ANOTHER NJ REPUBLICAN SAYS THANKS BUT NO THANKS TO THE HAPLESS NRCC-- THEY CAN'T EVEN GIVE THEIR NOMINATIONS AWAY THIS YEAR

A couple weeks ago the NRCC operative were pulling their hair out of their heads because all their top tier candidates in NJ's seventh congressional district were backing out of running against Linda Stender after 37 year old Mike Ferguson announced his retirement as a Bush rubber stamp. They were soon scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for candidates who hadn't been arrested or were likely to be arrested before the election. But at least they had all their ducks in a row for the other New Jersey seat being abandoned by a Bush rubber stamp, NJ-03. Or so they thought.

As soon as James Saxton figured out that Democrat John Adler was likely to kick his ass from Cherry Hill to Beach Haven he decided to start looking for a job on K Street. The state and national Republicans were distraught but figured they get a carbon copy of Saxton, State Rep. Diane Allen, to run instead. Yesterday that particular duck made the kinds of quacks they didn't want to hear, not only bowing out but bowing out with a nasty remark aimed at a corrupt old machine faction in the Jersey GOP.

“Now is not the time in my life that I feel prepared to again fight a Democrat opponent, as well as a rogue faction of the Burlington County Republican Party simultaneously.”

So the GOP starts from scratch to find someone to run in what was once safe Republican territory. They have a gaggle of minor GOP operative eager to give it a shot but, as today's Congressional Quarterly points out, "Allen’s departure leaves Republicans currently without a major candidate for the seat-- creating, at least for now, a heightened risk for Republicans in a potential battleground district. While Saxton, who [misleadingly] cultivated an image as a GOP moderate largely because of his pro-environment views, easily won his House elections, the 3rd District went Republican for President Bush by just a 3 percentage-point margin in 2004."

This will be another congressional district where Hillary Clinton's place at the top of the ticket will help sweep down-ticket Democrats into office.