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Sources: Torricelli may quit Senate
This could change things a lot ..
A DEMOCRATIC source told Reuters that Torricelli would make a decision - within the next few hours - on whether to resign from the Senate, so New Jersey's Democratic Gov. James McGreevey could appoint his replacement.
If Toricelli wasn't a sleaze, the conventional wisdom is that NJ would reject the far right Republican candidate (and based on my conversations with my middle of the road friends in NJ, that conventional wisdom feels right). If Toricelli does drop out, then the Republican's radical conservatism becomes the issue, not Toricelli's ethical problems.
The interesting this here, and it is something that I do not think will get a lot of play, is the idea that Toricelli is doing this to benefit the party. Toricelli is by no means dead yet, there is still time. It would be a hard run, though, and his chances aren't better than 50/50. If he does drop out, he is voluntarily giving up a seat in the Senate to benefit the Democratic Party. In other words, he is making a hard personal choice based upon the principle that a Republican Senate is bad for the country.
UPDATE: Hmm, Atrios and the Daily Kos point out that the Govenor of New Jersey could postpone the election until 2004. I am not sure how I feel about that. It would be legal, unlike the crap that the Republicans pulled in Florida, and it would definetly benefit the Democrats. On the other hand, it would be a fairly obvious manipulaton of the process with undemocratic undertones. I still think that any replacement would clean Forresters clock. The only reason this is even a race is becasue of Toricelli's ethics problems.
