That word is contempt. For us, the voters in CD7.

How so?

Kean, Jr.’s campaign is a four-legged stool. One leg is the claim that he “fixed” healthcare. Another leg – Kean, Jr.’s claim that he is stopping the corruption in Washington. A third leg -  Bennett needs to be held “accountable” for her work in the healthcare industry. The  fourth; it is “disgusting” that Bennett worked for a healthcare company that denied a claim to someone, somewhere. Really – that’s it. It’s Kean, Jr.’s entire campaign.

Let’s tap each leg of this stool to see if they are hollow. It won’t take long.

An easy way to assess whether Kean, Jr., has “fixed” healthcare was recently described in https://www.insidernj.com/tom-kean-jr-s-campaign-a-modren-day-odyssey/. Here is an even easier way. Look at your premiums. Ponder your rising copays, coinsurance, and prescription costs. Think about the misbilling, overbilling, and simple size of the bills you have had to wade through, complain about, and try to fix on your own by struggling with your provider’s and your insurer’s new AI assistants.

Now add the One Big Beautiful Bill (“OBBB”) that Kean, Jr. keeps gushing about. Before the OBBB, Congress’ healthcare premiums were set under the Affordable Care Act (that is, Obama Care). When the OBBB bill passed, Congress’ healthcare premiums remained about the same. https://nolabels.org/the-latest/how-members-of-congress-get-their-health-care/ But for ordinary Americans they went up, on average, by about 58 percent. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/on-the-first-anniversary-of-the-obbba-millions-of-americans-have-been-left-behind/. Tom Kean. Jr. may have fixed his healthcare. But if he fixed ours, I missed it. And so did you.

Now the corruption piece. Kean, Jr., is now very outspoken about trying to stop current members of Congress and their families from trading stocks. All well and good, and long overdue. Yet Kean, Jr. has uttered not a word about what is reportedly more than 3,600 Trump family stock trades in 2026 alone through a trust managed by Trump’s sons Eric and Don, Jr. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/us/politics/inside-trumps-stock-trading-surge.html. Including trades made in companies whose share price benefitted from government contracts and/or recent government action. https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-discloses-21000-securities-trades-year-office/story?id=134427666.

Why this deafening silence about these thousands of Trump trades from our erstwhile ethics champion? Think about another “c” word. Coward. If Kean, Jr. even mentioned these trades, he would risk alienating MAGA. So much for principle. What about an empty manufactured talking point? As always, it is your call.

Moving from the empty to the imbecilic - Kean, Jr. is now running ads to the effect that Bennett should be disqualified from running for office because she worked in the healthcare industry. One Kean, Jr. ad features an unnamed resident of Bedminster, NJ with an unknown health insurance claim of unknown validity for unknown services made to an unknown insurer for an unknown condition  at an unknown time. That was, the ad informs us, denied. For which Bennett is somehow accountable .

But there is more. Boot strapping this kabuki theater, a follow-up Kean, Jr. ad proclaims it is “disgusting” that Bennett, who works for a healthcare company that denies claims, is running for Congress.

Bennett worked for Johnson & Johnson. As well as for an interdisciplinary gastroenterology practice. In other roles, Bennett’s focus has been on expanding access to care through smart use of technology.  Some 524,00 other people also work in healthcare in New Jersey. Including 14,000 who work at Johnson & Johnson. https://www.jnj.com/our-company. If Rebecca Bennet is somehow accountable for this Bedminster resident’s denied claim, then, by the “logic” Kean, Jr.’s ads, those 524,000 others are, too.

More broadly, have you ever worked in healthcare? Do you know anyone who does? If so, they apparently need a good talking to.

I can’t fathom what inside baseball political analysis is driving Kean, Jr. to do this. Let’s be kind and not put any adjectives to it. As for the intended messaging? Kean, Jr.’s purposeful decision to campaign on the inane evinces a contempt for our intellect as voters that should make even Donald Trump blush.