Doblin: Jamie Fox was more than an operative, he was a friend
Jamie Fox was a friend. Not a source. Not an acquaintance. A friend.
I can’t recall when that happened, but it was sometime after Gov. James McGreevey resigned. Jamie had been McGreevey’s chief of staff. We had spoken on the record when I was working on a column or editorial, but it wasn’t until he left the McGreevey administration that we became friends.
Over the following years, we often would meet for dinner with Gov. Brendan Byrne and his wife, Ruthi. The conversation would start about the politics of the day but eventually these were evenings listening to the on-point, funny stories told by Byrne of Jersey politics long ago. Jamie hung on every word. For him, politics and Jersey were like gin and vermouth mixed into a perfect cocktail.
STILE: Fox honed reputation as the establishment fixer
'OLD SCHOOL' LOYALTY: Jamie Fox, towering political figure in N.J., dies at 62
For all that is said about Jamie Fox – he was a consummate political player, smart, focused and a laser-focused adversary if you found yourself on the opposite of a policy debate – he was a kind, attentive friend. Joe Roberts, former Assembly speaker and good friend of Jamie’s, told me Tuesday, “There is this 30-second caricature of a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners, get-it-done [person]. But Jamie was a very vulnerable guy. If you were close enough to see the layers peeled back, you could see how [state Sen.] Loretta [Weinberg] became so close to him.”
Weinberg was like his second mother. In a statement Monday, she said, “I treasured him as a person, as a brilliant political leader, but most of all as my dear friend.”
He lived large. He enjoyed a good drink and he seemed always to be telling me he was cutting back on smoking. Perhaps that contributed to his early death Monday at age 62 from heart failure, after a long battle with kidney disease.
I don’t know whether his relationship with United Airlines as its lobbyist and his long-standing friendship with David Samson, once the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and now an admitted felon for coercing United to reinstate a money-losing flight for personal convenience, resulted in the commission of a crime. I do know Jamie didn’t see it that way.
And I also know Jamie loved the making of public policy more than anything. He didn’t like leading the charge, but he lived for planning the charge.
He rarely missed an opportunity to tell me how wrong I was for not supporting the ARC tunnel project, which was eventually killed by Governor Christie. Whenever I complained about NJ Transit, he would throw that back at me.
Jamie was not shy on that subject with anyone. In a phone interview Tuesday, Christie told me Jamie often chided him about ARC. Yet Christie had nothing but praise for his former transportation commissioner.
“[Jamie] was one of the best people I have ever met with a mastery of policy and politics,” he said. Christie also said he “reluctantly accepted” Fox’s resignation before a deal was reached on funding the Transportation Trust Fund. In perhaps a bit of intended understatement, Christie said, “During stressful times, he was a lot fun.”
Jamie made a name for himself in transportation, serving as the state commissioner for transportation under McGreevey and Christie. He cleaned up the E-ZPass mess and car inspections. He later formed a public affairs firm with Eric Shuffler that specialized in transportation issues.
Jamie grew up Catholic and gay and we often talked about that. He was comfortable in his own skin. Like him or hate him, Jamie never apologized for who he was.
Several years ago, I put together a weekly podcast with him and Mike DuHaime, the Republican strategist who helped Christie become governor. DuHaime and Jamie were intensely partisan, but equally respectful of the other’s skill at politics.
“Jamie had the ability to find common ground,” DuHaime told me Tuesday. Jamie could separate the policy debate from the personal, he added. “That’s not common in today’s politics.”
He could sometimes even overcome the personal. He did not split with McGreevey on good terms, yet eventually they reconciled as friends. They lunched together less than a month ago. McGreevey told me during an interview Tuesday, his later friendship with James “was special.”
“It was the opportunity for two persons who had traveled for many years in the same circles and realize most of life’s journey was behind us – to be in the fellowship of each other’s company with the trust, knowledge and comfort that brought,” McGreevey said.
The ability to have worked for governors as diverse as McGreevey and Christie, while remaining true to his Democratic progressive roots was something unique. I suppose in death, it’s common to gloss over the foibles of friends and that is for the best – or at least it is in the short-term. Posterity has a way of cleaning up the page properly. I hope for Jamie, the final page is indeed clean.
DuHaime concluded, “He was my friend and I’m going to miss him.”
So am I.
Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The Record. Contact him at doblin@northjersey.com. Follow AlfredPDoblin on Twitter.