There are those who will dismiss Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera’s announcement that he is considering running for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey in 2014 as a Republican as just one more publicity stunt in a career replete with them. Rivera’s public record is mixed, as it has combined serious advocacy on a number of issues with the sort of foolish excess that has given a bad name to tabloid journalism. If people think of him more as a celebrity than a journalist, it is his own fault and not something that he has seemed to mind very much.
Nevertheless, Rivera has as much right to run for public office as any other citizen and if he thinks he can spend the rest of his life more productively in public service that is to his credit. Though it is doubtful whether his notoriety will translate well into the political arena, he is both articulate and smart enough to give a good account of himself in any debate–even against a rising star like Cory Booker, who will probably be the Democratic nominee in that race. It is also arguable that someone running explicitly as a moderate Republican, as Rivera is calling himself, has a chance to win in a blue state like New Jersey. But in articulating just that rationale for his candidacy Friday afternoon on Fox News in an interview with Sheppard Smith, Rivera highlighted the seamier aspects of his past and therefore the difficulty of separating the outrageous media personality from the would-be political crusader.
During the course of explaining what he saw as the need as well as the opening for a Republican who stood for a more welcoming attitude toward Hispanic immigrants as well as one who rejected the pro-life sensibilities of much of the GOP, Rivera spoke of the man whom he saw as his political model: Jacob Javits. Javits served four terms in the Senate for New York from 1956 to 1980 and was, according to some studies, the most liberal Republican to serve in Washington during that period. His principled support of civil rights as well as Israel rightly endeared him to many, but for many Republicans he was the quintessential “Rockefeller Republican” who provided an echo rather than a contrast to the liberal Democratic agenda.
We live in an era in which conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans are virtually an extinct species. Indeed, with the departure from the Senate of Joe Lieberman, there aren’t even any more “Scoop Jackson Democrats” who combined liberal positions on domestic issues with conservative foreign policy stands. We can debate as to whether this is a good thing or a bad one but it is a political reality in both parties. However, if Rivera thinks it is time to revive Javits’s legacy, New Jersey is as good place to try as any.
But whatever one may say about this effort, it would be more appropriate for Rivera to leave Javits’s name out of his campaign speeches and appearances. That’s because the two men have long been linked in a way that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personal ethics.
In his 1991 autobiography Rivera wrote, or should we say boasted, of his many romantic conquests and named names. This is the sort of thing that—even in an age in which traditional reticence about the public discussion of sex has been junked—must be considered not the act of a gentleman. But while public immorality may not help a candidate, after Bill Clinton neither can it be said to doom one provided there is at least a dollop of contrition, even of the hypocritical variety. Perhaps by painting himself in such a terrible light, Rivera has also rendered any opposition research about himself both unnecessary and ineffective.
But among the names of Rivera’s paramours was one that ought to have prevented him from talking about being Javits successor, that of Marian Javits, the senator’s wife with whom the newsman bragged of carrying on a torrid extramarital affair.
As I wrote on Friday when speaking of Senator Robert Menendez’s current troubles, even in 2013 there is an argument to be made for holding public officials to a high standard of personal conduct, or at least to expect them not to wallow in the gutter. What Geraldo Rivera did as a young man need not require New Jersey voters to reject him today as a senatorial candidate but common decency still ought to require him to leave Javits out of the discussion.
It is a matter of opinion as to whether the bad taste of some of Rivera’s past stunts will overwhelm the appeal of his celebrity or his undoubted intelligence and talent for public speaking in the minds of the voters. But in trumpeting himself as the next Jack Javits, Rivera has redefined the measure of bad taste to the point where he is not so much a practitioner as he is the embodiment of it. As such, whatever one may think about his positions on the issues or whether media personalities can make good politicians, his entry into the political arena cannot be greeted with anything but dismay.
We DESPERATELY
We DESPERATELY need moderate Democrats of the Scoop Jackson type and moderate Republicans of the Jacob Javits type. While it is very nice if they conduct their sex life in private, we simply cannot afford to cast any genuine moderates away. A good imitation of Jackson or Javits is infinitely better than the genuine Obama. I’ve always felt that religious fanatics should stay away from politics. The GOP simply has too many of those and even one is two too many. Definition of a ‘religious fanatic’: One who tries to instill his religious beliefs on others through the law and the police enforcing the law.
We desperately need leaders of the Scoop Jackson and Jacob Javits type, so I wouldn't toss any good imitations of them away because of their sex lives – which should be private, I agree. Better a good imitation of Jackson or Javits than the genuine Obama kind. The moderate will not inject religion into politics as many GOP fanatics do. The definition of a fanatic is: Attempting to put into law your religious beliefs with the police and their weapons to enforce those laws. A non-fanatic is one who attempts to persuade vocally and outside the political realm one's beliefs on others.
Except, of course, that Leftism, replete with superstitions, shibboleths and corrupt "Priests", (with Obama as an Arch-Priest) is, along with radical Islam the currently most prevalent, fanatical and violent religion.
Memo to Geraldo Rivera: the only place you can win any election is The Bronx where having the surname Rivera is the sole necessary qualification – worked in 2010 to oust Espada. n nThat said, Geraldo Rivera's public role in defending a certain Park Avenue ob/gyn doctor, stripped of his license while in prison for insurance fraud in 2000, is a more recent display of incredibly bad judgment. Yeah, my personal grudge against Geraldo.
Geraldo? He was born with the name Gerald! His Jewish mother made sure her son obtained a good education. The Puerto Rican influence of his father was minimal. Gerald later changed the name when it helped to be Hispanic in acquiring a top media job.
You must be kidding, Tobin, or else you know nothing about Marion and Jack Javits. Marion was the Senator’s glamorous, former actress, far younger wife (she was 50 when he was well past 70) who gloried in getting herself covered in People Magazine and other popular pubs blabbing about her “long distance marriage, as the Senator was almost always in DC, while she shunned it and spent her time popping up at all the best swank Manhattan parties with other men and generating items in the gossip columns. I doubt she was upset by Geraldo telling his tale.
Although he had good intentions, and did some good in reevaluating our mental health issues, the government had to go overboard and throw everyone out of institutions, even those who NEED to be there, that isn't Geraldo's fault. Since (moderate) Republicans are all the rage here in the Soviet state of NJ, he may do well here. I just pray I hit the lottery and can move out of this place, even if it's to PA, where one can still practice his/her 2nd amendment, God given rights. Unless you have connections, or are rich, it's impossible to get a CCP in Jersey. He'll probably follow in Christie's footsteps, and hang on to his coattails. Yeah, his name was Jerry Rivers, he changed it for obvious reasons.
Pennsylvania had more than twice the number of gun deaths per capita than New Jersey in 2011. nGood luck with your move!
Most of these murders probably occur in black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Just stay away from them, and you will be fine. We need to start talking about the harsh fact that such murders rarely occur in the white areas of the country.
Which is why they are largely ignored by the White-majority controlled media. Hopefully you weren't saying they matter one bit less than the murder of a non-minority…
Sen. Al Franken. Sen. Geraldo Rivera. A sort of symmetry to be found here, don’t your think?
Equally shallow to be sure, But for sleazy and degenerate, Barney Frank has Franken and Rivera beat by a mile. And no one in the senate is wormier than Chuck Schumer.
"…Rivera has as much right to run for public office as any other citizen and if he thinks he can spend the rest of his life more productively in public service that is to his credit…." n nOne of the major problems in the governance of this country (and city and state) is that people want those sinecures "…for the rest of his life…" They seem to think that if they can just get in, they'll have died and gone to (permanent) Heaven. n nWe need to return to the old concept of citizen legislators who try to "serve productively" then get on with their real lives, and live with – and like – the rest of the population.