The former New Jersey governor attempts to sweep ocean waves with a broom. Give him credit for trying:

… the 74-year-old Kean spoke wistfully about growing up in a Washington where the two parties worked together in (almost) perfect harmony.

He began with stories of his father, a congressman of 20 years who was a top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee during the ’50s.

“The committee chairman used to come to the house,” Kean recalled. “And they’d sit there, and over a drink or a cup of tea they’d discuss the agenda for the week and what they could get along with and what they could get done.”

Sounds almost quaint compared to the modern Ways and Means Committee, which has been the scene of some of the past few years’ most vicious partisan battles over tax policy.

Democrats on that committee later endorsed Kean’s father for Senate. “Now, that would be incredible today — those kinds of friendships and that kind of respect across the aisle,” Kean said. “But that’s just the way I was brought up.”