bob menendez grew up in, that he mastered, that he climbed to the top of. it was the machine that he controlled. and when he was appointed to the senate, republicans honed in on all the negative associations that suburban new jerseyans have with the hudson machine. they decided they would make those associations stick to bob men menendez, every voter saw him as the product of the dirty, crooked world of hudson county machine politics. this was how they were going to beat him in 2006. so when that story broke, menendez, the state s new appointed senator, was under federal investigation, it threatened to ratify to the average voter everything republicans were saying about bob menendez. and then the second reason the story was such a threat to him, that federal investigation was being led by the u.s. attorney s office, by the office of chris christie, and in september 2006, there was probably no public figure in new jersey with a more sterling reputation for integrity and corruption busti