A prominent Trump Republican let loose a barrage of criticism aimed at liberal former state Senator Tom Kean Jr., the three-time loser in congressional races who is the political establishment’s pick to take on incumbent Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski.
“Tom Kean has been selling out NJ for over 20 years,” said Phil Rizzo, who finished second in the GOP primary for governor last year and now claims that “Tom Kean would be Joe Biden’s greatest ‘Republican’ ally in Congress.”
Rizzo, a conservative pastor and real estate developer who ran for governor last year, has entered the race to challenge Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) in New Jersey’s 7th district.
Last month, Rizzo had announced a bid to take on Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) in the next-door 11th district, but a new congressional map made the 7th more friendly to Republicans
“Tom Kean fought to bring woke Green New Deal policies to New Jersey,” said Rizzo.
Rizza said he is exposing Kean’s “liberal track record and the crooked lie that he is a ‘Republican’ and a ‘conservative'” as part of a drive to win the GOP nod for Congress.
“New Jersey’s only self-defense against crooked RINOs like Tom Kean is in the power of The People to take over politics in their community,” said Rizzo. “There is no better time to rise up and send the establishment a message they won’t forget.”
RINO stands for “Republican in name only” and the pejorative term is widely used to describe politicians who betray the GOP’s most fundamental values, such as fighting for lower taxes and supporting the maximum degree of personal freedom.
Kean is an established leader in the New Jersey Republican Party whose positions are often aligned with the Democratic Party, rather than the more conservative views of most Republican voters, and that is reflected in financial support for Kean’s campaign funds, which have received a total of at least $117,924 from 128 Hillary Clinton contributors.
Other big name Democratic contributors who helped finance the political career of Tom Kean Jr are Dennis J. Enright, a financial adviser specializing in complex infrastructure, governmental and public-private partnerships who has handled over $5 billion of financing involving taxpayer money.
Enright’s website credits him with orchestrating the Union County Utility Authority’s $360 million bond sale in 1998 and the $2.4 billion transaction merging the Garden State Parkway with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
According to OpenSecrets, Enright has contributed about $576,738 in 377 political contributions to committees and candidates over the past 22 years, about 20 times as much going to Democrats as to Republicans.
Even though Kean announced that he would not seek re-election to a seventh term in the State Senate in Trenton, Enright gave Kean’s state campaign account the maximum of $2400 in February 2020.
The donation to Kean was the Democratic mega-donor’s largest contribution to any GOP candidate ever.
In the 1980s, Governor Tom Kean Sr. advocated ‘the politics of inclusion’ and his son, former state Senator Tom Kean Jr. is now New Jersey’s leading Republican advocate for ‘critical race theory’ education.
The younger Kean is considered New Jersey’s leading Republican advocate for ‘critical race theory’ because he is a member of the controversial commission in the state Department of Education that many in the GOP see as a bureaucracy advocating a ‘hate America’ approach to history and he has sponsored legislation implementing the practice in New Jersey schools without consulting or even informing parents.