The Confession (16 page)

Our most ambitious undertaking, though, was the Woodbridge Township Community Center, considered one of biggest in the state. Going door-to-door as exhaustively as I had, I realized that we had very few venues for local families to gather for recreation, meetings, and entertainment. In this city of 100,000 people, there was not even a YMCA. So during my tenure we raised $15 million, mostly in corporate and private donations, and built a sprawling center complete with an NHL-sized ice rink, Olympic pool, roller rink, gym, wellness center, arcade, walking track, computer lab, and pro shop. The YMCA and a company called United Skates of America agreed to come and manage the facility.

The other lesson I learned from watching JoJo DeMarino, of course, was how not to get entangled in my own power. “I don't want you getting too big for your britches,” my spiritual adviser, an Irish sage from Woodbridge named Monsignor Michael Cashman, told me after I took office. “You know what's going to determine, more than anything else, how many people are at your funeral Mass? The weather.”

Besides, money was never important to me. The job paid a whopping $52,000 a year, more than enough when added to Kari's salary—she went to work as a librarian at a public school in South Brunswick. We had no trouble making payments on a condominium on Gill Lane whose back windows overlooked the tracks of an active freight rail line. My staff hated the place, finding it a bit too humble, but Kari and I made a lovely home there. Once a month or more we would take a train into New York City for a movie or play—Kari believed in what she called “our traditions,” the little rituals that would become the glue to our marriage. Every December we went to Rockefeller Center to see the huge Christmas tree. Every spring we went to Florida and stayed with our friend John Pedro. Summers, when we could, we headed for a weekend at the shore.

One of our first big events as the first couple of Woodbridge was hosting the town's 325th anniversary. Kari looked stunning in a black beaded
gown with a red silk bodice. The voters seemed genuinely to love her, and her interest in them was profound. Right after dinner she came and whispered in my ear mischievously, “Let's dance!” I resisted. I'm not much of a dancer, but I let her drag me to the dance floor anyway, put my hand on her waist, and got my feet moving. I'd forgotten how much fun dancing could be. Kari had a way of reminding me that our successes were in our hearts, not just our heads.

“Enjoy this,” she whispered. We kissed. “You have arrived.”

 

OUR BABY GIRL WAS BORN ON OCTOBER 27, 1992. SHE WAS AS BEAUTIFUL
as an angel. We named her Morag, a Gaelic derivative of the name Mary, after Kari's beloved grandmother. I was thrilled to be a father, and over the moon about having a daughter.

As a surprise for me, my dear friend Joe Vitale, the Woodbridge Democratic Party chairman, planted a giant sign on the town hall lawn: IT'S A GIRL! I drove Morag and her mom past the sign on the way home from the hospital to show them. I was so proud. I had a beautiful wife and a glorious baby girl—what every man in the public eye dreams of. It couldn't get any better than that.

While Kari was still pregnant, her father had succumbed to lung cancer after a long battle, likely the product of decades working in the Vancouver mines. Our doctors told her not to fly, so Kari couldn't attend the funeral. I know this was extremely difficult for her and her family. I would have been devastated if I'd been kept from a loved one's funeral. But for Kari, the funeral was less important than paying respects to the living, which she'd done unfailingly while her dad was still alive.

We were lucky that Kari's mother, a sturdy Scots émigré named Agnes, found the strength to come to visit her new granddaughter, despite her grief. It was heartwarming for me to see the three generations of women bonding together, celebrating life in the aftermath of a terrible death. Morag was a bright light keeping her mother and grandmother looking forward—as she still is today.

Morag gave me endless pleasure. I loved when she climbed into bed
with us, cuddling and practicing her words and songs. She was a quick study, like her mother. One of my favorite things was taking her to work and letting her crawl around the mayor's office—Kennedy-like, I suppose—as I pushed through my day's phone calls.

But I sensed that something about motherhood was pulling Kari a little further out of my political world. She never was the kind of woman who could have a dozen meaningless conversations at one political function, then race off to another. When she engaged somebody in conversation, she always had things to say and found things to learn. When the subject of Second Ward chairman Gus Maciolek's prize-caliber tomatoes came up one day, I remember her telling me how he grew them: he put potassium in the soil. How did she know? I asked. “Well, he explained it to me,” she said.

Kari was totally genuine; superficial encounters irked her. She liked people too much to let them glance off her meaninglessly. Naturally, she tired quickly of the political circuit. After a while it became impossible to drag her around to the events. “How can you deal with some of these people?” she asked more than once. “They don't care about you, they don't care about us. They don't care about anything.” She loved the county committee members and our real friends, especially Jack Fay and his second wife, Carol, and our best friends Jimmy and Lori Kennedy. (The Kennedys were also our doppelgängers in politics, Jimmy as mayor of nearby Rahway and Lori as member of the school board.)

In small ways, I could see Kari's disappointment in me growing almost from the start. I used to think of her as a canary in the mines of Woodbridge, responding oversensitively but always justifiably to the poisons around us. But the truth was, as much as she hated interacting on the political plane, I loved it. I never missed a ribbon-cutting, chicken dinner, or funeral. Once, when the mother of a local freeholder was being laid to rest in a Byzantine rites service at a neighborhood church, I was heartened at the sight of Congressman Ed Patten, who showed up dramatically late and took the pew in front of Kari and me.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he said too loudly, “wake me up when it's time for communion.” Whereupon he actually stretched out for a nap and slumbered away.

I woke him up, as requested, and he accompanied Kari and me to the altar and back. His nap seemed to restore his piss and vinegar. During the recessional hymn that followed, as the priest moved toward us escorting the casket, Patten turned to me and Kari again.

“You see that priest?” he nearly shouted over the music.

“Yes, Congressman?”

“He won't give Mrs. Jacowski Holy Communion, but he's at the rectory sleeping with the housekeeper every night.”

Kari went crimson with mortification. Patten had a knack for telling the unvarnished truth, but sometimes his timing was a little challenging. A quarter of the congregation had heard Patten, no doubt including the priest. I had no idea who the Jacowskis might be, but I knew I needed to bring the conversation to a quick end.

“Thank you, Congressman,” I answered in a stage whisper, then joined Kari singing the hymn as loudly as I could.

 

EVERY MAJOR NEW JERSEY POLITICAL DECISION IS MADE IN DINERS,
and Morag had been home from the hospital only a few days when I met Jack Fay at the old Woodbridge Diner to talk about the future. Jack had a plan for me, he intimated vaguely. I didn't know what he had in mind; as a newly elected mayor, I had plenty on my plate as it was. But I agreed to hear him out.

I invited Mac McCormac, the Woodbridge chief financial officer; Gary Taffet, a brilliant strategist and my chief of staff; Kevin McCabe, my aide-de-camp from town hall; Tim Dacey, whom I made director of public works; and Joe Vitale, the Woodbridge Democratic Party chairman, whom I consulted on all my moves. Collectively, these guys had become my Woodbridge cabinet.

Jack circled around his proposal, first laying out the local landscape. The Republican state senator from the 19th Legislative District, a Republican named Randy Corman, was up for reelection. In Jack's estimation, Corman was vulnerable. I had already beaten him once, when he ran against me for assembly in 1989. On the Democratic side, my only
potential primary challenger was a school board lawyer named Carl Palmisano. I knew Carl; he was a nice guy, but he knew little about the ground game it would take to unseat an incumbent senator, especially in 1993, a terrible year for Democrats. Florio was heading toward a tough reelection bid. Voters were livid about the tax increase he'd signed (and I supported)—New Jerseyans already had the highest total tax burden in the nation, and they rightly demanded relief in other areas, which Florio hadn't found a way to give them. Worse, he'd gone on to sign a state sales tax on everyday items like toiletries, disproportionately affecting the working class, who spend a greater portion of their income on such necessities.

But Florio might have been able to survive that wound if not for the mighty backlash to his position against assault weapons. I shared his aversion to high-powered semiautomatic rifles like Uzis and AK-47s, whose only purpose could be killing people. When I was still in the assembly, we enacted the toughest and most comprehensive assault weapons ban in the country. We also banned large-capacity ammunition magazines, the first state to do so.

In response, the NRA went ballistic. They spent millions of dollars in advertising trying to block passage. I remember being in the chamber when the bill was being voted on. The NRA had sent in hundreds of protesters who were screaming and carrying on. Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound. Somebody had thrown a rock through one of the grand old stained-glass windows on the statehouse. It was almost sacrilegious, what they had done. But the protest had a boomerang effect, galvanizing votes in
favor
of the bill, and Florio was awarded the Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award for signing it into law.

But the NRA wasn't through with Florio. This was the dawn of shock jock radio, and they whipped a constellation of radio DJs into a frenzy, especially at New Jersey 101.5, a station reaching most of the state. Conflating the assault rifle ban with the tax increase, they fomented a full-scale tax revolt. This was NRA retribution, pure and simple. It was already clear to most of us that Florio wasn't going to survive this, and a relatively unknown and extraordinarily wealthy Republican challenger named Christine Todd
Whitman was poised to steal his office from him. Democrats across the state were shaking in their boots.

Even while everybody else was retreating, Jack thought I should make a bold strike for the senate seat.

In part, this was a grudge match for him. Jack himself had held that office until the party machine pushed him off the line a few years back for voting too independently. (He had since been named Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly, where he was doing the work of saints on behalf of seniors in nursing homes, veterans in hospitals, and the like.) I loved the idea of it, the challenge of taking on the Republicans in my backyard. I also loved the idea of moving up to the senate, which I considered the next logical step for me. Being mayor was lots of fun, but I was way too young to stop my political ascent there.

I could even continue on as mayor, Jack said; he felt the voters would accept me as a dual office holder. We went around the table, and everyone agreed.

We were in the race.

But first I had to ask Kari's permission. It would entail enormous sacrifices for her, I knew. I would be campaigning for senate while serving the town as mayor, a job that already filled my days and nights. I would need more than her forbearance. I was going to need her to be at my side at countless events.

“I know you want this,” she answered quickly. “I'll support you.” But I knew she was frustrated and increasingly lonely.

 

RAISING FUNDS AGAIN SO SOON AFTER MY CAMPAIGN FOR MAYOR
was a daunting prospect. When you're running for office in New Jersey, the first place you need to go—unless you're independently wealthy—is to successful businessmen and -women in the area who are hoping to land large government contracts. The self-interest is that bald. Much of the public work in the state is awarded on a no-bid basis, or in a process where factors other than price are considered; the lure of a quid pro quo is always in the air. We call the system “pay-to-play,” but it's a form of sanctioned bribery—
a perfectly legal but fundamentally corrupt system that drives politics in the state.

I was starting to grow uncomfortable with pay-to-play, though I'd played the distasteful game pretty effectively in the past. Of course, not every proposition was as morally complex as that fiscal year bond issue we'd waded through. More typical was the case of a small towing outfit that made a donation to my mayoral campaign instead of supporting JoJo. I was touched. I knew the owner was risking a lot by throwing his support to me; if I lost, JoJo was sure to deny him the municipal towing contracts he wanted, which might even force him out of business. When I won, I rewarded him for his faith in me.

The system still worked pretty much the same way as we started passing the hat for the senate run. But the usual suspects were different: now we were taking meetings with lawyers, engineers, unions, industry groups, and real estate developers, all of whom were keen on influencing laws and regulations. I took care not to make any specific promises in exchange for their financial support. That would be a felony. Instead, I just found a way to say something encouraging: “We would be lucky to have you serving the people,” for example. They knew how the game was played, and they knew I understood it too. Nothing more needed to be said.

 

AROUND THIS TIME, KARI AND I INVITED AGNES TO COME AND LIVE
with us. We renovated a basement room for her; it was damp, but it was all we could afford.

I loved having Agnes around; she was smart, no-nonsense, and had a grand sense of humor. We took her with us everywhere we went—into New York for shopping, to the opera in Newark, to garden shows and art exhibits and even political events. Unfortunately, Agnes had even less patience for politics than Kari. Once, when she asked me about my future, I mentioned the governor's mansion. “That's not in the realm of possibilities,” she scoffed. I never felt discouraged by her, though, only challenged—I'd always preferred to bring my detractors close. You never could tell what was going to come out of her mouth. When Kari and I took her
along to a Christmas party at the statehouse, she somehow managed to corner Governor Florio alone in his office, excoriating him for his tax increases. “How can you sleep at night?” I heard her asking as I walked in the door.