Tom Kean Jr. is a political nepo baby. His father Tom Kean Sr. was the Republican governor of New Jersey from 1982-1990. Kean Junior represents the Garden State in the House of Representatives. He ran unopposed in Tuesday’s primary. There was neither a victory speech nor a campaign party. Kean Junior has not been seen in public since March. And that is why Tom Kean Jr. is malaka of the week.

Kean Junior claims to be ill but he doesn’t think voters have the right to know what ails him. He completely vanished for 12 weeks, then began calling friends and supporters to reassure them he’d be back on the job at an undefined date. His assurances did not work. All they did was fuel the mystery and lead to speculation.

Does Kean have something embarrassing like a sexually transmitted disease? New Jersey politics is loaded with rogues, after all. Who among us can forget one of my favorite targets former Senator Bob Menendez who inspired a post titled The Menendez Family Film Noir.

Kean Junior is a patrician from a distinguished family:

Mr. Kean is more than just a momentarily missing congressman. He is the scion of a political family that once helped to run a major New Jersey utility company and can trace its lineage to three of the country’s founding fathers. His great-grandfather was a U.S. senator and his grandfather served in the House. His father was a popular governor who in the 1980s waged an effort to overhaul New Jersey’s image. Years later, his leadership of the 9/11 commission burnished the family’s reputation as G.O.P. centrists keen on bipartisanship whose name adorns a university in North Jersey.”

Kean Junior is not a good patrician. The whole noblesse oblige thing eludes him. Now he’s missing and refuses to explain why to his employers, the voters of the 7th Congressional District. If he were a proper patrician, he’d fess up and tell the people what’s wrong. In my experience people are sympathetic to sick people even politicians. Apparently, Kean Junior is above such mundane things.

The nepo baby malakatude, it burns.

I shouldn’t complain too much about The Curious Case Of The Missing Congressman. The New Jersey 7th is a swing district that has changed hands several times in the last decade. Given Kean Junior’s malakatude and the current political climate, there’s an excellent chance he’ll lose to Democrat Rebecca Bennett. Voters want transparency from their elected officials. The coming blue wave is apt to sink him, no matter how beloved dear old dad is to older votes. They’re not as keen on Junior as they are on Senior. And that is why Tom Kean Jr. is malaka of the week.

The last word goes to Elvis Costello: