The Confession (26 page)

That's when Scorza noticed that the baby's heart rate was fluctuating precipitously. Worse yet, ultrasound revealed that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. Throughout this, Dina's courage was tremendous. I remember her lying on her back on a gurney fighting those early contractions. If our baby were born then and lived, Scorza told us, there was some chance that she might suffer lifelong complications. It was the only time I saw Dina lose her composure, but she regained it quickly.

I don't think I ever returned to the campaign trail. On November 7, 2001, I won the election for governor of New Jersey by fourteen points. What's more, my coattails proved long. Democrats retook a majority in the assembly and now tied Republicans in the Senate, twenty-to-twenty. It was a huge victory for the party, ending almost a decade of exile. I remember thanking my supporters at the Hilton and letting the state troopers drive me over to Dina's bedside so I could give her the news myself. She was so uncomfortable and worried for our baby that it was hard to find a minute to celebrate. I sat by her side, holding her hand, as I would every night for the next month, until our precious daughter Jacqueline was born by emergency C-section on December 7, still premature but healthy.

Friends and supporters overwhelmed the hospital with flowers for Dina—so many that they filled her room and several nearby. Then some idiot phoned in an anthrax scare, which the hospital administrators took to be aimed at Dina and me. Teams of hazard specialists removed the flowers immediately. It was just a prank, but after we'd worried so much about losing Jacqueline, the scare did little to elevate our moods.

 

AN INTENSE AND ABSOLUTELY INEVITABLE THING HAPPENS AFTER
you win a big election. The jostling for power is wild. Republicans had controlled the governor's mansion for sixteen of the past twenty years, and now we were overwhelmed by pressure to bring Democrats and their supporters in from the cold. Democratic law firms, developers, investors, suppliers, vendors, and consultants of all stripes were vying for my attention. So were
arts groups, women's groups, civil rights groups—advocacy agencies that hadn't had an ear in Trenton.

And there were all my many financial contributors vying for payback. I'd worked my whole life to get to this point, banking on the calculated risks of political fundraising, not to mention the winks and nudges that stand in for promises, and suddenly it all came to a head. I felt the accumulated burden of all this acutely. Kant's formula for morality was no use to me now. I had done
A and
attained
X
—only to face a much more formidable moral quandary: how would I slake the tremendous demands of those who helped me along the way? Moral certainty had never felt more elusive.

Because so much power is in the hands of New Jersey's chief executive, most significant state employees are washed out with each new administration. We had eight to nine thousand state jobs to fill, two thousand appointments to make even before taking office. Everybody wanted a piece of the action. As the single elected statewide official, I was a huge bull's-eye to special interests.

My first concern was to take care of the people who'd given day and night to running my campaigns for the past six years, tireless warriors who shared my new vision for New Jersey. At the time, I felt it was prudent to promote people I knew and trusted. What I didn't yet realize is that the people who run a campaign aren't the best people to run a government. They come with too many strings attached. They've just spent a year or more in the trenches horse trading for enormous financial donations. As soon as they land in government, everybody they dealt with comes looking for a reward, some payoff for their “investments.” If I had to do it over again, many of my initial appointments would be very different, not because the people I chose were unqualified, but because they were vulnerable to temptation.

Gary Taffet, my chief of staff on the campaign trail, seemed an obvious choice for chief of staff in Trenton. I'd relied on his judgment and cool head for fourteen years; in politics, he was my closest friend. As chief counsel I chose Paul Levinsohn, a charismatic and hard-working lawyer. I'd met Paul years ago, when he was a law school student at Duke researching a paper on centrist Democrats. Over the years I'd come to trust his instincts and advice
and had hired him away from the politically connected law firm Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, to be my campaign's finance chair. Gary, Paul, and I worked as an Iron Triangle. Gary saw to the care and feeding of the state's political players; Paul raised the money; and I did the retail campaigning.

Unfortunately, I later learned that both men were compromised. Partly that was because of the campaign roles they served on their way to state government. They were my horse traders, doing and saying what was necessary to bring in votes and money. I don't believe either of them made overt promises to any of my donors for appointments or contracts, but I know they were lobbied aggressively, as was I, and they replied with encouragements: “I'll try,” or “You'd be a perfect candidate.” It hadn't occurred to me how untenable it was to bring them inside. As soon as they arrived, they were slammed by people coming to collect on the promises they thought they'd heard. The pressure on them, and indirectly on me, was tremendous.

For several key appointments, I reached for candidates with broad executive experience, regardless of party affiliation. David Samson, a respected Republican, agreed to serve as attorney general. I appointed Dr. Clifton Lacy, the brilliant chief medical officer of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, to run the Department of Health and Senior Services and Cherry Hill mayor Susan Bass Levin to lead the Department of Community Affairs. Bradley Campbell, a former Clinton administration environmental adviser, took over our Department of Environmental Protection, and Dr. William Librera, the respected superintendent of the Allamuchy Elementary School District, brought his unparalleled leadership in early childhood education to become commissioner of the Department of Education. Al Kroll, general counsel of the state AFL-CIO, was appointed labor commissioner, with Kevin McCabe as deputy commissioner. In the words of AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, we had the strongest prolabor administration in the nation.

But for a number of significant jobs, I kept my inner circle close. Regena Thomas was my choice for secretary of state, charged with overseeing programs in arts, minority culture, volunteerism, and historic preservation. Jim Davy, who had provided exemplary service as Woodbridge business administrator for almost a decade before taking over as campaign manager,
was my choice for chief of operations, responsible for making the trains run on time. (He later became commissioner of Human Services at a time when that department needed fundamental structural reform.)

My old friend Roger Chugh—a Delhi native who was my campaign liaison to the Asian community—became the assistant secretary of state, an important symbolic gesture at a time when U.S. troops were preparing to invade Afghanistan. I also made Kevin Hagan deputy chief of staff; at twenty-six, he was perhaps the youngest in the history of the state, but certainly among the most able.

The Gannett newspaper chain made a big deal about the fact that I'd hired so many campaign workers—62 percent of my hires, by their tabulation. But I defy them to study any governor before or since whose appointments didn't follow the same pattern. The difference is that my appointees were people a lot like me, intelligent and capable but from working-class backgrounds. There was always a touch of class bias behind these reactions.

Some specific appointments drew quick criticism, almost all of it unwarranted and mean-spirited. Republicans were all over my decision to appoint Charlie Kushner, who with his family and business had by now donated more than $1 million to my campaigns, to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. (I would later tap him to be chairman.) They complained it was political payback for his financial support, but that's simply wrong.

Kushner was a hugely successful businessman, a heavyweight who was equally respected throughout New Jersey and in New York political and financial circles. His reputation was unblemished. Ernst & Young, the national accounting firm, had named Charlie Entrepreneur of the Year in the real-estate category. His philanthropic efforts rivaled those of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies, and in 2000 the National Conference for Community and Justice named him Humanitarian of the Year. He had great political standing among my Jewish voters, and international clout.

This was a crucial time for the Port Authority, which was jointly administered by New York and New Jersey. The World Trade Center, which had stood on land owned by the Port, was being rebuilt. The agency needed a developer with Kushner's experience. I also needed somebody who could
work seamlessly with Michael Bloomberg, New York's new mayor, and Governor George Pataki in Albany. I had strong working relationships and growing friendships with both men. But I knew I needed a smart, tough negotiator to make sure New Jersey got its fair share of the federal Homeland Security monies being allocated for the Port. Kushner could do this ably.

To the critics who couldn't see beyond the money Kushner raised for me, I pointed to New York's choice for port commissioner: a top fundraiser for Pataki and other Republicans named Charlie Gargano. An executive with a major development company, Gargano was an adroit administrator who, when push came to shove, favored Albany's interest over Trenton's. Kushner was a necessary and able counterpoint.

At the time, I thought he was totally above reproach.

But he refused my appointment three times. Eventually he accepted because he thought it was important for America. By doing so, he voluntarily stepped out of competition for any of the development dollars that would flow as a result.

 

DINA AND JACQUELINE REMAINED IN THE HOSPTIAL FOR SEVERAL
weeks after the delivery. Between November 7 and my inauguration on January 15, whenever I wasn't visiting them or doting on them once they came home, I worked on almost nothing besides appointments.

There were a number of people I wasn't finding quick fits for, chief among them Golan Cipel. He had performed admirably in the campaign, but in a limited role. Now he made it plain that he wanted a significant portfolio in Trenton, but there was no obvious post for him. I weighed putting him in the Port Authority or the Commerce Department, places where his facility with the press and familiarity with diplomatic protocol might come in handy.

This upset Golan, who wanted a “front-office job” working more directly with me. Several times a day he demanded meetings to discuss his future. I found his insistence both boyishly charming and unbelievably churlish. My staff saw only the churlish side. He moved himself into the transition office, bragging that he had a “personal relationship” with me that gave him unassailable insights into my likes and dislikes. He actually
demanded to look at office assignment charts and even redrafted my inaugural speech, all without my authority. Finally, when I'd had enough, I went to his apartment to talk to him about diplomacy and office politics. It was a fastidious place, with a fluffy cat I was surprised to learn he'd named Jimmy.

“Gole,” I said. “Why do you have to fight with everybody? You've got to learn to get along, to be part of the team.”

“My only team is you,” he said.

But as the transition efforts progressed, I found myself increasingly relying on his advice and candor. Here was a guy who never varnished his words when talking to me, who wasn't afraid to tell me when he felt I was dead wrong.

His main interest was fighting terrorism; he was consumed by the subject. One night he made me drive with him to the foot of the George Washington Bridge to watch the police screening large trucks there, in a method he considered inadequate. Commercial trucking was then permitted to cross the bridge only a few hours each night, when inspection stations were manned. Trucking companies accommodated this rule by dropping off trailers on the Jersey side of the bridge throughout the day, so the driver didn't have to wait; another tractor would arrive once the trailer was cleared to cross.

“That's ridiculous,” he said. “Any one of those parked trucks could blow up the bridge.”

He had a point. Nothing about my education so far had prepared me to think that way. But Golan had grown up under the threat of terror and spent fifteen years fighting it in one way or another. He dragged me down to Cape May and along the Delaware River to Philadelphia, to study how the Delaware River Port Authority was interacting with the Coast Guard. “There is no interoperability,” he said. “Their radios aren't even on the same frequency.”

Talking to him, I realized that New Jersey needed an office of counter-terrorism to think about security and anticipate trouble. After 9/11, acting Governor Donald Di Francesco had relied on an interagency coordinating body called the Domestic Security Task Force, chaired by the attorney general. I planned to keep that in place, but add our own intelligence-gathering
wing affiliated with the state police, headed by an experienced crime fighter who could interface with state and federal counterparts.

I took to heart Golan's advice, borrowed from a Coast Guard admiral: “Crisis by definition is an intelligence failure.” He must have said that ten thousand times. He gave me books to read on security strategy and arranged for a briefing with ranking Israeli generals.

But on our private stakeouts around the state, something else was happening. A tension was growing between us that excited me. He talked about girlfriends and I talked about Dina, but there was a thick subtext to our conversations that was about the two of us.

Finding Golan a job he considered acceptable was a priority, but there were many other pressing matters demanding my time. When we had our first briefing after winning office I saw what a colossal mess the state's budget was in—even before the terror assault magnified our budget troubles a hundredfold. My economic advisers were telling me we would have a $3 billion deficit in the first year alone. I'd promised not to levy taxes, so we were already in the middle of negotiating a series of difficult budget cuts: the teachers unions wanted my head on a platter, the arts community was ready to stone me, and I hadn't even been sworn in yet.