Thomas Kean

In 1977, Kean ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey. Although he spent most of his career as a political moderate, in this race Kean ran to the right of New Jersey Senate Minority Leader Raymond Bateman. Kean was unable to obtain the endorsement of many county Republican chairmen, or from then U.S. President Ford despite having served as Ford's campaign director for the state of New Jersey the previous year.[2] Bateman defeated Kean and won the nomination, though Bateman went on to lose the general election to Brendan Byrne.

After the election, Governor Byrne appointed Kean as a commissioner on the board of the New Jersey Highway Authority. Kean also worked as a political commentator on New Jersey public television.[2]

Four years later, in 1981, Kean again ran for governor. In his campaign, Kean pledged to foster job creation, clean up toxic waste sites, reduce crime, and preserve home rule. In his 1981 campaign, Kean secured the endorsement of former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who had not endorsed him in his 1977 gubernatorial campaign.

In the 1981 general election, Kean defeated Democratic Representative Jim Florio in the closest election in New Jersey gubernatorial election history, winning by 1,797 votes.[2] The election was controversial due to the involvement of the Republican National Committee, who appointed a Ballot Security Task Force that was alleged to have intimidated voters.[11][12][13] One of Kean's strategists in his 1981 campaign was Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed "GOP hitman."[14]

In striking contrast to his slim 1981 victory, Kean won re-election in 1985 with the largest margin of victory ever recorded in New Jersey gubernatorial history, defeating Peter Shapiro, then Essex County Executive, 70%–29%.[15] Kean won every municipality in the state except Audubon Park and Chesilhurst in Camden County and Roosevelt in Monmouth County.[16]

As governor, Kean served on the President's Education Policy Advisory Committee and chaired the Education Commission of the States and the National Governors Association's Task Force on Teaching.[17]

Kean began receiving national recognition following the launch of a multi-million dollar promotional campaign for New Jersey tourism, in television commercials promoting New Jersey as a tourist destination, that aired nationally during throughout his eight years as governor. In the ads, in which Kean was sometimes joined by various celebrities with New Jersey roots, including Brooke Shields and Bill Cosby, he recited the state's tourism motto: "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together".[18] In 1998, the campaign was revived by then New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, capping a long-term, multibillion-dollar effort to promote the state and especially its Jersey Shore beach resorts as attractive vacation destinations.[19][20]

In 1988, Kean delivered the keynote speech at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans.[21][22] Also in 1988, Kean authored a book entitled The Politics of Inclusion.[2]

As governor, Kean played a central role in founding and funding the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, one of the nation's largest performing arts centers, that received roughly $200 million in state funding.[23] Kean believed that the cultural center had the power to revitalize Newark and strengthen the state as a whole.[24] Kean remained involved in advocacy for the arts years after his time as governor, criticizing arts funding cuts in 2007.[25]

Kean practiced bipartisanship and outreach beyond traditional political constituencies. He worked extensively with traditional Democratic constituencies, especially on urban policies. He also divested New Jersey's public retirement funds from South Africa during apartheid, embraced the implementation of the statewide holiday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and supported legislation establishing New Jersey's Educational Opportunity Fund.[26][27][28]

In January 1990, Kean was succeeded as governor by James Florio.[29] A governor of New Jersey may not serve more than two consecutive terms.[30]

Kean visiting Fort Dix as New Jersey governor in November 1987

Kean left office in January 1990 as one of the most popular political figures in New Jersey political history. A number of leading New Jersey figures of the 1990s and 2000s began their political careers in Kean's administration, including Douglas Forrester, Bob Franks, and Chris Daggett.

In the aftermath of Kean's tenure as a two-term New Jersey governor, the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University–New Brunswick's Center on the American Governor in New Brunswick, established the Thomas H. Kean Archive.

Kean speaking at the United States Institute of Peace in April 2019

Kean has served as chairman of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest health philanthropy; the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; Educate America; the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership; and the Newark Alliance. He has also served as a board member for several publicly traded companies, including Aramark, UnitedHealth Group, Hess Corporation, The Pepsi Bottling Group, CIT Group, and Franklin Templeton Investments.[35][17][36][37]

In 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating the conduct of United Health Group's management and directors, and the Internal Revenue Service and prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York subpoenaed documents from the company. The investigations came to light following publication of a series of probing articles in The Wall Street Journal in May 2006, which reported on the apparent backdating of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of stock options by UnitedHealth Group's management. The backdating allegedly occurred with the knowledge and approval of the directors, including Kean, who sat on the company's compensation committee during three crucial years, according to The Wall Street Journal. Major shareholders filed lawsuits, accusing Kean and the other directors of failing in their fiduciary duty.[38][39]

From 1995 until 2018, Kean was a weekly columnist for The Star-Ledger, a Newark-based newspaper and the most widely circulated newspaper in the state. Co-authored with former New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne, Kean's immediate predecessor as New Jersey governor, the column, titled "Kean-Byrne Dialogue", addressed issues of the day and was published weekly by The Star-Ledger.[40]

Kean is also an advisor to, and has been inducted into, Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity, and is a partner in Quad Partners, a private equity firm that invests in the education industry.[41]

Kean with then U.S. President George W. Bush and Lee Hamilton in the White House Rose Garden in July 2004

Bush initially selected Richard Nixon's former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to head the 9/11 Commission. But Kissinger faced opposition due to his potential conflicts of interest with his global business consultancy, and withdrew from consideration for the position on December 13, 2002. Noting Kean's post-gubernatorial foreign policy involvement and his reputation as a consensus-oriented political leader, Bush nominated Kean as Kissinger's replacement in leading the important and politically sensitive commission.[42]

Just as some had criticized Kissinger's nomination, Kean's leadership of the commission also drew some criticism. Some alleged that Kean did not have the depth of foreign policy and national security expertise needed to manage an investigation so integral to the future of American national security. Supporters of Kean in the Bush administration and elsewhere, however, countered that Kean's work since 1990 as a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, the post-Castro Cuba Commission, and his foreign policy and national security commentary and analysis following his governorship established adequate national security and foreign policy credentials for him to assume such a critically important assignment.[43]

The cover of the 9/11 Commission Report, issued on July 22, 2004

In December 2003, as the 9/11 Commission neared completion of its investigation, Kean said that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented, saying, "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done. This was not something that had to happen."[44] On April 4, 2004, in an interview with Meet the Press, Kean again stated that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented, saying that the federal government should have acted sooner to dismantle al-Qaeda and responded more quickly to the terrorist threat it represented. "When we actually saw bin Laden on the ground, using the Predator or other means, did we have...actionable intelligence? Should we have sent a cruise missile into a site where he was at that point? I think those early opportunities are clear. We had him. We saw him. I think maybe we could have done something about it."[45]

On July 22, 2004, the Commission issued its final report, the 9/11 Commission Report, a 585-page report that concluded concluded that the CIA and the FBI ill-served President Bush and the American people in failing to predict or prevent the September 11 attacks, which the report concluded were preventable.

On August 15, 2006, Kean and Commission Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton released a book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, published by Alfred A. Knopf.[46] In the book, Kean and Hamilton write that the 9/11 Commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by The Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration that it considered an investigation into possible deception by these government bodies concerning their response to the attacks.[47]

Kean served as a paid consultant and spokesman for the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11, which aired nationally in primetime in two segments, on September 10 and 11, 2006. The second part of the miniseries also aired without commercial interruption with the exception of a 20-minute break at 9 pm ET, when President Bush addressed the nation on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. While not technically considered a documentary by ABC, the series drew criticism prior to its airing for misrepresenting facts leading up the September 11 attacks. Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, many former high-ranking Clinton administration officials, and other scholars, publicly questioned the accuracy of the miniseries and asked that it not be aired. Albright called the miniseries' portrayal of her "false and defamatory."[48] Former U.S. ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine also strongly criticized her own portrayal, complaining in the Los Angeles Times about the "mythmakers" who created it and calling the project "false."[49]

On July 4, 2007, al-Qaeda publicly released a video of Ayman al-Zawahri, its deputy chief, urging all Muslims to unite in a holy war against the United States in Iraq and elsewhere. The 95-minute video also prominently featured video excerpts of Kean citing al-Qaeda as one of the most formidable security threats that the U.S. had ever confronted, presumably cited with the intention of bolstering the morale of al-Qaeda supporters. Comments by Kean cited on the video include a reference to the fact that al-Qaeda remained as strong in 2007 as it was before the September 11, 2001, attacks. The video also appeared to validate that al-Qaeda was closely monitoring U.S. political developments, especially including the work of the commission. It also suggested that al-Qaeda intended to focus not just on engaging the West in Iraq, but also in other countries. "As for the second half of the long-term plan," al-Zawahri says on the video, "it consists of hurrying to the fields of Jihad like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia for Jihadi preparation and training".

The commission reassembled in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2014, for the tenth anniversary of the issuance of its report. It assessed how well the government was performing given in addressing terrorist threats and to meeting the commission's recommendations for preventing a future attack.[50]