making sure we got where we were going on time and safely (on time was always more important). Kevin was just twenty-four, but with his blond hair, blue eyes, and soft round Irish face he looked even younger. He had the same intense work ethic as many first-generation Americans, but sometimes he took his work a little too seriously. Now and then, as we careened across lanes of traffic trying to make our next appointment, I could see people doing double-takes in their cars, worried that he was somebody's kid brother out for a joy ride.

One morning, Kevin somehow managed to maneuver our van through densely packed crowds at a Hispanic festival in Elizabeth, where I was supposed to give a speech from an outdoor stage, alongside the local mayor. The streets were choked with people, but he got us to the stage with seconds to spare. When we bolted up to the platform together, he finally allowed himself to gaze over the throngs, which included a number of young Latin women in revealing tops and skin-tight dresses. I was waiting for him to hand me my prepared notes, but he was paralyzed by the sight. “You don't see anything like this at Irish festivals,” he finally said as I plucked the notes from his jacket myself.

Kevin McCabe had joined me years earlier at town hall in Woodbridge, eventually rising to chief of staff at twenty-five. He was smart, loyal, and hardworking—his energy was amazing. Kevin could work diligently all day at town hall and campaign with labor and Irish groups all evening. I trusted
him with my life—sometimes foolishly. Every now and then McCabe would take the wheel from Noland, especially in the southern counties, where the roads were less familiar. At my insistence, he ignored speed limits. More than once we were stopped for tearing past cows and cornfields at 100 miles an hour. But the state troopers were among our biggest supporters; they always sent us away with stern warnings and wishes of good luck, but no ticket.

People started joking about how young the crew was, but I always pointed out that I was running the Parole Board, a sizable state agency, by the time I was twenty-eight. I believed in the energy and insights of youth. At one fundraising dinner, Jim Florio turned the evening into a roast, poking fun at my staffers. “Most of his staff is not here tonight—it's past their bedtimes.” I laughed along, but he wasn't through. “The staff people, of course, come to work in the morning on their Big Wheels, carrying their Spider Man lunch baskets. Then after naptime there's a Nintendo tournament.”

It was all in good fun. But if it weren't for these young gals and guys I don't think I could have made a run for Whitman. And I wouldn't have enjoyed it half as much.

 

NATIONALLY, WE WERE STARTING TO GET SOME ATTENTION. WHITMAN
was the only sitting governor up for reelection in 1997. If she lost to a Democrat, the race could help spur a party sweep in the 1998 midterms. But as often as we pushed the Democratic National Committee for help with media and financing, they all but ignored our pleas. I reached out to Bill Bradley, who'd quit his senate seat in 1996 after declaring that American politics was “broken,” but he said there was little he could do.

Instead, he bequeathed me his beach walk. The former basketball star was famous for embarking on a three-day stroll down the Jersey Shore every year on Labor Day weekend, talking to citizens along the 120-mile stretch from Sandy Hook in the north to Atlantic City in the south. Years before, I had accompanied him for part of his tour. I was blown away by how long his legs were, and how much ground he could cover.

“The beach walk is yours if you want it,” he said. “I don't need it anymore.”

I was honored that he'd chosen me to inherit this political legacy. He even offered to accompany me on the first day. But I really wasn't meant for the beach. I've got a pasty Irish complexion that blends in fine on city streets and in windowless pubs, but always makes me look a little unhealthy by the water. Gamely, I put on my walking shoes, smeared on a thick layer of sun block, and headed to the shore. What a mistake. I started perspiring, the lotion oozed into my eyes, and my eyes began to burn, no matter how much I rubbed them with a handkerchief. Even before we left the parking lot, tears were washing down my cheeks. I'm sure people found it curious that the subject of auto insurance could upset me so much.

The Jersey Shore is one of the most pristine stretches of shoreline in the country, fringed by grassy dunes and crowded several times a year with one of the largest concentrations of migratory birds in the nation. We hadn't walked twenty yards onto the beach before one of my staffers noticed a lone pigeon making a slow and wobbly circle overhead. Then, mid-flight, it abruptly died. The poor thing rocketed out of the sky and landed lifelessly at our feet with a sickening thud.

“That's not a good omen,” Bradley pointed out.